Deaf to the streets - The Discourse of Erdogan & co

Yesterday it was announced that the EU would indeed open a new chapter with Turkey as planned, despite Merkel's electioneering and the reluctance of many European politicians to provide a boost to a government that in recent weeks has licensed its security forces to use any means necessary to suppress peaceful protests.

Mixed feelings abound.

I have long been fervently in favour of Turkish accession, and until recently, my sympathy for those embroiled in the no doubt tortuous negotiations on the Turkish side was unmitigated.

The EU has been inconsistent, and failed to make good on its pronouncements and promises. It has shown cowardice and prejudice, and continued to treat Turks as second-class citizens. It has allowed the discussion to focus on Islam, detracting attention from the fact that countries such as Bulgaria and Romania acceded when much work remained to be done in terms of rooting out corruption, raising standards of democracy, legal reforms, and so on.

After witnessing the astonishing events in recent weeks, however, and the comments and rhetoric which have accompanied them (as far as I can glean with my still severely limited grasp of Turkish), I have had to reconsider this position.  Perhaps the EU negotiators also deserve a measure of sympathy. They are, after all, apparently dealing with some of the most uncompromising, arrogant, insincere politicians to be found in the ranks of any ruling class in Europe today (stiff competition, admittedly).   

For those blissfully unfamiliar, here's a quick intro to some of the main characters in the motley crew...

First of all – the king of the hill, numero uno – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The list of outrageous, untrue, inflammatory, polarizing, and slanderous statements he has made since the protests began would take all day to get through. So here’s a recent example. Despite the many shocking and unprovoked incidents of police brutality during the protests (here’s a taste), which have been well documented by both the protesters themselves and the press (who were often targeted themselves), Erdoğan, not big on nuance or sensitivity, attended a graduation ceremony at Ankara’s police academy on Monday and described their actions as “heroic.”

Then there is Egemen Bağış, the EU Minister. Who routinely makes statements which sound kind of reasonable, before adding something totally insane. For instance, the time when he made the perfectly legitimate point that Merkel ought not to use Turkey to score points at home, followed by an absolutely absurd threat, typical of the kind of delusional neo-Ottoman overconfidence displayed by the whole gang.

"If Ms. Merkel is looking for domestic political material for her elections, that material should not be Turkey," Bagis told reporters on Thursday. "If Ms. Merkel takes a closer look, she will see that those who mess about with Turkey do not find an auspicious end." (read full article here)

But wait – there’s more. Mr. Bağış also shared this absolutely mental video – in which an ominous and incredibly dishonest voiceover contends that a humble Belgrade-based NGO which provides information about non-violent resistance is single-handedly toppling regimes for – well, just for the sake of it apparently. Entertaining viewing, until you remember that Bağış posted it beside the following tweet: "An enlightening documentary on international chaos merchants who disguise themselves as "revolutionaries."" Hashtag terrifying. 

As a bonus, this is also the guy who said everyone who set foot in Taksim Square after crackdown #3 would be treated as a terrorist. 

Next up, Melih Gökçek, Mayor of Ankara. In fairness, I’d been well warned about this one before. A well-known “character” – read crackpot – he seems unanimously despised and yet has been the mayor of the capital for as long as it’s existed – or thereabouts. Gökçek is a keen twitter user, and likes to use it to share his wacky ideas and to slander people and put their safety at risk by inciting others against them – or at least that’s what happened last week when he singled out BBC Turkish report Selen Girit and accused her of being – get this – a spy and an agent for England. In response, the BBC issued a statement expressing concern about the intimidation of its journalists in Turkey. Gökçek was undeterred, and then turned his tweeting crusade to CNN. Wired to the moon, or just stuck in the 1960s – I leave it up to the reader to decide.

Then there’s world champion liar, president of the lying society of filthy liars, pathological and compulsive teller of untruths Istanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu. He says things like: the police would “never touch Gezi Park and the protesters,” before sending police into the park.

Or things like: Those people in white coats helping injured people are not real doctors (I’m paraphrasing, but barely.) 

