By Elif Safak
National Public Radio - June 15, 2013
Weekend Edition Saturday Host Scott Simon talks to award
winning Turkish novelist Elif Shafak about the nature and deeper causes
of the protests in Turkey, which erupted two weeks ago.
To listen this interview:
Monday, June 17, 2013
Development Won’t Ensure Democracy in Turkey
By DARON ACEMOGLU
The New York Times - June 5, 2013
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — FOR the past few years, there has been a general optimism about Turkish democracy in Western capitals, especially in Washington, thanks to the economic strides made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P.
The New York Times - June 5, 2013
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — FOR the past few years, there has been a general optimism about Turkish democracy in Western capitals, especially in Washington, thanks to the economic strides made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P.
These optimists, and even those who admit that Turkish democracy has its
shortcomings, tend to subscribe to the political scientist Seymour
Martin Lipset’s famous modernization theory — the idea that greater
democratization follows automatically as a country becomes more
prosperous. Turkey has been growing rapidly and steadily over the last
11 years, the theory goes, so perhaps all we need is patience. By this
logic, Mr. Erdogan’s own economic success will inexorably bring an end
to his authoritarian style of government.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Taksim Square is not Tahrir Square
By Ali Murat Yel and Alparslan Nas
The main actors in Turkey's ongoing protests are motivated by reactionary ideology, not environmental concerns.
Al Jazeera - 12 Jun 2013
The Taksim Project was announced by the AK Party
during the 2011 elections. In addition to expanding pedestrian roads and
re-building an old military barracks, the project would also, contrary
to popular belief, not decrease but increase the amount of green area in
Taksim. Automobile traffic would be diverted underground and the entire
Taksim Square, one of the largest squares in Istanbul, would be
reserved for pedestrians only.
To read more.....
The main actors in Turkey's ongoing protests are motivated by reactionary ideology, not environmental concerns.
Al Jazeera - 12 Jun 2013
The unrest in Istanbul's Taksim Square
and Gezi Park has been underway for almost two weeks now. Initially an
environmentalist protest against the Istanbul municipality’s Taksim
Project, which would have removed some trees from the corner of Gezi
Park, the reaction has spread to various other cities around the country
and turned into organised unrest against the AK Party's government,
which has been in power since 2002.
A decisive factor in the spreading
unrest was the police’s excessive use of pepper spray and tear gas to
evacuate the Gezi Park protesters on May 31, behaviour that government
officials have acknowledged and harshly criticised.
To read more.....
The Gezi Occupation: for a democracy of public spaces
By Nilufer Gole
Open Democracy - 11 June 2013
This piece was originally published in French in Le Monde on June 6,2013
“Respect” has become a new slogan tagged on walls all over the cities, and expressing the need for a return to civility and call for politeness in Turkish public life. Gezi occupation reveals to us all, how “public square” becomes literally vital for our democracies.
Over the past week, protest movements have spread across Turkey’s largest cities, and appear to become widespread urban uprisings. Despite often violent police intervention, people have not hesitated to take to the streets and block avenues, neighbourhoods, and their cities’ central spaces. Others participate from their balconies, with whole families chiming in to the protesters’ chorus, banging on pots and pans. They have found pacifist means of protest that require no arms or political slogans to express their discontent and frustrations with the Erdogan regime.
This urban movement, started by young people, supported by the middle classes and featuring a strong female presence, has not weakened in the face of impressive displays of force by riot police who use tear gas without hesitation. Clouds of gas cover the sky in town centres, making breathing difficult; but these clouds, symbols of pollution and the abuse of power, have only bolstered the anger of ordinary citizens.
The public sphere has been suffocating for some time in Turkey. Restrictions on freedom of expression and the crackdown on the opposition, particularly journalists who have lost their jobs and the mass media which has changed its editorial line, have put a muzzle on public discourse. The most recent protests in Taksim, which were not covered by the major television stations, are ample proof of this.
To read more....
Open Democracy - 11 June 2013
This piece was originally published in French in Le Monde on June 6,2013
“Respect” has become a new slogan tagged on walls all over the cities, and expressing the need for a return to civility and call for politeness in Turkish public life. Gezi occupation reveals to us all, how “public square” becomes literally vital for our democracies.
