I've been out of the country for a while, but I am back and so is Scission.
Turkey was on my mind when I left and Turkey remains on my mind now that I am back.
Turkey is an interesting case. A strange sort of Islamic run government that tries to pretend at times that it isn't. A history of secularism of which it has always been quite proud. Various internal struggles and on going urban and rural guerilla fights and a long standing Kurdish uprising (which by the way, I believe, goes unmentioned in the article I am posting). Democracy and repression and on again off again "friendship" with Israel as well as a peculiar relationship with the Arab world. Throw in a longstanding "alliance" with the USA and a geography that ensures it is middle eastern, Asian and European. Combine all that with a long, tumultuous, and fascinating history, not to mention the genocide of the Armenians (which it still denies ever happened). Finally, it has a "people" who have never feared expressing themselves in any way necessary.
And let's be honest, most of us really don't know all that much about Turkey's internal politics despite the fact that we should.
Now we have an uprising that began over a park and well, hopefully we can all learn something from the post below from Roarmag.org.
By the way if you are wondering who the hell Roar is, well, according to itself:
ROAR Magazine is an online journal of the radical imagination that seeks to amplify the voice of our generation amid the clamorous cacophony of a rapidly changing world.
ROAR aims to bring you some of the world’s most inspiring news, stories, analysis, ideas, actions, books, poems, tunes, photos, videos and doodles from the front-lines of the Real Democracy Movement.
ROAR was founded in Oakland, CA., in 2010 as an alternative media collective that seeks to contribute to the ongoing wave of global uprisings by freely sharing information and breathing inspiration into the Creative Commons.
ROAR is edited by Jérôme Roos, a writer, activist and filmmaker from Amsterdam and a PhD Researcher at the European University Institute in Florence. Our contributions come from volunteers around the world.
LATE BREAKING NEWS...TURKISH POLICE MOVE IN...FROM THE GUARDIAN:
8:48pm BST
Governor: Taksim operations to continue day and night
Istanbul's Governor has just announced that police will continue operations in Taksim Square "day and night" until it is cleared, according to a snap on Reuters.
Seems like it's going to be a long night there.
"We will continue our measures in an unremitting manner, whether day or night, until marginal elements are cleared and the square is open to the people," Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu said in a brief television announcement.
( Note: This entry originally, and wrongly, referred to Mutlu as Istanbul's mayor. )
Turkish media is reporting that dozens of lawyers who were arrested earlier today have now been released.
Meanwhile Turkey's Medical Association has said that, as of late Monday, 4,947 people had sought treatment in hospitals and voluntary infirmaries for injuries, ranging from cuts and burns to breathing difficulties from tear gas inhalation, since the unrest began more than ten days ago.
Audio update
The major Turkish major news channels have been providing rolling live coverage of events in Taksim Square today for the first time, according to the Guardian's Constanze Letsch.
"It's not the same media blackout as before," she told me when we spoke a short time ago (listen below)
As for the possibility of protesters meeting Erdogan tomorrow, she too has doubts: "I don't know who woudl accept to meet him now under these circumstances."
"Promising talks and then doing this now is not very believable for many people".
Updated
Is Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan really going to go through with a meeting tomorrow with representatives of the protestors?
A spokesman for Erdogan's AKP Party said earlier today that the prime minister would only meet with those involved in "legal protest".
"It's very chaotic now and difficult to establish what is happening," Ziya Meral, a Turkey analyst based at the University of Cambridge, has told BBC News.
Meral adds that a number of those who were reportedly in line to meet Erdogan have now made it clear this evening that they will not bee meeting him tomorrow in the light of what has been happening today.
Some extraordinary aerial scenes of Taksim Square at the moment, Here's a pic tweeted by journalist Tim Pool:
Many fires are lit. People are chanting and cheering.pic.twitter.com/sU3aTUpVua— Tim Pool (@Timcast) June 11, 2013
A statement expressing concern about today’s arrests of a further 45 lawyers at Caglayan Court in Istanbul has been issued by the international human rights arm of the Bar of England and Wales.
