There was a time when politics was not only done in the rostrums and parliament halls. The real decisions were sometimes made in the middle of the sea, on the deck of a yacht. Power, comfort and privilege were intertwined.
Turgut Özal's years were one of the periods when this culture was most visible. The late Özal spending time on yachts with prominent figures of the business world was not just a matter of “vacation”. It was a sign of a new style of politics: more flexible, more informal, but also more controversial.
“The sentence ”Aga would not get off Ceylan's yacht" actually summarizes an era. Those yachts blurred not only the sea but also the boundaries between the state and capital. As official protocol was replaced by intimate conversations, transparency often evaporated.
But let's not be unfair; this was not a picture unique to Turkey. Globally, the 80s was a period when politics became more intertwined with the business world and the liberal economy was on the rise. Turkey also got its share of this wave.
Today, the same images are read very differently. Public expectations have changed. Transparency, accountability and distance... Who, where and how a politician meets with whom is questioned much more than before. Meetings on yachts are no longer considered as “relaxed diplomacy”, but often as “relations behind closed doors”.
Today, it is possible to see a similar picture through the new cadres within the Republican People's Party, which emerged with the discourse of “change”. The fact that those who set out with the claim of change show up on the yachts of the system's new rich who earn without producing makes us question not how much the mentality has changed, but to what extent it continues.
Actually, it's not about the yacht. It is about how power is used.
A yacht is a tool, but the relationships built on that tool can affect the destiny of a country.
Yesterday, intimacy on the decks was normal, today the same scenes raise serious questions. Because now society is asking more clearly:
Should state administration be done in the middle of the sea or in front of the nation?