by Basak TANULKU
I dedicate this piece to those who lost their lives, limbs
and loved ones during the Gezi Uprising in Turkey…
Turkey was in the frontline of news in June 2013, due to a series of
unpredicted events, in a country with a tradition of obedience culture,
summarised by the well-known proverb “Let the snake
that doesn´t touch me live a thousand years”. The events started with a
very naïve sit-in in the Gezi Park, a public park in the midst of Istanbul nearby Taksim Square, where large left-wing
demonstrations were held during the 1970s. The sit-in was organised through
Facebook and Twitter to invite people to gather and camp there. The sit-in aimed
at protecting the park from being regenerated, one of the few green areas of
Istanbul covered with grown trees, which later transformed into large-scale
street demonstrations aiming at freedom and equality.
Taksim
and Beyoglu: The Western Face of Istanbul
Before I explain how we came
to this point, I will provide the reader with a sense of the spaces which will
be mentioned in this piece, being Gezi
Park, Beyoglu, and Taksim Square, all located in the largest
city of the country, Istanbul.
Until the June 2013 uprising, Gezi Park, instead of a place of destination, was
a neglected and in-between place connecting work and education amenities. Its
neglect was also fuelled by the proximity of Beyoglu, Cihangir, and Galata, old
neighbourhoods with a cosmopolitan city life, including night clubs, cafes,
restaurants, exhibition and art centres. Istanbul
has always been a city of neighbourhoods segregated on the basis of a
particular identity and way of life. In this respect, Taksim and the main
district to which it belongs, Beyoglu, have been known for centuries as the
western face of Istanbul, due to the non-Muslim
and Levantine populations who lived in the area involved with trade and
especially banking during the Ottoman Empire.
These people were early adopters of a bourgeoisie lifestyle in the Ottoman
Empire who brought a westernised way of life with particular consumption
habits. Beyoglu has various non-Muslim places of worship (synagogues and
churches) and is characterized by a built environment reflecting a European
taste. After Non-Muslim populations gradually left Turkey
during the Republican Era, Taksim and Beyoglu experienced periods of neglect,
leading to the inflow of migrants from Anatolia.
However, the area is still dominated by beautiful buildings and a mixed
population of tourists, locals and passers-by, becoming more popular due to its
gradual renewal and gentrification since the 1980. Similarly, Galata and
Cihangir also experienced gentrification, and are preferred as a place of
residence especially by artists, intellectuals and academics, being two
neighbourhoods famous for their night life, arts and cultural events,
cosmopolitan way of life, and old built environment. During the Republican period, the secular nation builders were clever to
transform Taksim Square
into a symbol of modern Istanbul.
Taksim Square,
where Gezi Park
is located, is also home to the Ataturk
Monument, erected in 1928 to
commemorate the Independence War and its heroes, including Ataturk, the founder
of the Turkish Republic. Since then, it has become the symbol
of secularism and later of socialism during the 1970s, hosting large left-wing
demonstrations, to commemorate 1st of May, Workers’ Day. The area
was closed off to the public for left-wing demonstrations by the 1980 coup
d’etat starting a neoliberal period of oppression. The Square’s modern identity
was complemented by the Ataturk Cultural Centre, built in 1969 and then rebuilt
in 1977 after a fire, as the main centre for classical music concerts, opera and
ballet performances until its closure in 2008, all of which make Taksim Square
the “door to the modern Istanbul”.
The Taksim
Square: Ataturk Monument
is located in the round area, with Gezi
Park in the upper right of
the picture, the green area. The large block to the right is the Ataturk
Cultural Centre, closed to the public since 2008. The Square is in the middle
of the picture which became the site for left-wing demonstrations during the
1970s. The picture is taken from Google Earth.
Justice
and Development Party: From Aspiration to the EU into a Society of Fear
Here a couple of
sentences are needed on the Justice and Development Party, the ruling party of
Turkey since 2002 which adopts neoliberal economic policies but uses populist and
conservative discourses to win over the masses, discussed also in recent blogs
written by Taskale (2013) and Dikec (2013). The party can be regarded as the
melting pot of different right-wing ideologies and is supported by the Islamic
capital and denominations (Tanulku, 2012a).
