I start my Saturday morning on Skype with friends and colleagues in Istanbul, trying to find out more about what’s happening there. Early Friday morning, police moved in to break up a peaceful protest in Gezi Park, which the government plans to destroy in order to build a shopping mall.
So what’s the big deal? Happens all the time, right?
Not with tear gas. Not setting fire to the tents of the demonstrators.
There are other factors at work here. This is one of the last green public spaces in central Istanbul. And there’s an appeal that has not yet been adjudicated in the court system. And it comes a week after sudden and repressive new alcohol laws take effect, on the heels of more and more legislation that affects people’s private lives, whether or not they are practicing Muslims.
“This is not about a park,” claims one Facebook meme that has been shared 26,642 times, when last I looked. “It’s about not being heard … about the abuse of state power ... media being censored… minorities not being protected.”
“We are making history.”
Saturday morning finds me on Skype with cross-cultural trainer and business consultant Souzan Bachir, who lives in a district just outside central Istanbul. Because the streets are so crowded, she says it is nearly impossible to get downtown.
She has joined the people demonstrating in her district and has trouble making herself heard over the chanting and the car and truck horns blasting their support.
“We are marching in my district to support the protestors in Taksim Square, against the violence of the police,” she shouts into her phone.
“It is so beautiful. I’ve never seen this area so alive. Everybody is in the street—youth, women, businessmen, housewives, students—sports club fans, leftists, rightists, a friend who has never been in a demonstration before. We are walking just to keep unity and solidarity and to stop the bullying. Some are holding the Turkish flag. Some are shouting for the Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] to resign."
She said the "public is fed up" with the way he's been imposing on people.
“In the last few years, he started to interfere in our personal lives—how many children we can have, abortion, employment of women. A month ago, they closed the theatres and concert halls. Today he even said ‘those marginalist Tweeters are fascists.’"
“We are hoping that this is going to lead to something, that we’re organizing for the future. Otherwise, it will be a one shot deal, and things will be forgotten, and we don’t want this to happen. No matter what our ideology, it’s the first time since long ago we’ve had this unity. We are making history.”
When I check in with Bachir near midnight her time, she tells me that the situation has gotten worse.
“Civil police—they don’t wear uniforms—are provoking protesters,” she says.
“Since this morning, the government has been slowing down the Internet. We were not able to post things. We lost access to Twitter for half an hour, so we created a way to get phone numbers to friends abroad.
“Halk TV [one of only two independent media sources in Turkey] is broadcasting non stop.
“Here in this district, things are calm. In many districts there are no police because they’ve all gone to the centre of Istanbul—something like 40,000.
“Last night, we kept turning the lights on and off, on and off. Even the housewives are banging pots to make noise. Last night it lasted till 6 am. All night long. Tonight, it has started again. Everywhere, people are walking in the street to support the protesters. The government is calling us terrorists.”
"Istanbul is awake at 3 AM!" Source: Occupy Istanbul Facebook Page
It’s not about a park. Or is it?
That day, I also manage to talk to organizational consultant Arzum Akduran Koseoglu, on a break from a training she is assisting closer to downtown. First and foremost she wants to let me know that she and the people we know in common are safe. In fact the training will continue uninterrupted on Sunday, and one of the trainers has headed to Taksim Square to join the protestors Saturday evening on her way home.
Even though all of this has come about quite suddenly, one has the sense that people in Turkey have been waiting for a breaking point, and, though they couldn’t have known it would take this form, they don’t seem surprised.
“It was fast and intense,” says Koseoglu. “We didn’t realize it would get so big because Turks were unresponsive and uninvolved. The tipping point was the park and the trees. People were waiting to defend the park the last four days against the government because [the proposed shopping mall] had not yet been approved; it was in the courts. These were peaceful demonstrators."
Then, allegedly, police attacked the park on Friday morning at 5 a.m. and began spraying tear gas at the protesters.
Koseoglu recounts the events that added to the tension this week, including a new alcohol law and restrictions on smoking. To the West, she explains, it may look like a move towards better public health. But in Turkey, the restrictions are too tight and are one more step away from the tolerant secular society that most Turks are so proud of.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has “started a war against Turkish identity,” she explains.
“I think Erdoğan and his government have tried to create an identity for Turkey based on Islam, and that’s not possible. This land dates way back to the Hittites and Greeks before the Ottomans. Those who came from central Asia brought with them a shamanic tradition, with sky and earth gods and the Tree of Life. Though politically, many became Muslim, the central Asian Turks were in close relationship with Chinese Buddhists, and you can see stone figures of lotus flowers throughout the eastern part of Turkey.”
So attacking a tree is serious business. Fatih Sultan Mehmet, the Ottoman Sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453 said he would cut off the head “of anyone who cuts a single branch of a tree in my forests.”
“We still tie pieces of cloth to trees to send out our wishes,” says Koseoglu. “You can’t just ignore all that and create an Islamic culture. He is denying all the identities and richness that give this land its identity.”
Vancouverites are meeting in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery Monday evening, June 3 at 7 pm in support of the demonstrators in Turkey. For more information visit the Facebook Event Page #OCCUPYGEZI.
Are you in Istanbul or any of the other cities in Turkey? What are you seeing that we should know about?