It said in a statement that it:
deplores the arbitrary arrest and detention of human rights defenders which is currently taking place in the context of the violent repression of peaceful anti-government protests across Turkey.
Clashes are still on going tonight in the Taksim Square area, where protesters have been setting off fire works and lighting bonfires.
It's been a long day of clashes. The Guardian's Constanze Letsch has filed a report on how events unfolded from early in the morning. You can read it here.
According to the Turkish Medical Association, almost 5,000 people have been wounded since demonstrations broke out more than ten days ago, and three people have been killed.On Tuesday, several hundred people reportedly needed treatment in volunteer field infirmaries and hospitals, and at least one protester was said to be in critical condition.Some wondered if the Gezi Park movement was in need of leadership to organise continued resistance. "This is a movement of civil society's dissent, and there are many groups with many demands and political views here," said Hamit Menemencioğlu, 21, manning a stand distributing food and water."Things might be easier if we had a leader, but many people here do not want that."
Dozens of police have been again been sweeping across Taksim Square this evening, backed by water cannon.
Reuters reports that riot police fired volleys of teargas canisters, driving thousands into narrow side streets.
Moments before their advance, police were confronted by protesters jeering and calling for them to leave the square.
Simon Johns, who works for Istanbul's Acik Radio, sent this tweet in the last fifteen minutes:
Barrage of gas being fired. About one canister every three seconds at the moment.— Simon Johns (@simonwjohns) June 11, 2013
Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor has also been tracking events this evening:
Taksim Square cleared in two minutes by wave of tear gas, again. Dusk falls on an urban battlefield...— Scott Peterson (@peterson__scott) June 11, 2013
Police firing continuous volleys of tear gas to keep protestors back from Taksim Square, sometimes into Gezi Park. Big anger...— Scott Peterson (@peterson__scott) June 11, 2013
Updated
The air in Taksim is reportedly thickening once again with tear gas as police move against new supporters of the OccupyGezi movement who are arriving at the square after work.
Here's one image as tweeted by Zeynep Ozar:
— zeynep ozar (@zeynepozar) June 11, 2013
The owner of one of Turkey's largest publishing houses, Can Publishing,has written a piece for the Guardian in which he expresses the fear that the events of today and recent weeks may lead to civil war.
Can Oz also refers what he experienced in Taksim Square today, a few hours after police cleared the area:
The purpose of my visit to Taksim Square was to listen to the press conference the Taksim Solidarity movement had prepared; and I was confident that I could trust the chief of police and Istanbul mayor's assurance that the park would not be attacked.Then, right before the press conference was about to start, gas rained down over our heads once again. It was a moment of crushing disappointment.Coughing, wiping tears out of my eyes, practically blind, I realised that our government would never understand the meaning of the passive resistance that Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi were famous for. That's when I ran out of the park.
Meanwhile, Emre Peker of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones has some more on the detention of lawyers earlier:
#Turkey releases 49 lawyers detained earlier at a courthouse not for from Taksim Sq for staging protest to support #occupygezi: @cnnturkcom— Emre Peker (@wsjemre) June 11, 2013
Updated
On a day of startling images, you can view a selection here, including this one (below) showing protestors pulling back the cord on a home-made slingshot in Taksim Square.
This is Ben Quinn taking over the liveblog now.
Updated
Summary
Here's a summary of the main events so far today:
• Turkish riot police broke up a protest by lawyers at Istanbul's main court as they gathered to make a statement about police brutality. More than 50 lawyers were detained. Video footage showed that many of them were beaten.
• At least 15 people were treated in hospital, including one man with a brain injury, after police used teargas and water cannon to regain control of Taksim Square from anti-government protesters.Police briefly entered Gezi Park but were resisted by protesters. Earlier the governor of Istanbul had pledged that police would not enter Gezi Park.