Over the past week, protest movements have spread across Turkey’s largest cities, and appear to become widespread urban uprisings. Despite often violent police intervention, people have not hesitated to take to the streets and block avenues, neighbourhoods, and their cities’ central spaces. Others participate from their balconies, with whole families chiming in to the protesters’ chorus, banging on pots and pans. They have found pacifist means of protest that require no arms or political slogans to express their discontent and frustrations with the Erdogan regime.
This urban movement, started by young people, supported by the middle classes and featuring a strong female presence, has not weakened in the face of impressive displays of force by riot police who use tear gas without hesitation. Clouds of gas cover the sky in town centres, making breathing difficult; but these clouds, symbols of pollution and the abuse of power, have only bolstered the anger of ordinary citizens.
The public sphere has been suffocating for some time in Turkey. Restrictions on freedom of expression and the crackdown on the opposition, particularly journalists who have lost their jobs and the mass media which has changed its editorial line, have put a muzzle on public discourse. The most recent protests in Taksim, which were not covered by the major television stations, are ample proof of this.
To read more....
Rethinking secularism, World affairs: An excursion through the partitions of Taksim Square
By Jeremy F. Walton
The Immanent Frame - June 10, 2013
Taksim Meydanı. Partition Square. Although it has taken on potent new resonances in recent days, the name of Istanbul’s throbbing central plaza commemorates a now-forgotten history, the function of the site during the Ottoman period as a point of “partition” and distribution of water lines from the north of the city to other districts. Already long the favored site of demonstrations in Istanbul, Taksim is now the scene of the largest anti-government protests in Turkish Republican history. And the name of the square speaks volumes—what better word than “partition” to describe the increasingly politicized cleavages that have defined Turkish public life over the past decade, finally achieving international reverberation with the current protests? A host of trenchant, difficult questions, both analytical and political, accompany and orient the ongoing demonstrations in Taksim and elsewhere throughout the country. How rigid and inexorable are the partitions that demonstrators and government spokespeople alike identify as the cause of this outpouring of populist indignation? Above all, what should we make of the near-inescapable insistence that one particular partition, an irreconcilable antimony between secularism and Islam, is the tectonic arrangement responsible for the upswell of political tremors in Turkey?
To read more........
The Immanent Frame - June 10, 2013
Taksim Meydanı. Partition Square. Although it has taken on potent new resonances in recent days, the name of Istanbul’s throbbing central plaza commemorates a now-forgotten history, the function of the site during the Ottoman period as a point of “partition” and distribution of water lines from the north of the city to other districts. Already long the favored site of demonstrations in Istanbul, Taksim is now the scene of the largest anti-government protests in Turkish Republican history. And the name of the square speaks volumes—what better word than “partition” to describe the increasingly politicized cleavages that have defined Turkish public life over the past decade, finally achieving international reverberation with the current protests? A host of trenchant, difficult questions, both analytical and political, accompany and orient the ongoing demonstrations in Taksim and elsewhere throughout the country. How rigid and inexorable are the partitions that demonstrators and government spokespeople alike identify as the cause of this outpouring of populist indignation? Above all, what should we make of the near-inescapable insistence that one particular partition, an irreconcilable antimony between secularism and Islam, is the tectonic arrangement responsible for the upswell of political tremors in Turkey?
To read more........
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
What is Happening in Turkey: New Episodes of Contention
By Mustafa Gurbuz
Mobilizing Ideas
June 11, 2013
After two weeks of contentious politics, streets have started to return to normal in Turkey. Although the activists did not leave Gezi Park yet, current political atmosphere has already changed: massive confrontational rallies now harbor traditional battle-grounds instead of the sentiments that gave rise to the Occupy Gezi. The Occupy Gezi was an expression of a mass frustration by a wide-range coalition against aggressive neo-liberal regime that has been symbolized in urban renewal projects and PM Erdogan’s iron fist. The current organized rallies in the last two days, however, push people to be polarized as pro-AKP or anti-AKP. This is the new phase in contentious episodes, and arguably, a detrimental blow to the spirit of the Occupy Gezi.
