By Nazlan Ertan
My grand-aunt never used the word 'zorba' to describe a bully, though it would be the first term to come to mind for many Turkish speakers. Instead, when one of the boys in the family became too combative, she would say, 'What are you, a small 'Ali Kıran Başkesen'?' The phrase, which translates literally as 'Ali who crashes things and cuts heads,' is a Turkish term for an authoritarian bully. It derives from the proverb 'Dalı kıran, baş keser' ('Whoever cuts a branch cuts a head'), originally a cautionary ecological metaphor that somehow evolved into the ultimate descriptor for an overbearing strongman.
The term remains in active use today. Journalist Yavuz Bahadıroğlu, writing for the conservative daily Yeni Akit, once fumed about Cem Küçük, another pro-government columnist, 'He is not a journalist but some kind of 'Ali Kıran Başkesen,' constantly attacking left and right, with no original thought, no knowledge, no depth.'
WHY IS THIS THE WORD OF THE WEEK?
The term 'Ali Kıran Başkesen' is particularly fitting for recent events in Washington, where U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance confronted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a way that many saw as outright bullying. In a tense Oval Office meeting on Feb. 28, Trump accused Zelenskyy of 'gambling with World War Three,' while Vance chided him for 'disrespect for the Oval Office and the country.' The meeting ended with Trump abruptly cutting Zelenskyy off: 'I think we've seen enough. This is going to be great television.' One imagines the captain of the Titanic offering similar reassurances as the ship slipped beneath the waves.
The incident echoed Trump's earlier diplomatic theatrics, including his 2019 letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in which he warned, 'Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool!' His brand of leadership has always been part statesman, part reality TV villain. His treatment of his official guests would probably make any world leader think twice before visiting the Oval Offense.
BARBS OLD AND NEW
'When political ammunition runs low, inevitably the rusty artillery of abuse is wheeled into action,' quipped American politician Adlai Stevenson in 1952. And history proves him right.
Some political insults linger for centuries. Take the legendary Zaporozhian Cossacks’ letter to Sultan Mehmed IV—Mehmed the Hunter—allegedly composed by Ukrainian-Cossack leader Ivan Sirko in 1676. The letter, dripping with profanity, parodied the grandiose titles of Ottoman rulers, who called themselves 'the son of Muhammad; Lord of the Horizons.'
Sirko’s version? 'O sultan...secretary to Lucifer himself. Thou Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-f****r of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, pig of Armenia... screw thine own mother!'
The letter, likely a piece of folklore rather than historical fact, has nonetheless inspired a 19th-century painting by Ilya Repin and a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire. Stalin was rumored to know it by heart and recite it occasionally.
The Ottomans were not just on the receiving end of insults—they dished them out as well. Sultan Selim I, known as Selim the Grim, wrote a series of belligerent letters to Ismail Shah, the founder of Iran's Safavid dynasty, before defeating him at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. Frustrated by the Shah’s reluctance to fight, Selim taunted him to 'exchange his helmet for a veil and his armor for a chador.'
Political insults have always been a spectator sport. Whether in the halls of the White House or the battlefields of history, the 'Ali Kıran Başkesens' of the world never fail to put on a show.
