Aylin Nazlıaka to Melih Gökçek: This reckoning will not wait until judgment day

Ankara MP Aylin Nazlıaka has made a written statement about Ankara Metropolitan Mayor
Melih Gökçek, who has announced that he will resign tomorrow following President Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan’s call for him to do so. Aylin Nazlıaka listed one by one the historical
monuments that Melih Gökçek demolished in Ankara in the comments entitled, “This
reckoning will not wait until judgment day.” Here are those comments:

Ankara was the brain of the liberation struggle and the heart of the foundation legend. This
city, which prior to the Republic had been abandoned to its own fate in the steppe, then
assumed the mantle of pioneering its era after having become the capital. It became a city of
enlightenment with its institutions and historic fabric, buildings and architecture, its advances
in the fields of education, culture and the arts and contemporary, progressive and secular
lifestyle in which the equality of women and men had become ingrained. This enlightenment
spread to the whole of Turkey and thrusts towards development were made in all areas.

It has studiously turned Ankara from first city to “burst city”

Ankara, one of the best examples of the planned urbanisation practice inaugurated in the
immediate wake of the proclamation of the Republic, has unfortunately lost both its history
and identity through the attacks it has undergone in the Gökçek period. This mentality, which
foisted itself on Ankara in 1994, has studiously turned Ankara from first city to “burst city”.
This individual, who merits the title of “turncoat”, even if he switched party did not change
his thinking and ravaged our capital city with the same sense of rancour. These attacks
accelerated after 2002 and regime-supported bullying and profiteering became the watchword
of this mentality.

Ankara became acquainted with oppression

Over his 23-year term as Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Mayor, Gökçek’s name was
brought to attention by many instances of impropriety and irregularity. Despite my having
submitted hundreds of parliamentary questions on such matters since I was elected as MP in
2011, none of them has been answered properly. I have made many criminal complaints
along with profession chambers and civil society organisations, but no investigation was
launched into any of them. However, from 1994 in which Gökçek entered office until 2002 when the AKP came to power, 169 examination and investigation files were opened into him.

In short, in AKP Turkey, Gökçek joined hands with the regime and covered up all the
improprieties and irregularities.

The Republic’s Heritage Slaughtered

With the AKP’s profiteering mindset hostile to the Republic combining with Gökçek’s “bold
as brass” impertinence, our capital’s historic monuments were destroyed one by one.

Let us recall some of them:

Atatürk Forest Farm Gendarmerie Station
Year Constructed: 1934/Year Demolished: 2013
Water Filtering Building
Year Constructed: 1936/Year Demolished: 2013
Etibank Building
Year Constructed: 1935/Year Demolished: 2013
Turkish Petroleum Joint-Stock Partnership
Year Constructed: 1962-1974/Year Demolished: 2013
Atatürk Forest Farm Workers and Civil Servants’ Restaurant
Year Constructed: 1930/Year Demolished: 2014
Kumrular Residential Estate
Year Constructed: 1956/Year Demolished: 2016
EGO Bus Depot
Year Constructed: 1930/Year Demolished: 2016
Marmara Mansion
Year Constructed: 1928/Year Demolished: 2016
Reservoir Cafe
Year Constructed: 1937/Year Demolished: 2016
Council of State Building
Year Constructed: 1969-1978/Year Demolished: 2016
Provincial Bank Building
Year Constructed: 1935/Year Demolished: 2017
Maltepe Gasworks
Year Constructed: 1929/Year Demolished: 2017

If I set out to exhaust this list, it would last until morning. Well, did these demolitions suffice
for Gökçek? For sure, NO!

