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An offer Tarkan couldn't refuse?
Turkish Pop Music King
will perform pop music concert in Paris
despite French Parliament's Anti-Turkish Bill passage

For elite entertainers
money will fall like rain...

Top pay for Turkish Superstars after Ramazan!

Click for enlargement!
Thanks to Hürriyet Gazetesi
30 September 2006

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Tarkan adds another straw to the camel's back
How much will Turkish pop music fans take?

First there was the "Çişim var" incident ("I gotta pee, man," he said on camera in 1993) -- which upset Turkish audiences and set back Tarkan's career for a year.
Then, in 1998 he angered Turkish fans again, this time more seriously -- by skipping out on his compulsory 18-month Turkish army duty, to Germany. For that act, he was stripped of Turkish citizenship in April 1999. But later in 1999, his generous donations to Turkish earthquake victims, washed away almost all of his sins. So when he completed a special 21 day Turkish military training course a few months later, all was forgiven. (For complete details of Tarkan's ups and downs with Turkish fans see: http://www.practicalturkish.com/turkish-words-and-music--tarkan.html)
And now this...
Tarkan has confirmed that he will perform his song and dance act in Paris during post-Ramazan/Ramadan Bayram just as he had originally planned... despite the French Parliament's passage last Thursday of an anti-Turkish Bill that makes it a crime to deny the so-called Armenian genocide, in speech or print.
Though he couldn't have missed the public outcry against the French Parliament's action, Tarkan was perfectly calm when he was interviewed. "Music is a subject apart from politics," he said. "One has to separate them from each other. I'm just going to Paris to perform my act. I can't disappoint those who are expecting me."
One of Tarkan's Turkish fans couldn't believe his ears when he heard the news, "We're here in-country protesting this offensive French Law, and he's going to Paris to shake his behind and pick up a big paycheck. Has he completely lost his sense of decency?"
In comparison, when Erdoğan Teziç, the President of the Turkish Higher Education Committee (YÖK -- Yüksek Öğretim Kurulu), heard the results of the French vote condemning Turkey, he packaged and returned his French Legion d'Honneur medal that had been personally presented to him in 2004 by Jacques Chirac. The prestigious medal (one of France's highest honors bestowed on foreigners) has never been returned before.
The Teziç protest action was joined by Ibrahim Tatlises (Turkey's number one Arabesque singing star), who cancelled his Post-Ramazan Bayram concert in Paris (which would have netted him 100,000 dollars for 2 hours work) with the words, "I cancelled the concert because they defamed my country."
And Turkish tourists with last-minute reservations for Bayram vacations in France, began canceling in droves. Those who had prepaid (and thus couldn't cancel), vowed to go to Paris and openly defy the new 'Denial Law' in public, risking arrest -- in hopes of causing an international scandal.
It remains to be seen whether Tarkan's controversial Paris Concert decision will be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back for his Turkish fans. Even if it does have that effect, it's not likely he'll suffer much. Some of his biggest audiences ever were in Europe during the time he skipped Turkey to avoid military service. On pop music tours back then, he routinely filled the Hippodrome in London, the Arena in Berlin, and the Bataclan in Paris.
The reason why the French Parliament has gone out of its way to offend Turkey with this new 'Denial Law' hasn't got much to do with the cloudy war-torn events of 1915. It's much more to do with French socialists fear that France will be marginalized within the European Union (EU) should Turkey (with its large, cheap labor force) ever be admitted into that exclusive 'old boys' club. Fearful French (and Dutch) socialists believe that if they can insult Turkey enough, then she will abandon her EU aspirations. And, they are probably right. Trouble is... if that happens, Turkey will then only have one road to travel -- leading away from the West. Which wouldn't be in long-term Western interests...