Special mention to Mehmet Simsek who said that not a single journalist was in prison for doing journalism, but that they were murderers and bank robbers (let’s remind ourselves that this is country with the most journalists in prison in the world, and with a press freedom record that lags behind russia’s)

All the above examples seem too much like political satire to be believed, yet it’s just a small sample of what we’ve seen in recent weeks.

This rhetoric is not only shockingly unsatisfactory as a response to the clear demands laid out by the protesters, it's also irresponsible and dangerous. Lying about what the police will do makes people unable to make clear decisions about the risks they’re willing to take. Singling individuals out as traitors puts their lives at risk. Stoking up tensions between people in society with different opinions is bound to cause friction and violence. It is no surprise at all that during the recent “peoples' assemblies” (at which people have gathered in parks across the city to discuss the protests and share ideas), on several occasions armed groups of thugs have showed up to cause trouble and attack those gathered. There have also been cases of such gangs of vigilantes roaming the streets, targeting people who look like protesters.    

The discourse being wheeled out by the prime minister, unabashedly using an “us” and “them” dichotomy, leads to the kind of polarization Turkey has seen before, when people were killing each other in street for being rightist or leftist, for drinking at the wrong coffee-house, or any such nonsense, after the military coups of the last few decades.

If these tensions boil over into outright violence that causes serious harm or loss of life, Erdoğan will have everything to answer for.

Aside from these immediate risks, it is the discourse of a leadership that is failing woefully the aspirations of many Turks, who are open-minded, multi-lingual, enthusiastic and fully qualified to become fully-fledged European citizens

In a recent interview with HDN, MEP Andrew Duff, for someone in favour of Turkish accession on the whole and with a head more or less screwed on correctly - made some pretty amazing and depressing comments and the prospects for Turkish membership, including that it had gone more or less as far as it could go under the current leadership, questioning Egemen Bagis's motivations, and even saying that Erdogan did not really understand what the EU actually is. 

Though these points may all be accurate, it would be totally unjustifiable to punish the Turkish citizens as a whole for the obstinacy of their leaders.  The EU process is, and always has been, about compromise and mutual engagement. So it was absolutely right to open the chapter, though of course the fact that Erdoğan is likely to take it as an endorsement is a bit of a tough one to swallow. 

And yet there is something strangely familiar about Erdoğan’s discourse, trying to drive a wedge between the protestors and the rest of society who stays at home, who aren't personally affected and might not be too sure what to make of it all. I've heard this somewhere before. I heard it in 2003, when around a million people marched through central London in an attempt to get the government to back down from its plans to invade Iraq. The main message, carried on placard after placard, was “not in our name.” Following this mass mobilisation, Tony Blair appeared on the news saying “when you see those people in the streets, remember that something something something.” I soon forgot his actual message. But I will never forget the casual and confident way in which he shrugged off a million citizens who cared enough about something to trudge through the streets, in an attempt to influence a decision they would not be consulted about. Nor the way he addressed the people watching him on television as if the people in the streets were outsiders, as if they were illegitimate, and somehow threatening and manipulative. When in fact they were us. 

As far as commendable reactions to protests go – the recent unrest in Brazil have provided a shining example from the country’s President Dilma Roussef, who said:

“The streets are telling us that the country wants quality public services, more effective measures to combat corruption... and responsive political representation, [...] We all must, without exception, understand these signals with humility and accuracy.”

Perfect. But it remains to be seen of course, whether this message from the streets will be acted upon, once it has been heard.  

The man who stood

On the evening of Monday June 17, at around 6 p.m., a man walked into the centre of Taksim Square and stood.

With his bag placed at his feet, hands in pockets, the man stood gazing at the flags of Atatürk and the Turkish Republic hanging from the Atatürk Cultural Centre and scarcely blinked. As the evening wore on, others began to stand near him, in a moving gesture of solidarity but one which began, after a while, to bear suspicious resemblances to “assembly,” which police in Taksim Square have become rather tense about, to say the least.

Since police took the square back from the protesters on Saturday June 15, they have preferred to reserve the space for transit rather than permanence for any length of time. People can go about their daily business; working, shopping or running errands, but without engaging in anything so intimidating and threatening to the public order as assembling. Taksim Square has become a pale and vacant resemblance of the place it was only a few days ago, when it was filled with music, dancing and colour. The overwhelming majority of those present seemed to have come to the square not with any particular aim in mind except merely to occupy the space, peacefully and together.