Gökçek was to give victory poses during the demolition of the Provincial Bank, which had
acquired registered monument status in 1980, attack the Ankara Forest Farm and Middle East
Technical University forests that were Ankara’s lungs, destroy the zoo and target Turkey’s
first mass housing project of Saraçoğlu Quarter. When sewage was leaking into Ankara’s
hospitals, he was to spend 31 million lira to make gates at the seven entries to the city. With
our roads crumbling and claiming lives, he was not to lay a single metre of metro, and was to
turn our capital into a huge “toyshop” with first cats and then dinosaurs and various
monstrosities. The Rainbow project that Gökçek is said to have inaugurated by sketching it
on a napkin was to go bust in six months (and it is claimed that 3.61 million lira was spent on
billboard advertising for this project), the iron cage costing 71 million lira was to be
dismantled eight years later, the Milky Way Outlet project was to come to grief and

Ankarians’ tax money was to be squandered. At every opportunity, Gökçek was to brazenly
defend and give concrete expression to the attacks on the Republic’s values and edifices by
the mindset he represented.

“Let its mother kill it herself”

Gökçek’s name cannot be remembered without mentioning his role as implementer and
spreader of the AKP’s regressive and separatist policies. During debate over abortion, he
openly proclaimed his misogyny by saying, “Why should the child pay for the crime arising
from the mistake of the prospective mother? Let its mother kill it herself.” Similarly, he
vented his ire on Twitter at a young woman who said, “My body, my decision” saying, “Have
you had lots of abortions done? Is this why you are shouting so much?” To cap it all, Gökçek
held the “pink carriage” survey in Ankara.

He hung a banner at the place Ethem Sarısülük died

He had a banner reading, “Dear Turkish police, Ankara feels pride in you” put up at the place
where Ethem Sarısülük, killed by a police bullet in the Gezi resistance, died. We also
witnessed Gökçek constantly resorting to accusations, incitement and separatism invoking
political and ethnic identity for time he was in office. In fact, a mayor takes off his party
emblem following his election and defends the rights of all that city’s citizens.

“I conducted the marriage even though I knew he was Alevi.”

Gökçek, appearing on a television programme in 2016, spoke about the 15 July coup attempt
and, saying, “What will happen from now on? They’ll make economic attacks. They’ll get
the PKK and IS to attack us. They’ll instigate Alevi-Sunni conflict. There are in particular
certain atheist Alevi associations. There are associations that want to instigate this conflict in
Turkey,” targeted our Alevi citizens and associations and engaged in a baseless and ugly
aspersion that our Alevi citizens were preparing for civil war. Gökçek’s Aleviphobia has been
visible in many places. For example, he reacted to one of his followers with whom he was
arguing on social media, “I conducted the marriage even though I knew he was Alevi.”

“We have salted the roads. If you don’t believe it have a taste if you like.”

This was certainly not the last word in the bad taste exhibited by Gökçek on social media. He
gave a reply in 2011 that exceeded the bounds of decency to one of his followers who pointed
to the inadequacy of salting work, one of the basic tasks that municipalities have to perform
in winter, going as far as saying,

“We have salted the roads. If you don’t believe it have a taste if you like.”

This was certainly not the last word in the bad taste exhibited by Gökçek on social media. He
gave a reply in 2011 that exceeded the bounds of decency to one of his followers who pointed
to the inadequacy of salting work, one of the basic tasks that municipalities have to perform
in winter, going as far as saying, “We have salted the roads. If you don’t believe it have a
taste if you like.”

“Let Ankarians go on holiday a bit and see their mums and dads. Would this be so
bad?”

In 2007, on the other hand, in days when Ankara was experiencing a very serious water
problem, he made the suggestion, “Let Ankarians go on holiday a bit and see their mums and
dads. Would this be so bad?” Look, we are not talking about an administrator here who just
destroyed Ankara’s history and compounded its problems with problems. We were forever
confronted by one who mocks Ankarians’ intelligence. Friends, it is well known that just as
social media has its benefits, is also a means that is conducive to the easy spreading of falseinformation, bogus stories and historical distortions. It is beyond doubt that Gökçek was one

of the sources of such false information. Can there be such a thing as a mayor who is ignorant
of this country’s history and, if ignorant, does not study it and learn and reaches conclusions
about history from within his own political world? But, unfortunately there was, and this
ignorance ran Ankara for years. Let’s recall: Gökçek posted a photo aimed at denigrating
İsmet İnönü, one of the founders of our Republic. Supposedly the people were suffering
oppression at the time of CHP rule with folks having their moustaches measured on the
streets! In fact, that photograph was of Hitler’s Germany and was taken in 1933.