Its main supporters are the immigrant masses living in large cities lacking
in cultural capital, and unconcerned about the arts/culture (high culture) and
the protection of heritage and environment. The Justice and Development Party’s
populist discourses identify with the masses, who felt isolated and exploited, economically and socio-culturally in the face of an established
secular urban culture. The
party also wins over the masses through economic subsidies, which are
reminiscent of “sadaka”, the aid mechanism
used during the Ottoman Empire, a period which Justice and Development Party
seeks to imitate due to its loyalty to Islamic and Ottoman roots, using
discourses relying on the Empire’s traditions to build its power in the Middle
East. Economic
subsidies replaced the state’s welfare mechanisms since the 1980 coup d’etat,
and instead, the government provides economic support for needy populations
through informal means. The party was also supported by the established ruling
classes who encouraged the existence of religiously indoctrinated masses due to
a common belief that a religious person would not claim anything “this-worldly”
and accept their lower statutes as “God given”. However, at the same time, the
ruling classes are also threatened with the fact that the Justice and
Development Party also created its own bourgeoisie, adopting a conservative way
of life which is against anything secular and western. They also threaten the
share of secular and established upper classes in the economic wealth. Labelled
as “White Muslims”, the rising Islamic upper classes also
created a dilemma due to the belief that Islam should reflect modesty and an
ascetic way of life while capitalism reflects greed and consumerism (Tanulku,
2012a).
Despite adopting
neoliberal economic policies and using discourses which show no respect towards
women, minority groups, LGTB people, and no interest in heritage, arts and
culture, and basic human and animal rights due to its anti-enlightenment roots,
the party was well-supported by a majority of Turkish people since it was seen
as a step towards the Turkey’s EU membership and its aim of reducing the
military’s domination over Turkish politics. This support is eroded in time due
to the party’s policies limiting liberal freedoms, creating debates on the
number of children a couple should have, discouragement of women’s
participation in the workforce and political life, insufficient preventive
measures and punishment towards sexual offences, as well as persecutions against
people who criticise party politics, the long “Ergenekon” trial to sequester
the secular and anti-imperialist wing of the Turkish Army and other important
institutions, the censorship on the social media and the overtake of the mass
media. Lastly, its aim at restricting abortions, controlling alcohol consumption,
transforming all secular secondary schools into religious schools and describing
the founding fathers of the Republic as “alcoholics” were widely criticised,
including in the social media, the space where people can raise their voices.
A
New Urban Process under the Justice and Development Party’s Rule
The party which also governs most
of the Turkish cities has also a bad record on the protection of urban heritage
and green areas, seen by them as sites to be transformed into profit. In the last years, Istanbul has witnessed several urban renewal projects,
which eradicated old
inner neighbourhoods, consisting of mainly the urban poor. This process ended
in dispossessing local populations, breaking their social ties with urban life
and moving them into new and soulless housing complexes outside the city, while
selling these properties at high prices. Their main rationale is that these old
buildings should be renewed since they are too old to resist to a potential
earthquake, used as an excuse to transform these old neighbourhoods into sites
of consumption and residence to fuel the housing boom. Lastly, in May 2013, the
building which contained one of the oldest movie theatres of Istanbul, Emek
Sinemasi, host to various international movie festivals and the old Inci
Patisserie, one of the symbols of Beyoglu known for its delicious profiteroles,
was totally demolished, a widely-criticised event especially by intellectuals,
academics and movie-goers. The building is being transformed into a shopping mall,
one among many others in Beyoglu, which would radically transform the soul of
the area from a cultural milieu into a consumption space. Major developments in
the north of the city, such as “Kanal Istanbul” and Third Bosporus Bridge and the
Airport will also lead to the eradication of all native forests on both sides of
northern Istanbul. The construction of a large mosque imitating its Ottoman
predecessors on the Camlica Hill, one of few hills covered with trees, a
breathing space for people in a highly-urbanised city, also caused strong
opposition.
More particularly, local and national authorities aimed at transforming
the Gezi Park into an imitation of Ottoman Halil Pasha Artillery Barracks, a
symbol of Sharia uprising repressed by the secular Ottoman army officers in
1909, demolished during the Republican Period in 1940. The new building is
rumoured to include a shopping mall, residences as well as a city museum.
