KeghartThrough an undercover Keghart correspondent in Switzerland, we recently received a copy of a letter President T.B. Erdogan of the Republic of Turkey sent to senior executives of Nestlé Ltd. In Switzerland. Below is a copy of the letter. It refers to the Big Turk chocolate bar that Nestlé manufactures in Canada and is on sale only in that country.
THE EXALTED OFFICE OF HIS HIGHNESS
RECEP TAYYIP BEY ERDOGAN, PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE, TüRKIYE
1442 Hijri Islamic Year
Mark Schneider, chief executive officer
Laurent Freixe, Executive vice-president
Paul Bulcke, chairman of the board
Nestlé Ltd. Global Worldwide Headquarters
Palais Nestle
Avenue Nestle 55, Vevey, Vaud 1800
Republic of Swiss
Herr Schneider, Monsieur Freixe, and Herr Bulcke,
We are certain you are aware that the country I command is one of the greatest and most influential countries on the planet. We are also the dominant Mediterranean power.
I am also certain that the bird in your famous logo has twittered to you that Nestlé has done lucrative business since 1913 in the land I lead and guide.
Two months ago, we ordered that the name of my country be changed from Turkey to TüRKIYE. After many years of suffering as the butt of jokes because of our name’s tenuous connection to the ugly and overweight North American fowl, we have liberated ourselves with typical and remarkable precision not to mention robust decisiveness. The sacred and immortal name TüRKIYE represents and expresses the august culture, civilization and values of the luminous Turkish nation in the best way.
Despite the much-publicized rebranding of our country’s name two months ago, your company persists in using our passé abusive name which is linked to the massacre of the obese fowl during the bloody culinary orgy North Americans call “Thanksgiving Day”.
I am referring to the BIG TURK chocolate bar (60 grams, 230 calories) which is manufactured by your company in Canada. We demand that you change the candy’s name to BOYUK TüRKIYE forthwith. BOYUK TüRKIYE would best exemplify the facts on the ground…rising TüRKIYE’s historic, moral, spiritual, ethnic, and cultural sphere which stretches to Uighur-persecuting borders of China.
We demand that Nestlé Canada cease and desist from using the name Big Turk.
Incidentally, we have noticed that Big Turk’s wrapper is in red, white, and blue. This is a callous misrepresentation of our splendid history. Remove the color blue since TüRKIYE’s glorious flag has two colors—blood-red and egg white.
As the president-for-life of the remarkable TüRKIYE and as a devout believer, I am loathe to threaten your company. However, if you do not replace Big Turk with BOYUK TüRKIYE pronto [that’s Italian for fast], we will be forced to order all Muslims living in Europe to march to Vevey and lay siege to your palatial premises. Of course, this will be accompanied by the shuttering of your offices in TüRKIYE.
You have been given fair notice.
Hon. Recep Tayyip Bey Erdogan
President-for-life of TüRKIYE
Ak Saray (White Palace)
Ankara
TüRKIYE
Keghart
4 comments
This letter read like a joke.
I know you think this is funny, but you are presenting it as a serious true story.
When you do such things, people like myself will lose trust in your “news and opinion” website
Anyone who reads the first few lines would realize that it’s satire. To have identified it as such by printing SATIRE at the top of the phony letter would have been condescension…that Keghart.org assumed readers wouldn’t otherwise have grasped the satire. As well, to have printed “SATIRE” would have been similar to starting a story by announcing at the outset that it is a joke with the expectation of hearing laughter. Satire’s punch becomes strong when it walks the tightrope between fact and spoof (sorry about the mixed metaphor.)
Talking about “Turkish” products, I’d like to mention the ever-expanding inventory of Turkish products at the Armenian-owned ARZ Fine Foods of Toronto. The supermarket was opened by the Boyadjian brothers in 1989. It soon became the best Middle Eastern supermarket in town. In 2014, Loblaw (Canada’s biggest supermarket chain) bought the business. Several years ago, there was a noticeable increase in Turkish products on ARZ shelves. I assumed Loblaw was purchasing the Turkish products. A few days ago, I learned that three years ago, the Boyadjians had bought back the store. Thus, the increase in the Turkish inventory has occurred under their watch. It’s unconscionable that an Armenian would do this, especially since Middle Eastern products from Arab countries are as good and competitively priced. Some Turkish exporters are also playing games with the consumer: they give Arabic names to their product to mislead the buyer and try to hide the “made in Turkey” in tiny and illegible letters. I understand ARZ (revenues: $31 million) sponsors some Armenian community events. That gesture does not balance their promotion of products of a country that not only denies the Armenian Genocide but was instrumental in Armenia’s shattering defeat in 2020. Boyadjians should realize that one of the reasons Turks are able to flood the Middle Easter grocery business is because the partly government-owned Turkish Airlines subsidizes transportation costs. Will one of these days ARZ sell canned good named Bayrakdar?