Day 4 of the Taksim Protests

It's my 5th day in Turkey for my academic program, which has ran roughly parallel with the protests in Istanbul. Peaceful protests began on May 30th as bulldozers started excavating the trees in Gezi Park, part of Taksim Square, the main public space in Istanbul. The park was originally military barracks under Ottoman times, but was renovated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (the father of Turks) after the founding of the Turkish Republic and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Turks are, in general, big fans of Atatürk's legacy of creating the Turkish nation, language and identity from disparate Ottoman notions.

Protesters wanted to save Gezi Park from being demolished and replaced by a shopping mall and condos, a designation decided without the input of locals by the Turkish municipality and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Prime Minister of Turkey. Police raided the protesters on May 31st, throwing teargas into the crowds and burning protester tents. The police brought in riot vans and doused the crowds in water and threw teargas into the metro station. Many protesters and bystanders sought cover in neighborhood stores, as white smoke covered the Square. 

The protesters rallied against police brutality in Taksim, and all over Turkey; thousands more came to the aid of the protesters, including military officers handing out free gas masks. Violence against protesters escalated as several people were killed by the toxic levels of teargas. So far, 3 are dead, 3 blinded, many maimed and injured. On June 1st, 40,000 Turks lined the Bosporus Bridge  in protest of the increasingly despotic response to what was a peaceful protest. 

The heat died down after police left on the on June 1st, and as thousands of Turks stayed in Taksim and Beşiktaş areas, not far from where I am staying. 

I went to check out the continued protests in Beşiktaş on June 2nd, as I heard there was a waning, and therefore an opening for foreigners like me, to scope it out. My friend and I talked to some protesters among the many standing in the street, singing the national anthem and waving Turkish flags with the face of Atatürk plastered on them. My friend was critical of Occupy's lack of specific demands (and viewed that as one of the fundamental causes of its failure as a movement), while I just wanted to chat, really.

We first talked to a couple that spoke English and explained that the movement was not about the park, per se, but about the politics of Erdoğan that cut freedoms, referring to the law passed recently banning the sale of alcohol after 10 pm, and the laws barring public displays of affection. "We just want to drink alcohol and live our lives and not be bothered," we were told. These sentiments were developed and expanded by the long conversation we had with two German women of Turkish descent in Istanbul for holiday and protest. They explained, at length, that the legacy of Atatürk was one of Turkish exceptionalism, and a necessary creation of a Turkish secular state that granted many freedoms to its citizens. Though his procedures and policies have been labeled autocratic and authoritarian, Atatürk has incredible support in Turkey still. 

Prime Minister Erdoğan demanded in a speech on June 1st that the protests end and his decision had already been made, therefore the protests were in vain. He also stated that the Atatürk Cultural Center would also be destroyed. The two people we talked with saw these actions as offensive to the legacy of the Turkish Republic and to Atatürk specifically. In Erdoğan's speech, he accuses the protesters of being atheists and government dissidents angry because they couldn't get their candidates elected in 2011. While many of the crowd were dissidents, many were not, and most waving banners or chanting the name of Atatürk in reverence.

What was most striking to me was the strength of the Turkish narrative of secularism in a mostly Islamic nation and human rights afforded to all people in Turkey. The protesters fall back on that narrative in times of strife and mandate that all politicians live up to the initial promises and compromises of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. 

Upon pondering these grand truths, I saw university students and young protesters sprinting away from main road leading to Taksim, and yelling. My friend and I parted from our German and Turkish acquaintances, who high-tailed out of the line of fire and thanked them for talking to us. We crossed the street to get a better view of the action as police began to throw teargas canisters into the crowd, some 100 yards away. I caught a little teargas in my throat and we left the area.

I'm safe writing this now, in fact most people are safe, but the police may raid Beşiktaş again. I'll stay out of danger, but I'll try to report what I can!

The politics of Turkey are complex and very simplified in this post. This article better explains the protest, but even it is short on some details. I'll do what I can to add context, but it will be limited. I recommend searching out news about the protest directly, if interested in more detail.