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June 1 2013
Who Are Turkey's Protesters? The View From Taksim Square
By: Amberin Zaman for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse Posted on June 1.
An eyewitness report from Taksim Square in Istanbul.
I was, in my capacity as a reporter, among the thousands of citizens
who thronged the streets of central Istanbul on May 31 in what some
are labeling `A Turkish Spring' and `A Turkish Occupy' movement. Other
commentators have resorted to the lazy old clichés of `secularists
versus Islamists.' Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
insists they are "provocateurs."
None of these capture the nature of protests that have engulfed the
country. These began when police staged a predawn operation on May 31
to disperse citizens who were demonstrating peacefully against a
government-backed development project that would uproot dozens of
trees in Taksim Square. The diversity of the protesters defies any
such neat categorization.
Destination Taksim
It was close to 8 p.m. as I inched my way along Istiklal Avenue, one
of the main commercial arteries leading up to the square. When I hit
the historic Francophone Galatasaray Lycee, the crowds grew. I could
barely move. Amid all the clapping and chanting, there was one common
refrain, `Erdogan resign! Government resign!' Early on, I encountered
a group of young men and women who were all wearing the same white and
yellow masks to shield themselves from the acrid stench of tear gas
that pierced the air. They said they worked for an advertising
company. "Our boss printed special T-shirts for us and gave us the
masks; he encouraged us to be here,' Selin Bayraktar told Al-Monitor.
`Why would he do that?' I asked.
`We initially joined the demonstrators to protect our trees, nothing
political,' explained Bayraktar. But when Erdogan, `imperiously' waved
aside their objections, declaring that the project would proceed,
`something snapped,' she said. `We are not for or against any
political party, we are against dictatorship, Erdogan is a dictator,
write this if you dare.'
Farther on, members of the main opposition Republican People's Party
(CHP) linked arms to form a human chain. There may have been around
50-60 of them. I couldn't quite tell, but they were a minority. Ilhan
Cihaner, a CHP lawmaker, nodded at me bleary-eyed. `Pepper gas,' he
said. `The protests will continue until the park is saved. But it's
not just about the park, it's about this repressive regime: People are
fed up. They have to go.' Never mind that CHP members on the city
council voted in favor of the project. Time to move on.
As I get closer to Taksim, the smoke thickens. I feel dizzy and my
lungs begin to burn.
The scenes are increasingly chaotic. Water cannons spray the crowd.
Police in riot gear are dragging a man toward an armored van.
`For me, it's only about the trees, nothing else. I voted for
Erdogan,' piped up an unfazed 30-something housewife, her hair covered
Islamic-style. `Destroying all the green space, where will my kids
play? It's not right.' And her name? `No need,' she responded as a
youth with a pierced nose and tattooed arms sprayed a milky liquid on
her face.
`It's for the tear gas,' he explained. His name was Mert and he was in
his final year at the nearby German Lycee. Were his parents worried
about him? `No, they support me. Look, we are talking about one and a
half million trees.' What? Had he seen the park? It couldn't even fit
a hundred, let alone a million. Disinformation, it seemed, was flowing
as fast as the gas. He shrugged and continued to spray.
Above the din, one slogan sounds awfully familiar: `Azatutyun,' the
word for `freedom' in Armenian. It's being chanted by a handful of
Istanbul Armenians who say they are taking part because they are
opposed to the destruction of the park. `The park and all those hotels
on top of an Armenian graveyard,' says a young woman I know called
Melis Tantan.
A slender girl with a headscarf and a knee length raincoat catches my
attention. Her name is Busra Guney. The 17-year-old is in her final
year at the nearby Kagithane clerical training school. `It's always
about money, cutting trees for money, its not Islamic,' she says.
Her words remind me that an Islamic group called Anti-Capitalist
Muslims is also among the protesters, though I did not run into any.
Their presence ought to worry Erdogan more than any other because, as
they see things, AKP's embrace of cowboy capitalism runs roughshod not
just over the environment but over Islamic principles as well.
