Turkish Protests

The Backdrop

‘Occupy Gezi’ began as a small movement to save a park in Istanbul’s center, but has since sparked the largest national protest Turkey has witnessed since the 1970s. Gezi is a nondescript park flanking one of Istanbul’s biggest social centers, Taksim Square. Last fall, the Turkish government condemned the park to be transformed into a shopping mall, one of literally dozens in the area.

A group of environmentalists who didn’t fancy seeing one of the few remaining green areas in Istanbul turn into a commercial complex camped out in Gezi Park on May 27th. Over the course of the next few days, police used pepper spray and tear gas to scatter the protesters. Every morning, as new reports of the police activity flitted around Twitter and other social media sites, more Istanbul citizens assembled in Gezi Park and Taksim Square to support the movement.

During the pre-dawn hours of May 31st, the police launched their largest offensive yet, assaulting protesters with unprecedented amounts of pepper spray and tear gas, as well as high-pressurized water cannons. The police then burned down the protesters’ tents in an attempt to clear the area and commence the demolition of Gezi Park. That day, social media exploded with images of police brutality and reports that scores of people had been injured and hospitalized.

Now the demonstrations were in full swing as thousands upon thousands of dissenters flooded Taksim Square to protest the police’s use of excessive force. As the protest blossomed, its focus began to shift. No longer was Gezi Park the central issue, but rather a symbol of the Turkish Prime Minister’s apparent disregard for his people’s concerns.

During the past few months, the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies and public statements have aggrieved many Turks. Erdogan recently changed the national drink from beer to Ayran (a non-alcoholic yogurt-based beverage), publicly encouraged women to have more children (ideally five), and passed a law banning the sale of alcohol between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.—all for apparent religious reasons. A devout Muslim himself, Erdogan has been accused of slowly pushing Turkey in the direction of an Islamist state. While Turkey’s government maintains its strong democratic roots and certainly does not resemble an Islamist state, Erdogan’s seemingly non-secular agenda has many citizens worried.

Furthermore, Erdogan refused to apologize for the police brutality employed in Gezi Park and later in Taksim Square and Besitkas. He stressed that the protesters were fringe radicals with terrorist aims: “This is a protest organized by extremist elements. We will not give away anything to those who live arm-in-arm with terrorism.” [Source] Erdogan neglected to account for the thousands of students, teachers, and professionals who embody anything but the fringe of Istanbul’s political spectrum. Erdogan further politicized the protests by claiming, “Where they gather 100,000, I will bring together one million from my party.” [Source]

Signs and banners began to pop up among the sea of protesters, branding the Prime Minister a dictator and an autocrat. Erdogan exacerbated these sentiments with his public statement, “All attempts [to influence government] apart from the ballot box are not democratic.” [Source] As if to corroborate this belief, Turkish media outlets broadcasted nothing about the protests during the first few days of the conflict. Their silence was too blatant for suspicion—it was clear that Turkish media yielded to political pressures to keep quiet. During one particularly telling moment, while CNN International was broadcasting the protests, CNN Turk was televising a documentary about penguins. Penguins have since become one of the symbols of the movement.

Source

I believe that the sheer speed with which the Turkish protests erupted is indicative of the level of turmoil and unrest underlying the Turkish political system. The current ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party for short) is popular among Turkey’s working class, conservative, and religious populations and thus isn’t heavily represented in the progressive metropolis of Istanbul. On the national scale, AK Party does have majority support, but it is not surprising that so many urban dwellers have taken to the streets.

The protests are still ongoing, with demonstrations taking place in over 60 Turkish cities. At times, Taksim Square saw upwards of 100,000 protesters. There have been a handful of reported deaths, as well as hundreds of serious injuries.

The Atmosphere

Before all the hubbub began, I distinctly remember a Turkish friend telling me he was heading to Taksim Square that evening to protest the destruction of a small park. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I now reflect back on that moment as my first introduction to the ‘Occupy Gezi’ movement and the subsequent national protests. The following day, Gezi Park was the only topic of conversation as many of my Turkish friends were intent on rushing to Taksim Square to offer their support.

As a student, I was surrounded by a population of young, progressive individuals who had the time, energy, and passion to devote themselves to the protests. This was a thrilling environment to be part of since my Turkish friends and fellow students shared their knowledge and enthusiasm with me. Though I heard reports of the violence, I couldn’t stay away from the protests, and so I ventured down to Taksim Square to witness the movement in its full glory.

