When Erdoğan and his party participated in 2002
elections, though victorious they were the “underdogs”. Turkey stayed under
constant threat of a coup by the ultra-nationalist, ultra-secular, Kemalist
Military. Many in AKP, including Erdoğan himself, had been victims of corrupt
and elitist Turkish judiciary that was not about justice but protecting the
privileges of Kemalist Turks and the Military. We even saw Military’s
intervention threats causing a call of early elections in 2007, from which AKP
again came out victorious. From then on, AKP was on the rise. Coup plots were
exposed, plotters from the Military being tried along with their “friends”
in bureaucracy and media; the threat of a Military coup was finally
more or less over. All the while, since 2002, AKP has built a strong economy, a
rapid development especially in infrastructure and urban areas, a reliable
welfare system and a great healthcare service; Turkey now has “healthcare
tourists” from Europe.
But you see, AKP has no opposition; the currently most
vocal and active opposition is actually the Kurdish movement’s BDP. Other than
them we have MHP (ultra-nationalist) and CHP (ultra-nationalist Kemalist). The
main opposition party CHP practically gets its votes from Kemalist political
identity and its hard-line anti-AKP stance than any real
policymaking. Having no real political competition, no real opposition that is
actually capable of producing policies, and after successful counter-moves
against unlawful political power of the Military, AKP now stands with no
competition. In the last elections, out of every two Turkish voters, one voted
for AKP. This absolute power has changed the rhetoric of the party and Mr. Erdoğan
a lot; it not only became more right-wing but it also became definitely much,
much more conservative and authoritarian. Not just the rhetoric either;
policies, including some economic policies, have been quite along the lines of
a “Muslim” reinterpretation of Neoconservatism.
Gezi protests started as a reaction to demolition of
Gezi Park in Istanbul as part of the urban redevelopment project of Taksim
Square. Truthfully, this is all in all a middle-class concern; while economy is
growing, so is the income gap in Turkey. We have a large proletariat who
barely survives thanks to the social safety net but as AKP turns more
and more Neoconservative, even that is under threat. Poverty is still very much
a reality, even as middle-class widens. So I must admit, urban redevelopment
and loss of green spaces is not much of a concern for many ordinary citizens of
Turkey from lower classes.* Rhetoric at Gezi protests were also very
problematic as well as attendees; though the crowd was pretty diverse, we did
see quite a few ultra-nationalists with racist tones.
The singlemost important issue though was the fact
that when it was first built, some of the area Gezi Park encompassed** was
actually a centuries old Armenian cemetery just a couple of decades
ago. Kemalist Republic in its early days forcefully and unjustly seized the
property despite the efforts of Armenian communities in Turkey at the time. Some
of the tombstones were used as part of the stairs. It was truly a terrifying
and shameful injustice. Unfortunately, this very injustice on which Gezi was
built, was (at least in their mainstream rhetoric) not part of the protests. So
myself and several other friends discussed and criticised how this protest was
disregarding historical and racial injustices and was only stuck within the
interests of its own class and privileges, even if we agreed on their stances
in urban redevelopment and green spaces.
Then something happened.
Around the dawn, police brutally attacked campers in
the park; the whole area was drowned in tear gas, canisters of which were
thrown at protesters almost as a projectile weapon according to eyewitnesses.
Police brutality was everywhere and at a shocking level. This changed the whole
course of the protest as well as perceptions of it.
From football fan clubs to solitary cynics, throughout
Friday a great stream of people joined the protests in Taksim; the only
response of the government was an escalation of police violence. One of the
most well known tourist attractions and the most crowded place in Istanbul was
turned into a battlefield as police chased down protesters in the historical
narrow streets of the area. Photographs of civilians covered in blood, lying
around, and of streets and buildings rendered invisible due to tear gas were
shared online.
Police brutality is nothing new in Turkey; AKP and its
voters know this first hand: a significant chunk of AKP’s voter base themselves
were gassed and attacked for years as they protested against discriminative
policies of the Kemalist regime. But as political sphere changed in Turkey, now
police is the guardian of AKP’s interests. In 2010, in what would become an
infamous saying of his, Erdoğan stated: “I will not let my police to be
bullied!” - “My” is often a term of endearment in Turkish but here it was
especially meaningful. What made this statement more horrible was the fact that
it was said after a series of police brutality that had garnered some popular
denouncement. Erdoğan’s stance practically gave a green-light to
the violence police continuously exerts in every protest.
And this is why Gezi protests are now important: this
is not about urban redevelopment or green spaces anymore. It is about how a
government due to its immense popularity has been growing more and more
intolerant of those minority or criticising voices. It is about how democracy
should not be a tyranny of the majority. And most of all it is about police
brutality, it is about taking police accountable to their wrong doings, and
that the government should learn to respect freedom of expression and assembly
(regardless of what they are for) and not crush it with repressive police
force.
I sincerely hope that these protests will improve
Turkey on these aspects and Mr. Erdoğan will also, may be, remember his old
days: when he was jailed and his political rights were forcefully taken away
from him, by a very repressive and intolerant regime, simply for reading a
poem. He should know very well how precious rights and liberties are, so he
should also know how heinous, restricting and repressing them are. A “natural”
or “enforced” lack of political competition or opposition does not mean that
you will not meet with resistance or opposition Mr. Erdoğan - the last few
years of Arab Spring should have taught you that.
——-
Some of you may have heard this so I want to also
note at a personal level: many religious and pro-AKP folk in Turkey now (from
my observations) have taken an attitude of “if we don’t crush them, they will
crush us” and they rather support this using some of the racist and
Islamophobic slurs uttered by some among the protesters. As I said before,
protesters are a very diverse group and yes there are quite a few racists,
Islamophobes, and Kemalists among them. But this does not justify police’s
violent attacks on them; nor does it mean all protesters belong to those
categories - they do *not*. But even if they did, even if *we* the religious
folk who have been oppressed for decades by Kemalists were now under a risk of
being crushed again, I want to note that as a Muslim I would and will always
prefer to be the one oppressed than to be the oppressor. Allah asked me to be
righteous and not an oppressor and if this will cause me to be oppressed, then
by God’s will I will be oppressed. What I am afraid of most, is not being
oppressed, but to be an oppressor. May God bless us all with a just and
merciful heart.
———
I wanted to clear a few things after some
discussions:
* I do not think that any and all urban
redevelopment is not a concern for lower classes; actually, some historically
lower class neighbourhoods of Istanbul went through urban redevelopment and due
to their good locations within the city, actual residents were often mistreated
and in practice forced to relocate. This type of urban redevelopment acts have
been a concern for lower classes and they did speak out against it at times;
Gezi Park was just not one such case. Which class an urban redevelopment project
disturbs is very dependent on the locale and the character of the redevelopment
project.
** When Gezi Park was initially built it was much
larger and within this larger area the Armenian cemetery had
once stood. Later on, some hotels and other buildings were actually given
parts of the Gezi Park which also happens to be the parts that were mainly the
cemetery before. The currently much smaller space of the Park. according to
some still covers some of the area of the cemetery (though not much) and according
to some it does not cover any of it any more at all. Regardless, it is true
that when Park was initially built it was by usurping Armenian cemetery there,
and that precious Armenian tombstones were used as stairs in the Park. This
very last action I think speaks well to what the “aim” was by usurpation of
this land beyond the material gain.
Source
:http://hkubra.tumblr.com/post/51837417670/from-privileged-activism-to-an-outcry-against
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