Deeds Talk Louder Than Words

In her column in Turkish daily Vatan’s Sunday Supplement, famous journalist Leyla Umar has written about Tarkan today.

Umar’s sincerely written article entitled “Don’t give up on Tarkan” starts with an account of how Umar first heard about Tarkan’s name when her granddaughter used to sing “Şıkıdım”. Umar, then, remembers the days when her friend Ahmet Ertegun [Founding Chairman of Atlantic Records in the States] used to visit all the jazz clubs in Turkey when he was in Turkey to spend his holidays. Then one day, Umar writes, Ertegun heard a young talent in a “gazino” in Yesilkoy and they went there to listen to him.

Umar continues: “This young gentleman was, of course, nobody but Tarkan. Towards the end of the program, Ertegun told us that this young man would be popular all around the world. He invited Tarkan first to our table and then to his mansion in Bodrum. After a fantastic dinner, he soon made an agreement with Tarkan: Tarkan would go to New York and sign with Atlantic Records. This was big news in Turkey and I was sent by Zafer Mutlu to accompany Tarkan and a cameraman Mutlu hired in New York was always with us for two weeks.”

In the second part of the article, Leyla Umar’s tone changes; it is bitter sweet. While Tarkan gained more and more popularity, Umar claims, his lack of communication with her started to increase. Umar explains this in the following manner: “Tarkan used to tell me “whenever I am back in Turkey, I will first visit my mother and then you”. I used to wait for Tarkan to visit me whenever he was back from the States. Initially I accepted his apologies because he could have been very busy but then I got hurt; he could have at least called me.”

And “only a few days ago, while reading about the latest news about Tarkan” Leyla Umar says, “I realized that my love for Takan has never disappeared. I can’t give up loving Tarkan despite all his mistakes… I just would like to say that I would be happy to hear good news about himself from him.”

The last sentence in Umar’s article is elegantly written and within this last sentence there seems to be a message not only to Tarkan’s fans but to Tarkan himself as well: “All I would ask his fans is that they should never give up loving Tarkan. And they should show their love and support not with words but with their deeds.”