• Protesters accused the security services of trying to provoke violence by using provocateurs to throw petrol bombs at police vehicles. Observers noted that the protest movement opposes violence and that those throwing the petrol bombs resembled policemen.
• Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised the police operation and urged the protesters to leave the streets. He said: "I request all activists to see the big picture, understand the plot, and withdraw from the streets."
Updated
Audio summary from Constanze Letsch
Turkish police have regained control of Taksim Square but were rebuffed by protesters when they tried to enter Gezi Park, Constanze Letsch reports from Istanbul.
"A lot people I spoke to were angry at what they saw as deception from the government, and the governor who had promised not to intervene in the park," she said.
There is much uncertainty and speculation about who was responsible for throwing petrol bombs at the police, she added.
Asked what could happen next she said:
The Turkish Communist party and several other parties and factions have called for a big meeting at 7pm Istanbul. I'm sure a lot of people will show up. Every evening was more crowded than the previous one. I'm not sure how the police are going to respond. We will have to see tonight.
What future for the Turkish uprising?
Provided the uprising is not crushed or hijacked — and does not fizzle out — it has the potential to create long-lasting changes in Turkish democracy.
The actions taken by a coalition of activists against the destruction of a public park in central Istanbul have spread to more than 60 cities and provinces, bringing several million people onto the streets in widespread protest against the ruling AKP government. The government has periodically jammed communications, shut off surveillance cameras, and used its influence over the national media to suppress knowledge of both the scale of the uprising and the brutality of the police response.
As of June 8, 2013, the police have withdrawn from Taksim Square, leaving it at least temporarily in the hands of protesters. The protesters have erected networks of makeshift barricades at 50 meter intervals along all major routes leading to the square. Major clashes have occurred in other areas around Istanbul and in many cities across Turkey. There have been three confirmed deaths, thousands injured, mass arrests, and unconfirmed reports of widespread police torture.
This article does not aim to give a structural account of the causes of the uprising, an undertaking that, like an obituary for a celebrity, could be scripted before an uprising even begins. Such accounts do more to explain away the events taking place within Turkey rather than engaging seriously with them. They speak more to the Turkey of yesterday than the Turkey of tomorrow. Instead, this article attempts to outline the possible paths the uprising may take.
State Violence and Capital
Beginning with the pre-dawn raid of Gezi Park on May 30, the state response made aggressive use of riot police, assaulting crowds with copious amount of gas, water, and rubber bullets. Although blanketing many urban areas of Turkey in a near continuous cloud of gas, choking bystanders and protesters alike, the state apparatus has — for the moment at least — avoided the excesses of the Arab Spring.
Although there have been a number of confirmed instances where AKP thugs backed by police have attacked peaceful protesters, Erdoğan has yet to make good on his repeated threats to bring out his army of supporters. On June 4, the Istanbul Police issued an order to refrain from the use of gas save for instances of self-defence, though unprovoked police aggression continues throughout Turkey. The protesters, for their part, have shown remarkable restraint.
How long this situation will last is an open question. As the uprising has spread, it is beginning to have a perceptible impact on the functioning of Turkish capitalism itself. Major commerce centers throughout Turkey have turned into quasi-warzones, the stock market dropped over 10 percent on its first day of trading following the start of the uprising, and the protests are starting to affect Turkey’s lucrative gas deals with its neighbors. On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minster Bülent Arınç warned that the protest had already cost the economy 70 million Turkish lira (28 million Euros).
If these disturbances continue, or are intensified by large-scale strikes, the situation may change dramatically. While the government seems to have pulled back somewhat from its initial onslaught, perhaps hoping to ride out the storm, capitalism is much less patient and has many more friends. If Turkish and international capital feel that the uprising poses a threat to their interests, Erdoğan will face increasing pressure to resolve the crisis. Such a scenario would have two solutions: increased support for Erdoğan and a consequent escalation of state violence, or international pressure for Erdoğan to diffuse the situation (through concessions or resignation) and a consequent de-escalation of state violence. At the moment the latter is looking more likely.
