Ankara making hay with cheap vegetables?
The Turkish government has started selling vegetables directly to citizens at discount prices in a bid to control inflation. While President Erdoğan has blamed inflation on "foreign powers", critics see the measure as an election tactic. The Turkish press discusses the psychological impact of queuing up for cheap vegetables.
Traumatic for the people
The long queues in front of the sales outlets are a humiliation for those who have to stand there, writes Leyla Alp in T24:
“In case you're wondering what's so bad about setting up shop and selling tomatoes for around three lira [roughly 50 cents]?', I would answer: 'The fact that it is humiliating for these people. It's so offensive that they are willing to queue up to pay two lira less that this humiliation couldn't even be redressed if tomatoes rained down from the skies. If an 80-year-old has to wait an hour for three kilos of tomatoes and is ashamed to be standing in this queue, it seems impossible that the psychological destruction caused by this measure can ever be made up for.'”
Only pampered elites turn up their nose
Pro-government daily Sabah finds critics of the sales action arrogant:
“Some people don't find it 'chic' for the citizens they refer to as the 'lower class' to queue up for cheap vegetables at distribution points... Isn't that so, ladies and gentlemen? 'One doesn't line up like sheep as soon as cheap vegetables go on sale'... Of course not. After all, one doesn't line up for Starbucks or iPhones either! Luckily anyone with a bit of sense will see just how pampered and spoiled these people are. And if you don't believe it, just think of how those queuing up reacted yesterday when a notorious sniveller took selfie videos in front of the queue and shouted things like: 'You should be ashamed of yourselves for making the people stand in queues.' They answered: 'What's your problem, brother? Why should it bother you if we shop for less here?'”