KEBABBLE Internet myth mauls
Turkish clothing firm By Fazile
Zahir
FETHIYE, Turkey - Most of the
population of Turkey supports the military
operation against the Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) in northern Iraq, but as with all military
operations there is always unexpected collateral
damage.
The fallout on this occasion has
hit the well known Turkish clothing firm LC
Waikiki (LCW). For about two weeks the Internet
has been awash with unfounded rumors that LCW has
been sold
to
Leyla Zana, the first Kurdish woman to take a seat
in the Turkish Parliament. The result of the
cyber-gossip has been a fourfold increase in
visits to the LCW website; the number of visitors
spiraled from 60,000 a month to 280,000 in five
days. On the face of it that sounds like good
news, but not if it is coupled with a 15% drop in
sales revenue.
What makes the association
with Leyla Zana so detrimental for business? Among
her lesser outrages, she drew popular heat in 1991
when she took her oath as an MP by starting it in
Turkish but finishing it in Kurdish.
In
1994 she was charged with treason and being a
member of the PKK and imprisoned for a decade. She
became a special case for Amnesty International
and was recognized as a prisoner of conscience,
making her even more persona non grata
among the general populace. Her book, Writings
from Prison, won much international acclaim
but aroused little national sympathy.
Finally released from prison in 2004, she
is presently being investigated to see whether she
recently referred to the incarcerated head of the
PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, as a "leader", and she
played a key role in establishing the Democratic
Society Party, an umbrella group under which
Turkey's current clutch of Kurdish MPs were
elected.
One of Zana's most controversial
ideas is a proposal to reorganize Turkey into a
set of federal states, one of them being
Kurdistan. For most Turks this kind of seperatist
idea makes her a pariah.
According to the
electronic whispering campaign, Zana now owns LCW
and the money made from its products is being
directed to the PKK.
The messages go as
far as to say that anytime someone buys an LCW
garment they are paying for a bullet that is being
shot back into the heart of the Turkish nation.
As of November 7, TEMA Magazacilik (the
parent company of LCW) began to fight back. To
counter the claims they bought advertising space
on MSN Messenger to broadcast to millions of users
that no part of their company is owned by Zana. On
every Turkish user's personal page the slogan now
appears: "LC Waikiki reveals the truth behind the
false allegations."
In fact the company is
at a loss to know how the rumors came about,
assistant general manager Murat Misirli explains.
"At a time when national feeling is running so
high we still haven't managed to find out who put
these allegations into the public sphere. Our
security team is working on it and we are running
an active investigation. At the same time we are
trying to explain to the public the reality of LC
Waikiki and TEMA. Perhaps it was a competitor or a
disgruntled ex-employee ... there are plenty of
people who can't stomach our success."
The
company has the support of the Turkish Exporters
Union, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce and the
Union of United Brands and has taken the measure
of expanding its website to include a page showing
all the partners of their companies and that they
are a wholly Turkish-owned enterprise. It has also
added a video explaining that someone somewhere is
trying to ruin the company's good reputation and
throw a shadow over its success.
Misirli
is keen to underline the fact that apart from a
small share owned by the company's original
founder, Frenchman Georgeos Amouyal, the
controlling interests (97%) are the Dizdar, Kucuk
and Kisacik families and have been for years. He
says, "We have no commercial relationship with
Leyla Zana and as far as we know she has no
relationship with trade."
LC Waikiki plans
to keep up its barrage of disclaimers via
newspaper and TV statements and has undertaken a
series of public surveys to measure the effect
these are having. They are also preparing to take
legal action as soon as a perpetrator is found.
Misirli warns that what happened to LCW
could happen to anybody. (And it has. In the
United States similar urban myths "have dogged
large firms and celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey.
The most notable example is perhaps Procter and
Gamble which for decades fought both pre- and
post-Internet rumors that it was controlled by
"satanists".) Unfortunately for LCW, lightning has
struck three times in the same place. As Misirli
says, "It's not the first time we've been the
victim of lies. We came out of the others with our
heads held high but this has to be the worst
assertion yet."
It experienced a similar
reversal of fortunes last year when the French
Parliament passed a motion declaring the Armenian
massacres of the early 20th century a genocide.
Again using the Internet as the vehicle of
delivery, the message was spread that LCW was a
"French firm" and the company found itself
embroiled in the nationwide public boycott of
French goods. At that time, it placed ads in the
national press explaining its ownership structure
and broke the boycott. A few years before, a
series of chain e-mails accused it of supporting
Islamic reactionaries.
In reality, TEMA
plows 10% of its profits into social welfare
programs and during this year it provided school
uniforms for 60,000 deprived children. It has also
given scholarships to 2,300 students and money to
the Mehmetcik Charity that supports the families
of deceased soldiers. Despite these good works, it
seems to be plagued by smear campaigns, and Leyla
Zana may prove to be its femme fatale.
Fazile Zahir is of Turkish
descent, born and brought up in London. She moved
to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been writing
full time since then.
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