“Well done, lad”
This was not the end of Gökçek’s trickery. For example, during the referendum, the
inscription “NO” that construction workers wrote on a wall with bricks was changed into
“YES” through photomontage by Gökçek and his trolls; to boot, by saying, “Well done, lad,”
he congratulated the construction workers that he had involved in this lie.
So, friends, how can a mayor threaten a journalist who acts in accordance with professional
honour and aims to report the true news to the people? We also experienced an example of
this during Gökçek’s term. On Twitter, he threatened Hürriyet newspaper Ankara
Supplement Editor Eray Görgülü, who made a report on Gökçek; he published photographs
of his family. He shamelessly said about Görgülü, about whom he said, “I will reveal such
things that he’ll give up journalism,” “This is not a threat but a caution!”

Ankaragücü also took some stick from Gökçek

While airing of all this, it would be amiss not to speak of Ankaragücü. Ankaragücü, that 107-
year stalwart which is Ankarians’ pride, also took some stick from Gökçek. Ankaragücü was
sacrificed for the sake of Osmanlıspor, set up with the proceeds of political profiteering. The
club was mired in debt and subjected to transfer bans. Gökçek wished for the demise of
Ankaragücü, which came out for the second half in their rainwear for lack of a strip and was
abandoned to its fate despite all the inadequacies it suffered. He replied to requests for
assistance with ultimatums of, “Then give the team to me.” However, despite all this and the
Gökçek obstacle, Ankaragücü got itself out of these straits and honoured us with its countless
successes and survived demise. Gökçek, with his endless talk of a museum, has himself
become a museum piece; Ankaragücü supporters will never forget the harm he caused their
team.

The gifter of Ankara “lot by lot” to the Gülen Brotherhood

Gökçek, who at one time gifted Ankara “lot by lot” to the Gülen Brotherhood and, having by
his own account hidden in a shanty town on the evening of 15 July, proclaimed following the
unsuccessful coup attempt, “By the name of God, I am not a FETOist,” was somehow unable
to convince the AKP General Chair. He was unable to curry favour by either getting his
fabricated book “Left Politics and FETO” printed or proclaiming himself to be a staunch
FETO enemy in the media ... because nobody can evade their past!
Whenever we have raised problems relating to Ankara, Gökçek has used the rhetorical device
of bringing the raiser of the issue into dispute to avoid discussing the problem. I have taken
my fair share of this as an Ankara MP who stands up for the capital. For example: he did not
refrain from branding me and my neighbours “illicit water users” because I raised the problem of our city’s water problem. Even though the “illicit water” lie did not pass the

judicial hurdle, the campaign of vilification waged against me did not end.

While making displays of his deep love and yearning for the “Learned Scholar Fetullah
Gülen”

Let nobody now expect us to salute the palace for having taken this resignation decision. The
Prime-Minister of the day, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, “Hey, you were all there!” while
targeting the people at the time of Gezi. And I now return his comment to him verbatim. Mr
AKP General Chair, when Ankara was being sold off lot by lot, when our Republican
heritage, our history, our culture and our city were being destroyed, when Gökçek was
making displays in Ankara’s public spaces of his deep love and yearning for the “Learned
Scholar Fetullah Gülen”, when Ankara was being plundered and pillaged by a criminal gang
and the law was being disregarded, you were there! You were all there! I will remind you
once more: Melih Gökçek was just his master’s voice. The mindset he represented is
unmistakable and manifest. Whoever replaces him, whoever that seeker his own interests and
not that of Ankarians is, will find himself up against us.

This reckoning will not wait until judgment day!

Gökçek cannot resign and be absolved of his crimes. We said that he caused irreparable harm
to our city and Gökçek flows from the taps in Ankara. I stand corrected: the AKP flows from
our taps. But we will settle accounts before the judiciary. This reckoning will not wait until
judgment day!

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