However, the underlying aim of the current local authorities is to take revenge
from the secular nation-building process which transformed the Taksim Square into
an open space full of modern symbols in the centre of Istanbul. The re-erecting of the old military
barracks is only one step towards the transformation of the area into a
neo-Ottoman space of consumption and destruction of its image of left-wing
political activism. The second step is to demolish Ataturk Cultural Centre, another
symbol of modernity, sealed off by the authorities governed by the Justice and
Development Party to replace it with another cultural centre. These buildings
and structures in the Square were coincidentally constructed in modern style,
while conservative government aims at building structures in baroque style,
reflecting their conservative taste. However, their principal wish is to erect
a mosque in the midst of the Square to complete the conquest of the Square, and
erase its heritage full of secular and modern symbols, which was concealed by
their excuse to answer the need of a place of worship for Muslim population in
Beyoglu, despite the fact that the area has already a couple of small mosques.
It’s starting…
The events started at the end of May, the boiling point of a growing
opposition developed over the last ten years against the ruling party. When
workers from the city administration tried to evict the sit-in arena in Gezi
Park, several MPs from the opposition parties, namely CHP (Republican People’s
Party) and BDP (Peace and Democracy Party), joined the protesters to support
them. The events turned into a guerrilla-warfare in the streets of Istanbul, which were
transmitted through informal channels of the social media, instead of the
mainstream media, which censored the news due to the fear of the government.
That Saturday, on 1st of June, the demonstration planned to be held
in the Asian side of the city by the largest opposition party CHP was
transferred to Taksim Square
to support the events. It turned into one of the largest gatherings in recent
Turkish history, which was supported not only by people in the streets, but by
also by residents of apartments nearby and by drivers of cars passing by. Over
the days, the PM Erdogan used aggressive discourses against the protesters,
whom he called “capulcu” (looters) in order to debase them in front of the masses
voting for him. Erdogan also tried to encourage his supporters by saying “I
have difficulty in holding back the 50% who support me”. The clashes between police and the protesters
ended in several casualties, hundreds of wounded and imprisoned. However, instead
of retreating, the numbers of protesters grew rapidly in Ankara,
the capital city, and other large cities in Anatolia,
and answered Erdogan back through a humoristic language “I am chapulling!” (I
am looting!).
The Taksim Square,
during the uprising in 2013
The People Revolting
The people on streets consist of
several groups: the first and the largest section comprise young people, with
high educational and possibly cultural capital, coming from families of urban
social origin. These young and
restless people’s main concerns are of lifestyle related, which would be
restricted due to the ruling party’s policies. They are also concerned about Turkey’s
current environmental and heritage problems. The second group consist of the
secular middle classes, together with nationalists, who are concerned about their
liberal freedoms once guaranteed by the secular state. In addition, they are
also concerned about the Kurdish question in Turkey,
which is regarded as a threat to the continuity of the Turkish Republic.
Another important group consist of women, who think their liberal freedoms
would be restricted due to the conservative policies of the Justice and
Development Party. There are also fifty shades of left represented by trade
unions, political parties, and public sector workers, from different
standpoints, which are against the increasing inequality, the growing insecure
working conditions and general pressure on unions and other organisations
working for class solidarity and social equality. Other groups have different concerns,
such as Alawi and/or Kurdish people, LGTB people, human and animal rights
activists, neighbourhood organisations, environmental activists, arts and
cultural groups, and anti-capitalist Muslims, becoming more visible in the last
years, refusing Justice and Development Party’s
neoliberal and authoritarian policies as well as a consumerist/greedy lifestyle
while accepting a devout Islamic way of life. All these people, united against the ruling party
and its policies and even if they have opposing views, were able to gather and
camp together in the Gezi
Park, before their
eviction by the police forces. However,
the events turned into a “multi-layered and packaged opposition” which consist
of informal TV channels such as “Capul TV” established in Gezi Park at the
height of the uprising in order to broadcast the events directly, several demonstrations
held in other large cities, slogans thrown during football matches uniting fans
of rival football clubs, environmental camps to enlighten others, festivals and
concerts to raise aid for those who were wounded due to police violence, urban
forums held in several neighbourhoods of various big cities organised by
ordinary people as well as certain non-violent civil obedience examples such as
“Standing Man” in front of Ataturk Cultural Centre to raise awareness about the
events and the fast production of several books and documentary movies. This
packaged opposition, which also created its own jargon and language based on
humour, can lead to an increasing awareness among people who can find new ways
of resistance and solutions to the on-going problems.
