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| When Turkey invades the US: new parody targets best-seller lists |
| 2005-04-05 |
| EFL.New from the publishers of Weekly World News... ANKARA (AFP) - A new novel telling the tongue-in-cheek tale of how a group of Turkish nationalists -- and some extra-terrestrial friends -- invade the United States is targeting best-seller lists in Turkey, in the midst of a boom in anti-US books. Aliens! I knew it! "America Is Ours" hits the bookshelves this weekend with its cover depicting the Statue of Liberty sporting a handlebar mustache -- the Turkish macho symbol par excellence -- and the US flag's stars replaced by the triple-crescent symbol of the Turkish far-right. She must look like Madeline Albright... The parody in political-fiction starts off with an alien suddenly showing up as a young Turkish nationalist says his prayers. The spaceman grants the wish of the young Turk, exasperated by US interventionism in the Middle East and furious at the secret crossing of the Istanbul Bosphorus by two US warships, and helps him invade America thanks to a machine that controls people's minds. Mind control machines! I knew it! The occupiers immediately bring things Turkish to their new land, organising "cig kofte" (a spicy Turkish delicacy made of raw hamburger) parties at the White House, proclaiming Turkish the official language and transforming Madonna into a belly dancer. That'd be a step up for Madonna. "There is some anti-US sentiment at the bottom of the book, but it's really not a war story because no one gets killed," Erdogan Ekmekci, one of the two co-authors of the book, told AFP. It is the first novel by Ekmekci, a 27-year-old Istanbul resident and a former sales representative. "The circumstances are right for anti-US books," he acknowledged, but stressed that "America Is Ours" is more a work of "self-criticism" of Turkey's 70 million mainly Muslim citizens and their way of life than it is an anti-US tract. "The way we run the United States means the end of the country, because we bring along all our troubles and woes," he said, explaining his book. Among them: a bevy of social problems, such as huge queues of patients waiting outside hospitals and an economy crippled by mismanagement, where a loaf of bread sells for 250 dollars. You know, kinda like when Carter was president. Ozbay told AFP he regretted that the current display of flag-waving patriotism sparked by a couple of Kurdish teen-agers trying to burn the Turkish flag has "gone out of control" and been transformed into "a show of jingoism". Jingoism? I thought that was just us? "We tried to have a little fun by trying to imagine what would happen in the United States if the mistakes we make here were repeated there," he explained. It all ends badly in the book, to the point that the hero has to once again resort to his extra-terrestrial friends' powers to go back in time and pretend none of it ever happened. Sounds like "dark and stormy night" time to me. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #5 In that case, Angie, include me out. It's taken me twenty years to figure out that I never really found Madonna attractive to begin with. I suspect making her look attractive would stretch the limits of alien mind control technology and modern CGI effects. There's no _charisma_ there. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-04-05 8:38:48 PM |
| #4 That’d be a step up for Madonna. At this very moment her agent is trying desperately to get her into the movie. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2005-04-05 1:30:45 PM |
| #3 Clairvoyants! I knew it! |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-04-05 12:55:27 PM |
| #2 "We tried to have a little fun by trying to imagine what would happen in the United States if the mistakes we make here were repeated there," he explained. It would be helpful if they could translate it into Spanish. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-04-05 12:53:10 PM |
| #1 That actually sounds like a funny read. |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-04-05 12:42:21 PM |