Patriotic Turks offering free fish, tombstones and haircuts to prop up lira

Free haircuts, scientific funding, fish and tombstones are among the incentives being offered to Turks who answer President Tayyip Erdogan’s call to convert their dollars to lira.

Casting recent weakness in the Turkish currency as a plot by outside powers to destroy the economy, Erdogan has urged Turks to convert any dollars “under their pillows” into lira, and called on businesses to do more transactions in local currency. “Since the crisis operation is being carried out through foreign currency, we must use our own currency wherever we can,” Erdogan said in a speech on Saturday, when he was opening a shopping centre in Istanbul. “It is now time to take hold of our economy, just as we took hold of our freedom on July 15,” he said, referring to a coup attempt that failed. More than 240 people were killed.

Some shopkeepers and traders have responded by offering free goods and services to anyone with proof they sold dollars. Sabahattin Bas, chairman of Borsa Gold, a jeweller and gold seller in Istanbul’s historic Grand Bazaar, said he was only accepting liras, to fight what he called a renewed attack on Turkey by Western powers who had backed the failed coup. — Reuters