The standing presented police and officials with quite a conundrum. This was clearly a form of protest, or at least abnormal behaviour, yet standing alone for a prolonged period of time evidently does not constitute any kind of criminal activity or pose an immediate threat. The reaction of the Interior Minister was that an “intervention” would only take place if the standing began to take on a character regarded as disruptive to the public order.

However, as the collection of standers continued to grow, the police lost their patience, and stepped in to detain a number of them. The justification allegedly given for the detention was that the protesters were resisting arrest by standing, which leads to a curious paradox if one were then to ask why they needed to be detained in the first place.

Erdoğan’s behaviour in recent days has been severely provocative on a number of levels. The brutal reclaiming of the square and park, by sending in police and armoured vehicles on Saturday evening was a first affront. Next came his blunt dismissal of any misconduct on behalf of the police, and the repetition of his assertion that the protesters were fundamentally violent and threatening.

These words could in themselves be regarded as a kind of symbolic violence, adding to the injuries already suffered by many of the peaceful protesters in recent weeks. And as the standing man himself pointed out, there is also a symbolic violence in denying people access to a public space, which had become a focal point for the peaceful assembly.

Faced then, with these spurious accusations, in spite of the now well-documented evidence both of police brutality and of the idyllic and peaceful nature of the protests in Gezi Park, with make-shift libraries, arts & crafts workshops & foodbanks, what is there left to do to show that one’s protest is peaceful, other than simply stand?

So why are the authorities and police troubled by this latest and very mild episode of civil disobedience?

For one thing there is the contagion factor. Not just in Taksim Square. As fast as pictures were being uploaded, people began to stand in other parts of the city and other parts of the country.

Then there is the visibility of a protest such as this, which in itself can be construed as subversive, despite the absence of sound or movement. Symbols, behaviours and postures in certain locations and in certain contexts are imbued with particular meanings.

Symbols may seem passive enough, but in the context of a struggle, they can be regarded as weapons almost comparable to others used in battles. When the Ataturk Cultural Centre was adorned with flags and banners of myriad shapes, colours and slogans, this proved intolerable for officials, who described it as an “advertising billboard for legal and illegal organisations.” Their removal was of course a pretext to move back into the square, but their significance cannot be dismissed altogether. Symbols are not the driving force behind any movement, but if they were entirely without impact, for instance on morale and determination, and as territorial markers to lay claim to a particular space, authoritarian regimes would not be so fixated on banning or removing them in favour of imposing their own.

AKM during Gezi Park Occupation...

...and after police regained control of the square

Despite having ostensibly regained control of the public space in Taksim Square and Gezi Park, this protest has shown that it may not be as straightforward as expected to repress protests and dissent through limiting access, surveillance, and at times, brute force. This is not only because the creativity and ingenuity of the protesters seems to know no bounds. The spaces in which people, especially the young, now congregate to share ideas, images and information, have become far less tangible than before. Social media now provides a space that seemingly escapes the watchful eye and heavy-handed response of the police, unlike the tangible public spaces of the local park or square. Yet predictably, attempts are now being made to gain more control over this space as well, with the government’s pledge to adopt legislation restricting the use of social media.

For a government that was so determined to put an end to the PKK conflict, which has claimed thousands of lives over several decades, often due to acts of terrorism, it would seem that non-violent resistance is regarded with just as much hostility and intolerance. Yet the suppression of peaceful protests can only damage the authority of a regime, and further endanger the lives of all its citizens, as Arundhati Roy notes in The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire:  

"Any government's condemnation of terrorism is only credible if it shows itself to be responsive to persistent, reasonable, closely argued, non-violent dissent. And yet, what's happening is just the opposite. The world over, non-violent resistance movements are being crushed and broken. If we do not respect and honour them, by default we privilege those who turn to violent means."

Many protesters, especially when incidents of vandalism or aggression occurred earlier on, repeated the same refrain: “this is a civil resistance, this is a peaceful resistance.”

Despite the untruths of the government, and the physical suppression of the police, their determination remains unwavering, fuelled by the anger of recent events but somehow remaining calmly focused. To be seen, and to be known for what they really are. Peaceful.  