The Hijacking of the Uprising by Opposition Parties
The Greek and Spanish revolts that erupted in the summer of 2011 were marked by a total renunciation of the existing political order. The protests were aimed not only at the ruling government but against the political system in its totality. All of the existing political parties, in fact the entire system of representative parliamentary democracy, came under indictment. Revolting against the “democratic” society that denied their existence, the Greek and Spanish occupations created, through their vast networks of general assemblies, structures of a direct democracy they believed should take its place.
The current situation in Turkey is different. The AKP has been in sole possession of government power since 2003. As a result, the various opposition parties, led by the Republican People’s Party (RPP) and the National Action Party (NAP), have not been implicated in the current crisis. The uprising has singled out the AKP and only the AKP as the root of its problems. Much like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the opposition parties have been caught totally off guard by the scale of the uprising and have scrambled to interject themselves into the situation. For their part, the protesters have shown a remarkable eagerness to move beyond the old political, ethnic, and religious allegiances. However, despite the present non-partisan tenor of the uprising, it would be unwise to discount the possible future impact of the opposition parties.
"We Never Have Been, Never Will Be, Anyone's Soldiers"
As the days have passed, Turkish flags and nationalist chants of “we are the soldiers of Atatürk” have made their mark in the streets. Perhaps more worrisome have been the belated but effective attempts of opposition leaders and MPs to capitalize on the events, throwing their weight behind the uprising in speeches praising the courage of Turkey’s youth. If this trend accelerates there is the possibility that the uprising could devolve into a forced referendum (successful or not) on the AKP government, leaving the underlying political system unchanged. Such an outcome could presumably have waited for the next election cycle and avoided the gas clouds, mass arrests, and bloodshed.
The Self-Exhaustion of the Uprising
A persistent concern of many involved in the uprising has been the possibility of its self-exhaustion. These fears have so far remained unjustified. The first week of the protests have been marked by both an increase in absolute numbers of protesters and a widening of the social and political backgrounds of those involved. As the weekend battles gave way to the working week, the central squares of Turkey have become permanently occupied by different sections of society depending on the time of day. More radical activist groups maintain a night watch over the squares and are joined by striking unions and students during the work day.
The largest crowds occur during the evening hours as middle and lower class workers bring their families to picnic, protest, and share the news of the day. There is a perceptible though by no means certain shift of the uprising from the initial violent clashes to a more festival-like atmosphere. What this heralds for the future is an open question. Though a minority, there are groups — especially on the more radical left — who are itching to take a more violent path and see in these developments an enervation of the struggle.
How long the government will allow barricades and the unpoliced occupation of central squares is also not clear. On Friday, the Istanbul Police issued a statement that they would refrain from further police action until Monday, leaving the city in the hands of the protesters throughout the weekend at least. Continued stalemate could in turn lead to a dissipation of the uprisings energy, something the AKP government may be banking on. Though, if the size of the protests of this weekend are a guide, this strategy does not seem to be working.
The Space and Time for Revolutionary Creation
Provided the uprising is not quashed by murderous repression, hijacked by a nationalist discourse that serves only to empower the opposition, and does not fizzle out through exhaustion, it has the potential to create long-lasting changes in the practice of citizenship and representation in Turkish democracy. This path involves the wholesale or partial reconfiguration of political participation in Turkey. It involves the creation of new democratic forms and practices and stands (in the absence of massive worker rebellion) as the most revolutionary outcome of the uprising. It is also, without question, the most precarious and fragile of its possible solutions and one open to immediate undoing.
The most profound yet overlooked aspect of the uprisings that shook the Mediterranean world in 2011 was the countless practices and institutions that spontaneously emerged within its central squares. In Cairo, as the state apparatus withdrew (though not before committing 800+ murders), upwards of a million people, left to their own devices, had to figure out how they would live together in a square in order to sustain a revolt aimed outside of it. Within this space, the Egyptian people organized and orchestrated their own security, dealt with human and regular waste, and created services for the elderly and the poor.
