By Nazlan Ertan
In Turkish, “turp gibi” means “healthy as a horse'—literally, as fit as a turp/turnip. But this week, the humble vegetable shed its healthful connotations and marched into politics with muddy boots. At a raucous rally in Yozgat—where over a thousand farmers formed a tractor convoy in defiance of mounting government pressure—a farmer stood before the crowd and bellowed: “The country cannot be ruled with turnips and radishes. It is governed by justice and law” or rather, with the local accent, “A country cannae be ruled wi’ neeps an’ deeshes.”
The crowd roared and graphic designers had a field day.
The remark would have remained a countryside quip had it not been for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's comments in January. The president, responding to the arrest of Beşiktaş Mayor Rıza Akpolat, warned that “There are even bigger turnips in the sack.” Turkish political watchers—always alert to vegetal metaphors—sat up. What exactly did the president mean? Was this an ominous reference to Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Black Sea politician who looked likely to beat Erdoğan at presidential polls in 2028? (Fast forward to March 19, indeed it was.)
In any case, the “turnip wars” were on. İmamoğlu didn’t let the metaphor fester. Speaking at a rally in his native Black Sea region, he waved an enormous turnip from the rostrum and addressed Erdoğan, “A voter from the Black Sea sends you the big turnip in his sack - it is here, with Ekrem.” The line was more than a jest—İmamoğlu was saying, in effect, “I’m in the open, right at your political power base, and I’m doing at least as well as you - I have their votes!”
TURNIP WARS
Turnips are no strangers to political theater. In 1948, U.S. President Harry Truman summoned Congress for a special summer session, declaring it would begin on “Turnip Day”—a reference to a Missouri farmer’s proverb: “On the 26th of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry.” It was both a jab at the do-nothing Congress and a nostalgic nod to agrarian roots. (The session produced little legislation but did remind Americans when to plant their vegetables.)
Before their political stardom, turnips spent centuries as symbols of survival and, often, of scarcity. Cultivated for over 4,000 years, likely in the Hindu Kush region, turnips were dietary staples in ancient Greece and Rome. They crossed the Atlantic with Jacques Cartier in the 16th century and took root in North America, being embraced by settlers and indigenous communities alike. In European tradition, however, turnips were frequently associated with poverty—livestock fodder in the fields and peasant food at the table. And in language? Being called a 'turnip' in English or Turkish is rarely flattering—it's shorthand for someone dim, clumsy, or easily duped. Shakespeare and Dickens both leaned on the insult, which still sprouts up today in political cartoons and pub banter. The French language is no different - in slang, a “navet” refers to a bad film, book, or play, something dull, insipid, and creatively barren. To say someone has “le sang de navet” (turnip blood) is to imply cowardice or a lack of vitality, in sharp contrast to Turkish, where “turp gibi” means glowing with health!
In the UK, turnips have been weaponized both literally and culturally. In 2023, amid vegetable shortages, then-Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey told Britons to eat turnips instead of tomatoes, prompting panic buying and headlines. And since 1999, the satirical Turnip Prize has rewarded deliberately terrible artworks with the eponymous root nailed to a block of wood. One of the most deserving runners-up is a plastic duck with a beak covered in black duct tape, titled “Shut the Duck Up.”
THE GARDEN OF VEGETAL METAPHORS
In Turkey, the political vegetable patch is a lively one. In 2009, onions stole the show when Erdoğan recited a folksy verse claiming “the brave are hard up for an onion.” This led to the unforgettable term “Onion Literature” and opposition taunts that Erdoğan was handing out onions to the people and villas to his cronies. Erdoğan’s ode to onions came back to bite him when people complained in 2023 that even tomatoes and onions had become unaffordable. Erdoğan, the man who came to power on the votes of the underdog, said without batting an eye: “I talk of drones and high tech, yet, they [the critics] want to talk of onions and tomatoes.”
Other fruit and veg: The lemon had its day in 1987, when the Social Democrat Populist Party (SODEP) campaigned with the slogan, “Are you ready to be squeezed like a lemon for five more years?”
Even cucumbers made a cameo—thanks to the Turkish expression that equates cucumbers with stupidity and bad manners. Tomatoes, meanwhile, were forever linked to the late Deniz Baykal, the CHP chair with the most remarkable longevity; their red glow mimicked his cheeks and electoral defeats.
In this garden of metaphors, the turnip may not be the flashiest vegetable, but its sudden reentry into the Turkish political lexicon is telling. As Erdoğan digs deeper into his bag of tricks or turnips, the opposition might be preparing for harvest. Because at the end of the day, Turkish voters may not care how big the turnips are, or how many are still in Erdoğan’s sack. They want the soil to be fair, the laws to be fertile, and the nation, finally, to be “turp gibi.”