I. Rusty Narratives: Reporting the Events

I think it’s no longer necessary, at this point, to go into details of the actual events that have unfolded in the last two weeks. Anyone who is not up to speed can check out this helpful timeline or this cute infographic.

The comments I want to make are in response to some common misinterpretations by the international media. Every one of these pitfalls can conveniently be found in this piece by Paul Mason. In his article, Mason manages to share a somewhat insightful anecdote about tear gas, and deserves credit for getting the name of the trees in the park right, but as for the rest - it’s hard to believe he actually came here and spoke to anyone actually involved in the protests given his superficial analysis, stereotypes and mischaracterisation. 

1.       “Will gas canisters or yoga prevail in Turkish spring?”

Catchy title, admittedly, shame about the reference to a “Turkish spring,” which the protesters have expressed their objections to repeatedly. Let’s not kid ourselves, Erdoğan won several elections and even those fiercely opposed to his politics, such as the Greens and Left for the Future Party, admit that his government has pursued some commendable policies, as the party’s International Secretary, Ahmet Atil Asıcı, pointed out in his statement:

“The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has long been viewed as a progressive party and indeed it was so until recent months. The AKP was successful in enriching ordinary people materially. GDP per capita increased relentlessly since the AKP took the office in 2003. […] This economic success was reflected in the support of people in the latest election which gave the AKP the support of 51 percent of votes. The peace process initiated with the Kurdish movement, to resolve a conflict which took the lives of 50,000 people in the last 30 years, also gained widespread support from the public.”

The cries of “Hükümet Istifa” (Goverment Resign) that echo around the city are more a rallying cry than a genuine demand. This isn’t about a revolution. Protesters don’t want another coup. They want a democracy that works, that rules by consensus not ruthless & posturing majoritarianism and that listens to its citizens. As one correspondent pointed out – there is no spring here in Turkey, it’s summer.

As for the “occupy” label, it is of course still an imperfect comparison, despite having been appropriated by the protesters themselves. I find the recent comparison of Gwynne Dyer to the Paris May ’68 events rather compelling, but I do also wish we could just see the events as unique and context-specific.

2.       “I have seen all this before - in Syntagma Square in Greece, among the Spanish indignados, on the roundabout in Tahrir Square.”

No. No you haven’t. This is not Tahrir Square, for the reasons stated above (I’d also venture to say that the amount of sexual abuse and harassment of women that has taken place in Taksim is a minute proportion of that which went on in Tahrir). As for Greece, the climate of austerity has nothing to do with the economic context in Turkey, which until recently has been growing at breakneck speed and certainly hasn’t seen anything like the kind of economic nose-dive taken by its neighbour. And as for Spain – I can’t even be bothered...   

3.       “The secular, urban, educated, young are a political minority in Turkey.”

Actually most of them are not political at all. Some of the kids I’ve seen taking to the streets, braving the gas and standing vigil day and night in the square and the park, have surprised me by the force of their determination and the intensity of their feelings given their lack of any political affiliation or even particular interest in politics. The alliance that has emerged between feminists, ecologists, Kemalists, nationalists, football fans, and many others has been a source of amazement. Many of those who put themselves at risk by getting deeply involved in the protests were not waving a political flag but rather belonged to associations of physicians or lawyers, for example.

There is a question about the politics of the protests, of course. Government supporters have attempted to undermine them by saying that tensions between different factions in the park are already causing the happy alliance to implode. This is an exaggeration, and by and large everybody has co-existed with admirable tolerance, but there have been tensions, and the occasional scuffle, especially when it comes to symbols like the Kurdish flag or the face of Öcalan (jailed PKK leader), which has proved to be just too much for some nationalists. In the historical context, this is in no way surprising, of course, given the levels of seething hatred that exist there.  

4.       “In Alifuatpasa, the women do not wear skimpy tops, or yoga pants, but in fact the veil and clothes that cover them head to toe.”

With this and several other quotes, Mason seems to fall into the same trap as many other commentators who have understood & portrayed the protests through the prism of the old Islamist vs. Kemalist dichotomy.