The
Events and Beyond
What are the consequences of these events? Their first and foremost
outcome is the confidence reclaimed by Turkish people from diverse backgrounds.
They acted against the powerful despite the lack of a leader, or vanguard
organisation or the protective wings of the Turkish Army, seen as a guarantee
against enemies, especially by the secular middle classes. Instead, the young
Turkish generations did not wait until a saviour comes to save them. These
young people, despite their high economic and social capital, joined their
comrades in Gezi Park when they left their offices to join the crowds. By
becoming Supermen of the current era, ordinary people working during day and
rebels with a cause during night, they rediscovered the beauty of coming
together. Once accused of being narcissistic, apolitical and egoistic, they
paid the price of going into the streets by losing their eyes, being wounded
and partially disabled until the end of their lives and dying so young,
signalling the end of a post-political age. The second actor which gained
confidence was political enemies in the left and opposition, which also led to
the building of new bridges between them, a dream and hope for years. This was
seen in the cooperation between nationalist feminists, supporting the national
secular state policies and the new generation of feminists emerging since the
1980s, who were usually against the policies of secular nation state due to its
top-down process of organising which seemed as tyrannical. Now, in Gezi Park
the old and the new generation feminists gathered together. In addition, there
is also some rekindling in left parties in order to enter the local elections
together.
Second, these events also showed the importance of the open urban space
as the centre of becoming, revolution, and change. In this respect, the
material space in its urban form reclaimed its power and became the site of
conflict, and change. The protesters claimed their right to the city by
occupying the most important centre of Istanbul
from being transformed into a closed space.
This also signals the end of the domination of neoliberal spaces such as
shopping malls, which received criticisms for being “too many” for Istanbul and
other large cities. The events also indicated that the people made their own
spaces, which altered urban topography, signalling a bottom-up process of space-making
based on the interaction between space and people. This space is made by the
protesters instead of practitioners and politicians, through their everyday
interaction with each other and conflict with the police forces. This is
especially seen in Gezi Park and Taksim Square, when Gezi Park was occupied
with the protesters and became an arena of life, cooking, eating, drinking,
debating, dancing, singing, praying, practicing yoga, and even studying and
preparing for university exams! The Gezi
Park, considered to be the first
“commune” of Turkey,
was also surrounded by several buses and cars abducted from the police, to
protect the commune and the trees in the Park from being demolished. Before its
occupation, Gezi Park, located above the Square, was
segregated from the Taksim Square
by the barriers erected by the Municipality to close off the area for
regeneration. However, the occupation transformed the area into a very large
open space, extending towards the upper class shopping district of Sisli.
However, this human-made urban topography had already been planned during the
early Republican Era by architect Henry Proust, who was invited by Ataturk to
help in the master planning of Istanbul.
Proust planned the area as a large wooded land for recreation, called Plan no.
2. Now people themselves made an open space by demolishing barriers which revived
the once–planned but never realised Plan no. 2. The making of space was
completed by the occupation of Ataturk Cultural Centre which was covered by the
posters and banners of various organisations, political parties, and activist
groups. Once a soulless black box, it transformed into a living building
reflecting the various shades of the Turkish left that was silenced since the
coup d’etat of 1980. In addition, this material space is connected with the
virtual space, by the help of the social media which became crucial in
organising these “real life events”, signalling the amalgamation of the virtual
and real realms. Social media became both a tool for action in real life and
the space of meeting, when real life cannot provide opportunity to come
together.
The Ataturk Cultural Centre covered with banners and posters of various
shades of the left.
Third, these demonstrations made people reflect on the Zeitgeist of the
events. The Gezi Park events are based on the ideals of
secularism and enlightenment, which do not exclude conservative people. This is
also against the idea that the Gezi Park uprising is similar to Arab Spring.
Instead, it is against everything put forward by Arab Spring, which ended in
the takeover of several dictatorships by Islamic fundamentalists. Rather, Gezi
Park uprising is against Islamist tyranny and resembles an Occupy Event.
