NATIONAL DRINK SPLITS TURKEY

Ankara, 20 Jumadil Akhir 1434/29 April 2013 (MINA) – Triggering a heated debate on the alcohol consumption, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected the portrayal of the beverage as the country’s national drink, inviting the ire of secularists.

“Beer was unfortunately presented as a national drink,” Erdogan told a symposium on global alcohol policy in Istanbul cited by Reuters, according to OnIslam.net report as quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

“However, our national drink is ayran,” he added, referring to the staple lunchtime refreshment of yoghurt, water and salt, usually swilled down with a meaty kebab.

Erdogan warned that the state promotion of alcohol amounted to propaganda of the beverage, Shortly after Erdogan’s remarks, shares of Turkey’s top listed dairy producer Pinar Sut, which makes ayran, rose 3 percent.

Erdogan, the leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party, warned that the alcohol consumption harms the Turkish lifestyle, “There is no way you can defend as a lifestyle the consumption of alcohol which has no benefit to society, but on the contrary inflicts harm,” he said.

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Approximately 99 percent of Turkey’s population are Muslim, mostly Sunnis, Islam takes an uncompromising stand in prohibiting intoxicants. It forbids Muslims from drinking or even selling alcohol.

The general rule in Islam is that any beverage that get people intoxicated when taken is unlawful, both in small and large quantities, whether it is alcohol, drugs, fermented raisin drink or something else.

Angry Secularists

But Erdogan’s remarks have invited the ire of secularist Turks. “It’s true, all of you drink ayran with your pasta inside your mosques,” read one comment directed at Erdogan’s official Twitter account immediately after his comments.

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“We take example from our FOREFATHER who drank our National Drink: raki,” the message continued, referring to Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who was often photographed with a glass of the anisette spirit in hand.

“Erdogan, will you do a shot of ayran with me?” taunted another user on Twitter. Others criticized the prime minister’s intrusion into their lives.

“What’s it to you what the nation drinks? You go drink ayran. Leave me alone.” Yet, these concerns were unlikely to affect Turkey’s AK party which first came into power in 2002 elections, and since then it has won two consecutive elections with a thumping majority.

The party is riding on a wave of popularity that it has earned due to success of its economic policies, turning Turkey from one of the weakest economies in Europe into becoming the 15th largest economy in the world.

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Erdogan’s government has imposed some of the highest consumption taxes on alcohol in the world.

Over the past year, other restrictions on Alcohol consumptions were applied, including decisions by an increasing number of municipalities to impose restrictions on drinking in public as well as on national advertising.

Most recently, it banned alcohol sales on all domestic and some international flights of its national carrier.

The measures have succeeded in decreasing percentage of alcohol consumption, reaching only six percent of Turkish households consumed alcoholic drinks in 2008, down from eight percent in 2003, according to the Betam research centre at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University. (T/P012/E1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)