When I visited Gezi Park before the crackdown of Friday May 31st, there were no flags to be seen, and the lack of symbols gave the real sense of a civil movement, composed of individuals who wanted to save their local park by peacefully camping out there. Participating groups such as the Greens left their flags at home purposefully to avoid engaging in any political opportunism.

In the days that followed the police’s absolutely shocking attack, when masses of people started to gather in the park and square, and to march through the streets of districts across the city and across the country, when people started standing at their windows banging pots and pans and flashing lights on and off to demonstrate their consternation, that’s when the flags came out.  And boy did they come out. Especially the Turkish flag, of course, sometimes featuring Atatürk’s face, and often accompanied by chants like “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal.” There have been attempts to clear the protests of divisive symbols, but often these have excluded the Turkish flag, which for me misses the point completely. Turkish citizens cannot be united under a flag which for decades has been emblematic of the oppression of so many minorities – Greek, Kurdish, Armenian, Alevi – etc. [This is a small digression which is only my personal opinion, and which I know many of my Turkish friends would disagree with.]

Essentially, the presence of many devout Muslims, and indeed quite a few AKP voters, among the protesters is proof that this old framework is inadequate for making sense of what is now happening. There is no indication that any party, for example the Kemalist CHP (Republican People’s Party), will gain from this politically. Nor is this a movement which alienates Muslims, although of course the staunch supporters of Erdoğan’s brand of “political Islam” are less likely to support the protests.  

II. Information Pollution: Navigating the treacherous waters of social media

Since the protests began I have acquired a veritable wealth of new vocabulary. The chants, the graffiti, the analysis, the tweets – all have provided a flood of new terms to get my head around. The most overheard one I think has to be “şerefsiz orospu çocuğu” (shameless son of a whore). But one of the most memorable I’ve come across was the concept of “bilgi kirliliği” – translated literally as “information pollution” and meaning the corruption of information, in other words falsehoods and hearsay masquerading as truths or objective facts.

I first saw this applied after a friend of mine posted a photo of a man with horrific back injuries, alongside a caption claiming it showed a protester who had been run over by a TOMA (armoured vehicle). This may well have been the source of the injuries depicted – but it had nothing to do with Turkey or these particular protests.

I have to come clean and admit that, despite my best intentions, I failed miserably to follow my own advice of using social media in a calm and responsible fashion when dealing with the protests, to avoid spreading misinformation and exaggeration and to share only confirmed facts and content. This seems to me crucial if social media is to be a useful alternative to traditional media, especially when the latter is plagued by censorship and pro-government bias, as well as to avoid doing harm to our own cause by spreading panic or lies. But in the end, I also found myself caught up in the digital histrionics. I made two textbook errors which I deeply regret.

The first was sharing a photo that had been widely circulating, which showed the Bosphorus Bridge absolutely filled with people, and captioned as showing protestors crossing the bridge on foot to get to Taksim from the Asian side of Istanbul after public transport was suspended. It was in fact a photo from a previous marathon in the city.

The second was more serious, but in a way more easily justified. I had been supposed to meet a friend in Taksim Square on Saturday June 1, a day after the big crackdown, but he got caught up in the police’s assault on protesters in Beşiktaş. He texted me later on to say what had happened, explaining how they had thrown tear gas in all directions, that he had gone blind for 5 minutes as a result, and had to rely on strangers to guide him as he fled from police. He added that police had been using an “orange gas” and I, idiotically, took to social media to announce that Agent Orange was being used. The reason I say that this was more easily justified is because I felt quite shaken at the time and was deeply affected by it. When your friends are being tear-gassed and attacked for no reason, you want the world to know. When anger and emotion take over from rational consideration, this is when the slippages are most likely to occur. 

They are also symptomatic of the frustration borne out of the lack of access to any trustworthy sources of information. We were starved of information, by the main broadcasters and by politicians, who made statements talking about dozens of injured people when it was patently thousands. We could not confirm or deny anything. This was the time when the alternative news sources – which streamed live footage from the sites of the protests, really came into their own. But even these often suffered from a lack of accompanying commentary or analysis to be able to apprehend exactly what was going on.

