A word from İstanbul, Turkey by Serap Ertüzün
This is a piece written by my friend Serap Ertüzün who has been part of Istanbul Gezi Park Resistance from Day 1
Everyone is wondering what’s happening in Turkey nowadays even us… today is 17th day and everyday more and more people are involving in it.
The question is: What has caused all this?
Seems like it has all started with an aim of protecting a park in the heart of the city, next to Taksim square. This park was a small one but the only green area left at that neighbourhood. Our prime minister and our government wanted to turn this park into a shopping mall. City planners, architects and environmentalists won the court case and the project had to be stopped according to law, but our prime minister said it will continue. One morning municipality workers came there with bulldozers and excavators. Some environmentalist organisations were there at the time and they hardly stopped cutting down process by putting their bodies between those big machines and the trees. Same day, TEMA foundation declared that they moved their office into Park Gezi. In the beginning, TEMA foundation and some other environmentalist groups were the ones who started to live in the park to protect the trees. All these happened on Tuesday, May 28th .
On May 30th, at around 5 am, police attacked the park without any warning before sunrise while people were sleeping in their tents and the nightmare started… they burned the tents, hit brutally innocent youngsters, overdosely gased everyone who are there at the moment…
But they forgot one very important issue: someone was filming!
During the same day, everyone who has internet and social network connections heard some about the things happened there in the very early morning. I was one of them. I, personally, decided to go to the park and support those people. But when I arrived, I realised I was not the only one… On May 30th, Thursday night, there were more than 4000 people in this small park. Some stayed there, some went home late night. After the majority left, the second attack came, again at around 5 am, this time it was stronger and more brutal.
Meanwhile, someone was filming again…
After this violence, police took the park under its control.
May 31th, Friday night was the big night… noone was expecting that much crowd, even the ones were going there. There were maybe 100.000 heartly connected people on Istiklal Street and on the other streets opening to Taksim square. People from all ages, different social statuses were hand in hand helping each other. Shopkeepers were helping suffered and injured people by providing them water and lemons or sometimes taking them in their stores for resting and taking some breath. In short, summary of the night was this: The more crowded was the people, the more violent was the police…
Moreover, and very surprisingly for all of us, no mass TV stations were broadcasting what was happening in İstanbul at that night, even in the day time on June 1st, Saturday. Meanwhile, this extraordinary stiuation was continuing and the crowd was increasing but still there were no coverage in the mainstream media. It was shocking for everyone who is aware of what’s going on… Moreover, during those days and nights GSM connections were too weak, internet was almost cut and street cameras were turned off around Taksim.
Here, I have to mention HalkTV, one small and independent TV channel. It was the only one showing what was going on the streets of İstanbul. But they have only 24 colleagues and only 6 cameras in total. They worked honestly and continiously and today they are still working under the pressure of the government.
On Saturday, the number of people on the streets in İstanbul reached maybe over a million. And in the same afternoon, under an enormous exposure of different types of tear gases and with too many brutally injuries and even with some deaths, thousands of people finally managed to reach Park Gezi, once more. Plus, hundreds of thousands reached Taksim square and everywhere was full of people.
And today, people are still there in the park, sitting in silence…
Here comes the second question: What caused those people be encouraged like this and what caused them not to give up?
It’s not very easy to answer but there are points which can give us some idea…
First, and maybe the most important thing to mention is that all of these people are on the streets with their free will. They are there because they personally want it. They are there because they want Park Gezi to stay as a park. They are there because they are really bored under the pressure of this government for more than 10 years. They are there because they want their voices to be heard and because they want real democracy in the country.
Most of them -do not belong to a party or an organisation. Most of them seeing each other for the first time. Most of them are on the streets for the first time in their lives. Even though there are middle aged or elder people on the streets, most of them are young people.
The harsh conditions on the streets because of police violence caused some people to give their support to this action from their homes. Starting from the night of May 31st, people are putting their home lights on and off and also making noise using cookingware at their windows and balconies. Some people are on the streets with their cars, too.
İstanbul has staying with no sleep for the sake of democracy for more than 2 weeks. And mainstream media is still not seeing it.z
In contrast, on internet, you can see a lot. You can see the young and dynamic side of the movement. You can see reality, videos, photos, comics etc. Even though we are going through harsh days, you can laugh, too. This is also happening maybe for the first time in our history: Humor of revolution!
This movement is the first civil movement coming from the base in our republican history. It is against anti-democratic acts of Erdogan. It’s including all types of people: students, artists, actors and actresses, doctors, lawyers, housewifes, elders, youngsters, poor, rich, educated, uneducated, religious, non-religious, ateists, gays and lesbians, environmentalists, democrats, republicans and even conservatives.
I have to mention there are a lot of women on the streets, too. This much women on the streets is also something for the first time in our history. You can see all kinds of women on the streets: again young, old, educated, uneducated, housewifes, workers, students, rich, poor, some wearing turbans, head scarves or some not.
For me, there is a bad side and a good side for everything. The good side of this action is that it connected all kinds of people even futbol fans supporting different clubs. Moreover, for the first time we understood how strong we are when we come together.
Now, I am asking you, how to call or describe it?
Now, I am asking you, what do we have to do next?
Serap Ertüzün
June 13th 2013/ İstanbul