The Egyptian revolutionaries established supply networks for food and information, set up a kindergarten, handled hired agitators, and protected each other’s religious practices. The same spontaneous creation of new institutions and practices was even more evident in Greece and Spain, where nightly assembly meetings empowered and funded subcommittees dealing with food, protection, medicine, outreach, horticulture, information, tattoos, and the media, managing all aspects of social and political organization within the squares themselves. Life in these squares stood as a powerful testament to what ordinary people can build in the absence of state power.
Similar practices and forms are developing in the Turkish uprising. The networks of medical and legal support, the supply lines servicing protesters with free food, supplies, internet access, and safehouses, even the collective building of barricades and the organization of night-watches to protect liberated zones from police assault, are proof of this spirit. Perhaps more important is how these acts of solidarity have gone viral within Turkish social media networks, shared as joint reminders of the latent generosity of the Anatolian people.
It is still early going, but the spatial conditions for more permanent structures and initiatives have begun to materialize. For the past few days Taksim Square has become a ‘liberated zone’, a fragile oasis surrounded by massive and ever growing barricades. As of June 5, a people’s library, dozens of free food, blanket, and medical supply stations, LBGT and gender awareness tents, and areas for musical performances and political speech have been set up in the square. For the religious holiday of Kandil, protesters have set up alternate spaces for prayer and dance and invited all those in the square to find a stranger with differing political beliefs to sit and chat with.
These spontaneous structures and initiatives mushrooming amidst the now ubiquitous graffiti and political banners offer a stark contrast to the scripted choreography and corporate sponsorship of festivals previously organized by the municipal-capitalist alliance. More than an assertion of the right to the city, the self-organization of life in the square attests to the power of ordinary people to actively structure the social space itself.
Such police-free zones are also taking root elsewhere in Turkey. Barricaded against police harassment, freed from the constant threat of dispersal, these encampments are creating new practices, allegiances, and institutional forms organically within the uprising. Only time will tell if these spaces can be sustained and what the Turkish people will make of them. One thing, however, is clear: the reconfiguration of the Turkish political field, if it is to happen, will happen here.
Another factor that has ironically pushed the uprising down this path has been the relative impotence of established experts and commentators. Here the total media blackout during the initial days of the uprising by domestic outlets has actually been a blessing in disguise. That documentaries on Antarctic penguins aired while violent clashes were being waged in every major city in Turkey drew people away from their televisions and into the streets. It has also forced people to discuss and debate among themselves the meaning and direction of the uprising rather than defer opinion to the tried and tired talking heads of the Turkish media. As the mainstream television channels slowly begin to report on the ongoing events, this is something to keep in mind.
The Turkish president Abdullah Gül recently remarked that “democracy does not mean elections alone.” A statement of the obvious and the only one from the AKP leadership to acknowledge the truth of situation. To this statement we would add one thing. For the moment, the uprising has located this democracy in the collective participation and poetry of the Turkish people. It has so far refused to entrust the uprising to any sort of leadership — whether old, new, or military. Keeping the uprising this way will be no easy task in a country which has grown accustomed to strong leaders since its inception.
Perhaps now will be the moment when Turkey finally embraces the profound meaning of the slogan, uttered countless times throughout its history, that “there can no longer be a revolution for the people in spite of them.”
Mehmet Döşemeci is an assistant professor of History at Bucknell University working on the entangled histories of Modern Europe and the Turkish Republic. His book,Debating Turkish Modernity: Civilization, Nationalism, and the EEC, will be published in Fall 2013 through Cambridge University Press. He is just beginning a new research project exploring the histories of radical publics within Europe and the Middle-East, providing historical context for the popular uprisings that have mushroomed across the Mediterranean basin since 2011. Yetkin Nural assisted in the research of this article.
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