None of this excuses the mistakes, of course.* I would like to think that I’ve learned my lesson and wouldn’t make the same errors of judgement again. I resolved to trust only what I had seen with my own eyes or heard directly from trusted eyewitness accounts, but of course you can't be everywhere at once, and the constant flow of information pouring in is at once terrifying by its volume and unpredictability, but also addictive. I have never been such an avid user of social media as I have over the past two weeks. I suppose the only thing to do, even when enraged and frightened, is to take a deep breath, count to ten, and try to make as certain as possible, before clicking, that confirmed really does mean confirmed.

*Then again, some cases are rather exceptional, my newspaper – the Hürriyet Daily News – reported on June 5th, that the death toll had risen to 3. It later published an article saying that the death toll remained at two, while the third was merely brain-dead. Crying Agent Orange is bound to cause panic and chaos, but it seems to me that reporting brain death as actual death is the least of sins under the circumstances.   

III. Kind of about a park: The personal account

I disagree with the foreign residents in this city who’ve kept away from the resistance, saying this is not their struggle. These issues are not restricted to Turkey and the support appears to be highly appreciated by the protesters. But I can’t claim to understand exactly what is happening. While in previous crackdowns, such as on May day, people seemed to agree that the protesters were basically trouble-makers, now something has switched completely. Despite the media censorship, there has been a massive outpouring of anger. People who work hard all day have been spending their evenings, if not nights, in the Park to support the protests, even those who are not remotely political. It’s been amazing to witness and even more amazing to be a part of.

Protesters and onlookers alike have repeated time and time again that “this is not just about a park.” Indeed, it’s true in the sense that a suspension of the plans to demolish Gezi Park alone would not address the underlying issues (but it would be a start). But I don’t think we need to go too far the other way. Gezi Park is, after all, where it all started. So it is sort of about a park... And this is something that has made the protests seem all the more innocent and vulnerable, and the brutality of the police all the more shocking. When I first went to Gezi Park to support the protesters, some two weeks ago, it was a decent-sized gathering of people with a few flimsy-looking tents strewn about the grass. While we sat and had a drink, someone walked around with a megaphone urging people to stay, not just to be in the park for the evening and then leave. They knew what was coming, of course. At the crack of dawn, police bulldozed their way in, and began tear-gassing people and burning tents. People were understandably outraged. I went back two nights later and the presence in the park was tenfold what it had been before. There were banners bearing slogans, pictures caricaturing Erdoğan, and plenty of people, jovially and of course ironically raising their beers in toasts to him. More importantly, there were many more tents, and far sturdier looking ones. The atmosphere was one of defiance and celebration. I went home feeling reassured. There is no way they’ll attack tonight, I said to my flatmate, not with so many people there. That was Thursday May 30^th. The big crackdown happened the next morning. I woke up to nightmarish scenes of violence and chaos. It went on all day and well into the night. That was the night CNNTurk decided to broadcast a documentary about penguins. The night the banging of pots and pans began.  

On Saturday I kept out of the way. In the afternoon we heard that the police had withdrawn (but had no idea for how long). I decided to head down and see what was going on. I had friends who were already in Taksim Square, and thought if I could just make it to the square, I’d be ok. So I put some lemons and a scarf in my backpack and set off. No buses were going down the road towards Taksim, and the metro had been stopped, so the only option was to walk. The road was packed with people, almost all wearing gas masks, and at a certain point the cars stopped and the road became effectively pedestrian. It was getting dark by the time I drew up to the park. I stood by the outside for a while, trying to muster the courage to go in. Some boys were rolling a massive concrete pipe across the road to build a barricade. They stopped to let me pass, with a courtesy that seemed surreal under the circumstances. I panicked about the idea of being trapped inside with no way out, so stalled by the edge a while longer... when I did finally set foot inside the park, it was packed. People were making passionate speeches, and cheering. In the distance I could hear loud bangs. I bottled it and turned back.

Gezi Park 01/06/13

On Sunday I went back, and made it to the square this time. There was a lot of damage around, but all the tension had been released from the atmosphere. It felt so good to stand in Taksim and feel safe again.