Second, the uprising also reflects a search for a moral society that became
more degenerate, due to the long and greedy 1980s, leading to the rise of a
culture dominated by celebrities and consumption, apolitical youth and a
general lack of interest in politics (Tanulku,
2012b). This can lead younger protestors to think on what would a young student
of economics do who played the role of the rebel in the streets of Istanbul,
when she/he starts working in a multinational bank owned by those people,
she/he hated once while a student? Can this person have the right to behave
like those people who once she/he hated? And how would a rebel person behave
when he/she takes the power? Can capitalism be moral? Or can socialism
transform into a hell due to basic human nature? Can the space, soul and
morality of Gezi Commune be expanded towards the other realms of the everyday
life? Can soulless cities re-gain their life back due to the new culture of
Gezi commune? During their rule, the Justice and Development Party also led to
a change in everyday beliefs due to the rise of a new upper class, “White
Muslims” who adopt an Islamic way of life but do not find difficulty in
exploiting the workers and relying on a conspicuous way of life. Together with
the scandals of the ruling party, this led to reflections on the relation
between religion and morality, and capitalism and Islam. This is seen in the
emergence of “anti-capitalist Muslims” who joined the protests and prayed while
they camped together with other groups in the Gezi Park,
claimed by Erdogan to be “marginal and atheists”. This might lead to new
cooperation between leftists and conservative/religious people, something
missing in everyday debates.
Fourth, the events also led people to reflect on the condition of the
working classes. The Gezi revolt is criticised by the left due to the
under-representation of the urban poor in the events. The lack of success of
leftist politics among the urban poor is related to various factors in Turkey. First,
due to the neoliberalisation of the economy and society, the unionisation among
the workers declined in the last several decades. Second, the urban masses,
including the working class, do not support leftist politics. Instead, they
support political parties which use populist discourses, and in the case of Turkey,
those using religious and to a certain extent nationalistic discourses. Leftist
politics cannot address the majority of the voting population, due to the
popular belief that socialism and communism would bring anarchy and atheism,
and would ban religious freedom if take power. Third, as noted above, the
conventional labour markets changed radically since the 1980s due to the rise
of new forms of capital accumulation, and new groups within the working population,
who are well-paid. As a result of their high educational, social and economic capital,
which conceals their class exploitation, they are not aware that they also
belong to the working class. However,
it should be noted that young people also experience unemployment and even if
they are well-paid, face insecure working conditions. This is a very different
condition from that experienced by their middle class parents who lived during
the Golden Age of the welfare state which provided secure working conditions
and a predictable future. In addition, the young student generation in
universities do not know what the future will bring them. As a result, these
people, who normally should not feel insecure about their future, can become
more preoccupied with their economic as well as psychological well-being which
can lead to more radical leftist and/or humanitarian movements. In addition, together with the coming
economic crisis in Turkey due to the government’s economic policies, people
might wish for a more equal distribution of wealth. This would also address a
need of a different kind of policy making among different strands of the
working classes, based on their needs, jargon and culture. These events continued
during hot summer months of 2013, despite the long summer vacation, which leave
large cities relatively empty. Despite the uncertainty about the continuity and
direction of the events, Turkish people indicated that they have a voice over
the fate of their cities and futures, signalling a more promising future at
least in the developing world, where people from very diverse backgrounds came
together and formed an amorphous, vertical, and pluralistic opposition. This
will hopefully continue as signalled in the slogan used during the events “This
is only the beginning, our struggle will continue”…
TANULKU, B. (2012a) Gated
Communities: From Self-Sufficient Towns to Active Urban Agents, Geoforum, 43 (3): 518-528.
TANULKU, B. (2012b) “Moral
Capitalism” and Gated Communities: An Example of Spatio-moral Fragmentation in Istanbul, http://citiesmcr.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/moral-capitalism-and-gated-communities-an-example-of-spatio-moral-fragmentation-in-istanbul/
For the information on the historical transformation
of Taksim Square,
I referred to “Gezi Parki Kitlelerin Evi” (Gezi
Park: The Home of the Masses”), Kemal
Tayfur, pp. 70-76, the Atlas Magazine Special Issue on Gezi Park,
July 2013.
For a good analysis of the Justice and Development Party
and the socio-political logic behind the Gezi Park revolt see Taskale, A.
(2013) “Gezi Revolt: Critique, Courage-A Commentary”, http://societyandspace.com/2013/07/08/gezi-revolt-critique-courage-a-commentary-by-ali-riza-taskale/
and Dikec, M.
(2013), “Fraudulent democracy and Urban Stasis in Turkey”, http://societyandspace.com/2013/06/14/commentary-by-mustafa-dikec-fraudulent-democracy-and-urban-stasis-in-turkey/.
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