My overall impression, and it's commonly shared, is that the Taksim
Park project has morphed into a vehicle for popular resentment against
Erdogan's increasingly dismissive and authoritarian ways. Under a
decade of AKP rule, Turkey has become the world's top jailer of
journalists. Its interventionist policy in Syria is causing alarm. The
systematic and disproportionate use of force against the slightest
display of dissent obscures that the AKP was democratically elected
and remains the most popular government in modern Turkish history.
Yet, egged on by the slavishly self-censoring Turkish media, Erdogan
seems increasingly out of touch.
Be it through restrictions on alcohol or disregard for the
environment, people who do not share Erdogan's worldview are being
made to feel like second-class citizens. The sentiment is especially
strong among the country's large Muslim Alevi minority whose
long-running demands for recognition continue to be spurned much as
they were by past governments.
Hard-core secularists who massed in the district of Kadikoy, a CHP
stronghold on the Asian side are keen to paint the protests as a
backlash against the `Islamist' AKP. It's not just CHP supporters who
feel their lifestyles are being infringed upon. Conscientious
objectors, atheists and gays, almost anyone who falls outside the
AKP'S conservative base is feeling squeezed. The majority, however,
are sick of old-style politicians and their tired ideas. So where will
they go? The question is growing ever more pressing in the run-up to
nationwide local elections that are to be held next year.
Erdogan's political fortunes hinge on how the government handles the
crisis. Pulling back the police and allowing the crowds to gather on
the second day was a step in the right direction.
Turkey is not on the brink of a revolution. A Turkish Spring is not
afoot. Erdogan is no dictator. He is a democratically elected leader
who has been acting in an increasingly undemocratic way. And as
Erdogan himself acknowledged, his fate will be decided at the ballot
box, not in the streets.
Amberin Zaman is an Istanbul-based writer who has covered Turkey for
The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph and
the Voice of America. A frequent commentator on Turkish television,
she is currently Turkey correspondent for The Economist, a position
she has retained since 1999. On Twitter: @amberinzaman
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/06/istanbul-protests-who-are-protesters-turkey.html
June 1 2013
Who Are Turkey's Protesters? The View From Taksim Square
By: Amberin Zaman for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse Posted on June 1.
An eyewitness report from Taksim Square in Istanbul.
I was, in my capacity as a reporter, among the thousands of citizens
who thronged the streets of central Istanbul on May 31 in what some
are labeling `A Turkish Spring' and `A Turkish Occupy' movement. Other
commentators have resorted to the lazy old clichés of `secularists
versus Islamists.' Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
insists they are "provocateurs."
None of these capture the nature of protests that have engulfed the
country. These began when police staged a predawn operation on May 31
to disperse citizens who were demonstrating peacefully against a
government-backed development project that would uproot dozens of
trees in Taksim Square. The diversity of the protesters defies any
such neat categorization.
Destination Taksim
It was close to 8 p.m. as I inched my way along Istiklal Avenue, one
of the main commercial arteries leading up to the square. When I hit
the historic Francophone Galatasaray Lycee, the crowds grew. I could
barely move. Amid all the clapping and chanting, there was one common
refrain, `Erdogan resign! Government resign!' Early on, I encountered
a group of young men and women who were all wearing the same white and
yellow masks to shield themselves from the acrid stench of tear gas
that pierced the air. They said they worked for an advertising
company. "Our boss printed special T-shirts for us and gave us the
masks; he encouraged us to be here,' Selin Bayraktar told Al-Monitor.
`Why would he do that?' I asked.
`We initially joined the demonstrators to protect our trees, nothing
political,' explained Bayraktar. But when Erdogan, `imperiously' waved
aside their objections, declaring that the project would proceed,
`something snapped,' she said. `We are not for or against any
political party, we are against dictatorship, Erdogan is a dictator,
write this if you dare.'
Farther on, members of the main opposition Republican People's Party
(CHP) linked arms to form a human chain. There may have been around
50-60 of them. I couldn't quite tell, but they were a minority. Ilhan
Cihaner, a CHP lawmaker, nodded at me bleary-eyed. `Pepper gas,' he
said. `The protests will continue until the park is saved. But it's
not just about the park, it's about this repressive regime: People are
fed up. They have to go.' Never mind that CHP members on the city
council voted in favor of the project. Time to move on.