About a mile from Taksim Square, I began to feel the remnants of the tear gas: my eyes started to water and my throat became irritated. It was only a minor reaction, but the last tear gas strike had been almost a full 24 hours earlier—the gas must be exceptionally powerful to have still had an effect on me.

As we neared Taksim, the crowds thickened and the decibel level shot up. The thousands of people milling around started chanting and every car in the area honked in appreciation of the protest. It was too loud to hold a conversation, so my friends and I continued our trek in silence, marveling at the level of energy reverberating throughout the throngs of protesters.

Taksim Square was a warzone. Police barricades were overturned and trampled, sidewalks were disassembled, park benches were thrown together as improvised fortifications, and graffiti littered every wall. There were cars that had been flipped and burned and even a police bus that had been turned on its side with all of its windows bashed out. One of the city’s public transit buses lay beached and broken, and I watched a child climbing among the wreckage, using the bus’s handrails as monkey bars.

There must have been 50,000 people crowding the square and surrounding streets. There was a man with a megaphone, preaching from atop a makeshift structure. My Turkish wasn’t good enough to make out what he was saying, but he certainly seemed to fire up the crowd. There were multitudes of banners, mostly red and yellow, condemning the Prime Minister for being a dictator and a fascist.

The atmosphere was that of excitement, passion, indignation, and unity. There was no internal strife or bickering, but rather a shared resentment towards the Prime Minister and his actions. Rival soccer fans were walking arm-in-arm (something normally akin to heresy in Istanbul), restaurants were providing free food and drink, and people were even offering water to the stray cats and dogs that got caught up in the protests.

I was sad to leave the protests, but it was good I did, because later that evening the police redoubled their efforts with tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons.

My Impressions

Many of the articles I read in American publications do not, in my opinion, accurately depict the protests. It’s not that they don’t have their facts right or that they distort the information; rather, I get the sense that they simply haven’t had enough input from the Turks themselves.

For starters, I do not like the use of the word ‘riots.’ ‘Riot,’ in my mind, connotes intentional violence and disorder. The Taksim protests, on the contrary, strive to be organized, peaceful displays exercising the people’s rights to assembly and free speech. I believe that the police action has distorted the nature of the movement, and unfortunately caused some of the protesters to fight back. However, I would maintain that the vast majority of the protesters are simply interested in peacefully articulating their grievances and concerns.

Some people have referred to this movement as the “Turkish Spring,” drawing a parallel to the Arab Spring. I think this is a naïve comparison. While there are calls for Prime Minister Erdogan to resign, the protesters are not demanding a complete political overhaul or attempting an overthrow of the government. There is dissatisfaction with some of Erdogan’s policies, but the more immediate issue at hand seems to be his handling of the protest situation. If he were to acknowledge the protesters and offer some conciliatory remarks, much of the current tension would abate. Additionally  the AK Party still has a majority backing, which represents a particularly significant margin of support in a country that does not have a two-party system like the United States. The protesters already have a democracy; they are simply looking for acknowledgment that their Prime Minister recognizes and will address their discontent.

From discussing the protests at length with my Turkish friends and program directors, I think at the heart of this movement is an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. The protesters throw around words like ‘dictator’ and ‘fascist’; what they mean is they are concerned that their democratically elected Prime Minister is not acting democratically. The people feel powerless because their leader will not recognize their interests and concerns; instead, Erdogan continues to push his religious, conservative agenda on a population who is adamantly opposed to such imposition. Furthermore, Erdogan does not appear to respect people's right to assembly, consistently calling on the police to remove the protesters.

Last night, I watched a segment about the Turkish protests on one of the major American news channels (I won’t mention any names). This channel framed the protests as a group of disgruntled youths, challenging the rule of a three-time, democratically elected Prime Minister. This is not a fair representation. Just because Erdogan has been democratically elected three times does not mean he is acting as a democratic official should. Furthermore, this movement is populated by a rebellious group of teenagers; the protesters are young and old, progressive and conservative, rich and poor, religious and nonreligious. This movement transcends societal boundaries, for there is a larger concern: political representation.

I believe that most political movements can be explained by fear—fear that the other guy will take away your rights and not adequately represent your interests. This movement is no different.