Except it’s not safe. Even now. Although Gezi Park and Taksim have become little havens of peacefulness, where people look after each other, share their food, donate books to libraries, put up humorous placards and engage in all kinds of other exemplary and heart-warming behaviour that makes Erdoğan’s characterisation of them as “marauders” all the more absurd, the threat of a repeat of May 31 still looms. The plans to demolish the park haven’t been called off. Erdoğan’s rhetoric is increasingly menacing and provocative.

Peaceful protests are not seen as legitimate by this government and its supporters. People who occupy public spaces are seen as fundamentally threatening and disruptive. This is the justification for the ruthless onslaughts by police against what are generally unarmed young kids. They are out for blood, as if they’ve been instructed so. They aim tear gas canisters at people’s heads; they fire water cannon at close range. They do not simply allow a crowd to disperse, they chase people into closed areas from which they cannot escape and attack them with unbelievable quantities of tear gas, even if that means throwing tear gas directly into people’s homes. They tell people they can come out safely and then start beating and arresting them. This violence is regarded as a “legitimate” response to an illegitimate form of protest – namely, occupying the public space when you’ve been told not to. This is where the fear comes from. And it’s all-pervasive. Even though Turks become have largely become accustomed to tear gas, as a result of its generous usage, the fear remains.  

I do not recognize anything about the Turkey I know and love in the behaviour of these “security” forces. In a society where everyone addresses and treats others like members of extended family, it is as if the bonds which bind people together have been eroded somehow, as this harrowing account shows.

It is in such diametrical opposition to the attitude most Turks seem to adopt on a daily basis, but which we have seen especially during the last weeks. People putting themselves at risk to help each other out, displaying incredible selflessness and solidarity with each other. Like the people who opened their homes or shops to protesters being pursued, or the old people who left lemon and vinegar on their windowsills for those affected by the gas. The doctors and lawyers who've given up their time and energy to help the injured and those under arrest. This was also my experience when I walked straight into a confrontation between police & protesters outside near my house on May Day. When the tear gas lobbing started an old man noticed my alarm, and shared his water with me.  

I’ve heard several people say that these events have restored their faith and hope in the future of their country and its people. Before these events, I loved Turkey and especially Istanbul and there was nowhere in the world I’d rather have lived. But I was saddened by certain tendencies I was witnessing. Primarily the tendency toward massive commercialization, with an apparent total disregard for the environment and the local. And the gradual erosion of people’s hard-won personal freedoms, such as drinking alcohol or kissing on the metro, which Erdoğan has declared war on in his quest to raise a new generation of “religious youth,” who abstain from alcohol, who do not go on strike or protest or engage in any other kind of civil disobedience, who never show affection in public, who essentially work hard and consume hard and have at least 3 children.

This point about pushing for a consumer society is crucial, so that they can be good enough consumers to allow the country to reach the government’s goal of being in the top 10 economies by 2023. I say goal, it seems more of an obsession. In the pursuit of which no sacrifice is too great, even if it tears through ecosystems and ruins livelihoods.

There is a kind of civil engineering behind this, beyond the underlying capitalist ideology. The constant eating up of green spaces to make way for franchise cafes and shopping centres. It makes it impossible for people to spend their leisure time outside their homes without spending money. Yes there are massive forests outside the city, and no they are not accessible unless you have a car and at least a half or preferably a full day at your disposal. This policy of the government’s has been ruthlessly effective. The malls and Starbucks’s are full, for those who can afford it. And for those who can’t, there is a need to find creative – though sometimes perilous – solutions. It breaks my heart to see entire families sitting down for a picnic on a Sunday on one of the tiny little islands of grass surrounded by motorways, simply because it is the only green space around.     

This has proved that Turkish people do not want to be herded into being productive and obedient consumers. They value much more important things, like the environment, culture, heritage, freedom, choice, and tolerance. And they are even willing to put themselves at risk to defend those things. I just wish so desperately they could live in the kind of society and the country that they deserve to live in.

Please support the protests by taking part in a solidarity action near you.

The links below provide useful information, commentary and background:
Taksim Solidarity Platform Manifesto

Guardian on the Turkish media

Guardian on the construciton projects in Turkey 

Account of the beginning of the protests

Orhan Pamuk on the significance of Gezi Park

Picture Galleries
"Bloody friday"
Photos from the first 4 days of the protests
Gezi protesters in action
Photo & film evidence of police brutality