Western media was too hasty in describing the protests as a “secular awakening” and a crisis of democracy in Turkey. Although late episodes of contention makes the traditional battlegrounds solidified, the initial spirit of the Occupy Gezi was unprecedented. Perhaps for the first time in modern Turkey, we have witnessed a type of New Social movement protests, typically occurring in post-industrial societies. No, it’s not Marx that grasps the spirit of the Occupy Gezi, it’s Melucci. Key words to understand these protests are dignity, self-realization, respect, resistance, and identity politics. All these demands find their symbolism in youth culture, according to Melucci. In fact, Occupy Gezi was largely organized by college students, who were considered to be apolitical (and who remember only Erdogan as their leader). The spokesperson of CARSI, a famous soccer-fan group that leads the mass protests, expressed the aforementioned feelings of youth resistance: “Life means resisting to power-holders!” (“Yasamak Muktedire Karsi Direnmektir!”) (See a recent scholarly article on Carsi) As social movement scholars well know, “relative deprivation” is a key process not only for mass uprisings after economic downturns but also mobilization of educated middle-class youngsters in post-industrial cities (For a shrewd analysis, see Cagaptay’s OP-ED in NY Times).
To read more.......
Mobilizing Ideas
June 11, 2013
After two weeks of contentious politics, streets have started to return to normal in Turkey. Although the activists did not leave Gezi Park yet, current political atmosphere has already changed: massive confrontational rallies now harbor traditional battle-grounds instead of the sentiments that gave rise to the Occupy Gezi. The Occupy Gezi was an expression of a mass frustration by a wide-range coalition against aggressive neo-liberal regime that has been symbolized in urban renewal projects and PM Erdogan’s iron fist. The current organized rallies in the last two days, however, push people to be polarized as pro-AKP or anti-AKP. This is the new phase in contentious episodes, and arguably, a detrimental blow to the spirit of the Occupy Gezi.
Western media was too hasty in describing the protests as a “secular awakening” and a crisis of democracy in Turkey. Although late episodes of contention makes the traditional battlegrounds solidified, the initial spirit of the Occupy Gezi was unprecedented. Perhaps for the first time in modern Turkey, we have witnessed a type of New Social movement protests, typically occurring in post-industrial societies. No, it’s not Marx that grasps the spirit of the Occupy Gezi, it’s Melucci. Key words to understand these protests are dignity, self-realization, respect, resistance, and identity politics. All these demands find their symbolism in youth culture, according to Melucci. In fact, Occupy Gezi was largely organized by college students, who were considered to be apolitical (and who remember only Erdogan as their leader). The spokesperson of CARSI, a famous soccer-fan group that leads the mass protests, expressed the aforementioned feelings of youth resistance: “Life means resisting to power-holders!” (“Yasamak Muktedire Karsi Direnmektir!”) (See a recent scholarly article on Carsi) As social movement scholars well know, “relative deprivation” is a key process not only for mass uprisings after economic downturns but also mobilization of educated middle-class youngsters in post-industrial cities (For a shrewd analysis, see Cagaptay’s OP-ED in NY Times).
To read more.......
‘Not a Crime nor a Sin’: Organised Political Activism as the Way Forward in Turkey
By Volkan Yılmaz
RESEARCHTURKEY
CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH ON TURKEY – June 10, 2013
RESEARCHTURKEY
CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH ON TURKEY – June 10, 2013
Gezi Park, located in one of the busiest
city centres of Istanbul, has become home to hundreds of thousands of
protestors for almost two weeks. Resilience of protestors in Gezi Park
coupled with increasing police violence against protestors and the Prime
Minister Erdoğan’s humiliation of the protestors sparked an
unprecedented series of protests both in other parts of Istanbul and in
more than 70 provinces of Turkey. The scope and continuity of protests
and the number of people involved in these protests have been never
before seen in the history of Turkey.
Steady economic growth throughout the
Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) period
did not go hand in hand with the enhancement of citizens’ quality of
life and the realisation of basic human rights including right to fair
trial and freedom of expression especially after the second victory of
the AKP in general elections.
In the aftermath of the AKP’s third
victory in general election of 2011, Prime Minister Erdoğan’s mandate
over the party and the AKP’s mandate over the political system of Turkey
have been consolidated. More importantly, in Gramsci’s term, it becomes
much clearer that the ‘historic bloc’ of conservative neoliberals has
been strongly established.
In this context, the AKP initiated the
preparations for the first civilian constitution of Turkey with the
promise of opening up the constitution writing process to all other
political parties in the Parliament and civil society institutions.
However, this promise has been largely unfulfilled. Conservative
neoliberal historic bloc did not allow different sections of the
opposition to influence the process in any way. In contrast, the AKP
tried to impose changing the country’s political system from a
parliamentary system to a presidential one as its initial condition upon
all other parties in the Parliament.
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