When the annual inflation rate in Germany is put at 7.3 percent, you get upset.

Whether at the gas station or in the supermarket, you are annoyed by the prices.

First the corona pandemic, then the Russian attack on Ukraine.

Your prices have climbed to a 40-year high.

Of course, I have no intention of trivializing your concerns.

When I say that things are far worse here in Turkey, that doesn't mean that you should be happy about the situation in your country.

In short, my intention is not to “make you face death in order to reconcile you with malaria”, as we say in Turkish.

But you should know how reality is distorted and veiled in Turkey.

We are heading for a tragedy.

On the Turkish version of the column


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In Germany, the Federal Statistical Office publishes the rate that worries you.

With us, on the other hand, the palace announces what it wants.

The state statistics office has now put the annual inflation at 61 percent.

Everyone knows that this number does not reflect reality.

The ENAG Institute, founded by independent economists, announces the actual inflation rate.

We learned from ENAG that the inflation rate is actually 142 percent.

Or rather, this number confirms what we see every day when we go shopping.

Since the palace cannot prevent ENAG from publishing the actual inflation rate within the legal framework, it is now introducing a new law to cover up the reality.

From now on it is punished with three years imprisonment,

who announces an inflation rate without the permission of the state statistics office.

Freedom of the press is also affected, because in future those who report on inflation rates published by institutions such as ENAG will also be punished.

"You can't cover the sun with mud," goes the old saying.

Bans, prison terms and reprisals can be used to silence mouths that speak the truth.

But the truth itself cannot be abolished.

Poverty worsens.

Everyone tries in their own way to find enough food and get there by the end of the month.

Since fuel prices have risen by more than 240 percent in the last twelve months, 63 percent of citizens now do without their private car, according to the latest study by the polling company Metro Poll.

And 62 percent say: "I no longer eat meat." Due to the price increases for electricity and gas, 58 percent wash their laundry less often, 53 percent dress warmer and do without heating.

One in two people says

she reduced the number of meals.

The palace may not believe it, and may also jail those who publish it, but 32 percent of citizens say they went hungry at times!

"Immoral activity"

In the 20th year of government of the AKP, whose logo is adorned with a lightbulb, 4.5 million households had their electricity and gas cut off because they had not paid their debts.

That is a quarter of all households!

Enforcement courts are bursting at the seams with files on citizens unable to pay their debts.

With a population of 84 million, there are now 23.5 million enforcement applications.

As rosy as the state statistics office paints the unemployment figures, the reality is at least as bitter as the inflation.

The ever-growing lines of applicants for jobs, like inflation, belie the palace's official figures.

In one province alone, 53,000 people applied for 60 public cleaner positions.