As I get closer to Taksim, the smoke thickens. I feel dizzy and my
lungs begin to burn.
The scenes are increasingly chaotic. Water cannons spray the crowd.
Police in riot gear are dragging a man toward an armored van.
`For me, it's only about the trees, nothing else. I voted for
Erdogan,' piped up an unfazed 30-something housewife, her hair covered
Islamic-style. `Destroying all the green space, where will my kids
play? It's not right.' And her name? `No need,' she responded as a
youth with a pierced nose and tattooed arms sprayed a milky liquid on
her face.
`It's for the tear gas,' he explained. His name was Mert and he was in
his final year at the nearby German Lycee. Were his parents worried
about him? `No, they support me. Look, we are talking about one and a
half million trees.' What? Had he seen the park? It couldn't even fit
a hundred, let alone a million. Disinformation, it seemed, was flowing
as fast as the gas. He shrugged and continued to spray.
Above the din, one slogan sounds awfully familiar: `Azatutyun,' the
word for `freedom' in Armenian. It's being chanted by a handful of
Istanbul Armenians who say they are taking part because they are
opposed to the destruction of the park. `The park and all those hotels
on top of an Armenian graveyard,' says a young woman I know called
Melis Tantan.
A slender girl with a headscarf and a knee length raincoat catches my
attention. Her name is Busra Guney. The 17-year-old is in her final
year at the nearby Kagithane clerical training school. `It's always
about money, cutting trees for money, its not Islamic,' she says.
Her words remind me that an Islamic group called Anti-Capitalist
Muslims is also among the protesters, though I did not run into any.
Their presence ought to worry Erdogan more than any other because, as
they see things, AKP's embrace of cowboy capitalism runs roughshod not
just over the environment but over Islamic principles as well.
My overall impression, and it's commonly shared, is that the Taksim
Park project has morphed into a vehicle for popular resentment against
Erdogan's increasingly dismissive and authoritarian ways. Under a
decade of AKP rule, Turkey has become the world's top jailer of
journalists. Its interventionist policy in Syria is causing alarm. The
systematic and disproportionate use of force against the slightest
display of dissent obscures that the AKP was democratically elected
and remains the most popular government in modern Turkish history.
Yet, egged on by the slavishly self-censoring Turkish media, Erdogan
seems increasingly out of touch.
Be it through restrictions on alcohol or disregard for the
environment, people who do not share Erdogan's worldview are being
made to feel like second-class citizens. The sentiment is especially
strong among the country's large Muslim Alevi minority whose
long-running demands for recognition continue to be spurned much as
they were by past governments.
Hard-core secularists who massed in the district of Kadikoy, a CHP
stronghold on the Asian side are keen to paint the protests as a
backlash against the `Islamist' AKP. It's not just CHP supporters who
feel their lifestyles are being infringed upon. Conscientious
objectors, atheists and gays, almost anyone who falls outside the
AKP'S conservative base is feeling squeezed. The majority, however,
are sick of old-style politicians and their tired ideas. So where will
they go? The question is growing ever more pressing in the run-up to
nationwide local elections that are to be held next year.
Erdogan's political fortunes hinge on how the government handles the
crisis. Pulling back the police and allowing the crowds to gather on
the second day was a step in the right direction.
Turkey is not on the brink of a revolution. A Turkish Spring is not
afoot. Erdogan is no dictator. He is a democratically elected leader
who has been acting in an increasingly undemocratic way. And as
Erdogan himself acknowledged, his fate will be decided at the ballot
box, not in the streets.
Amberin Zaman is an Istanbul-based writer who has covered Turkey for
The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph and
the Voice of America. A frequent commentator on Turkish television,
she is currently Turkey correspondent for The Economist, a position
she has retained since 1999. On Twitter: @amberinzaman
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/06/istanbul-protests-who-are-protesters-turkey.html