(en) France, Courant Alternatif*: Turkey - "Taksim everywhere!" - In a fierce local resistance to a general movement (fr)

On May 27, an environmental and other activists protesting against the gentrification of 
Istanbul fifty decide to pitch tents and occupy day and night, a rare green space in the 
center of the Turkish metropolis to protest a draft urbanization to transform Gezi Park 
Mall, which is more dressed in a kitch limitless architecture restoring the barracks of an 
Ottoman military barracks destroyed in 1940 ... ---- Three days later, the brutal police 
intervention provoked an unprecedented mobilization in the central part of Istanbul: 
Thousands of protesters flocking from all sides to defend the occupancy and compete 
heavily to the police hours for, with the support of the people who protect, harbor, care 
for the rioters. And for once, police violence instead of scare causes more rebellion, 
mobilization and resistance.

The day after the police attack, rallies and demonstrations broke out in dozens of cities 
and Istanbul even the police should step back and give way to the protesters.

Gezi Park and the famous Taksim Square nearby become a gathering space, permanent 
occupation, "liberated zone" self-organized, surrounded by dozens of barricades. Clashes 
with the police move elsewhere in the city, especially near the seat of the Prime Minister 
and other cities where the seat occupation consistently faces raids and closures of 
territory by the riot police. But every day, the rallies restore the demonstrators who 
clearly no desire to obey their Prime Minister who asked them to give up and "come back home".


Difficult to pretend to be exhaustive. The data and time to treat missing. However, 
according to the findings risky and some guidance, some texts or from the movement in 
progress ... To try to understand a little and understand what is at stake from a famous 
May 31 when everything changed.

"This is only the beginning, our struggle continues"

It started with hundreds of peaceful protesters who resisted the demolition of Gezi Park, 
one of the few green spaces in the center of Istanbul. There are plans to replace it with 
a shopping mall. The disproportionate police response to peaceful protests against Gezi 
sparked a national revolt in just a few days. What we have seen since the early hours of 
May 30 is not only a demonstration of the collective will of the people of Istanbul 
claiming their right to the city, but also a widespread revolt against the authoritarian 
government and Islamist conservative neoliberal of Turkey.

Hundreds of thousands of people of all ages and all political opinions are united around 
slogans such as "shoulder against shoulder against fascism" (Kulaga garip geliyor 
nasilolmali bilemedim ama), and call for the resignation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip 
Erdo?an. The protests spread from Istanbul to Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Eski?ehir, Samsun, 
Konya and Mersin, among other cities, despite the brutal and merciless attacks by the 
police. Since the protests began, the Turkish police used water cannons and tear gas 
against demonstrators. The streets of Istanbul and other cities have become battlefields, 
hundreds were hospitalized and several unconfirmed deaths have been reported.

While this wave of unprecedented protests spread across Turkey, there has been a de facto 
censorship of information in the mainstream media. Turkish media censorship has increased 
sharply in recent years. According to the 2012 report by Reporters Without Borders, Turkey 
has become "the world's biggest prison for journalists" Protesters rallied however, mainly 
through social media. Despite the obvious dangers of the unbridled power of the police, 
people took to the streets without fear. This ongoing protest is unique and historic, not 
only because people insist with a participation of more and more people claiming the 
streets against the riot police, but also because it represents hope for a movement 
genuinely popular beyond the usual political factions.

Protesters # OccupyGezi are far from a homogeneous group. The movement is made up of 
millions of people from all over the country, young and old, leftists and nationalists, 
liberals and Kemalists, the middle class and the working class, believers and atheists, 
homosexuals, lesbians, transsexuals and football fans all united by a collective demand - 
the end of the authoritarianism of the AKP [the "Islamic-conservative ruling party]. There 
is no central political organization that unites these groups, but the protesters are 
showing tremendous solidarity.

The protest them together. This is the effect of being together in the uprising that 
unites them. What motivates them to revolt, it is the will to end authoritarianism and 
police brutality. It is the desire to preserve the common public spaces and resist 
appropriation by the local / global capital that gives them strength. The reaction against 
the excessive force used against demonstrators Gezi Park, was the culmination of a series 
of attacks against fundamental freedoms: the bombing of civilian population Roboski in 
December 2011 [34 massacre of Kurdish civilians], the bombings last month in the border 
town of Reyhanl?, restrictions on women's reproductive rights, suppression of large-scale 
demonstrations on 1 May, the last restrictions on the sale of alcohol; attacks against 
neoliberal capitalist historical and cultural sites, such as Emek Cinema and port areas 
Karak?y, Istanbul Be?ikta? and Kad?k?y, and the groundbreaking of the third bridge over 
the Bosphorus, very unpopular, have all contributed to widespread discontent and if visible.

What appeared at first as a simple protest about the felling of trees ignited with 
passionate frustration of a population that has finally lost patience with clearly 
autocratic and anti-democratic tendencies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan which has 
been presented by the global ruling elite as a model of democracy. People today present in 
the streets of Turkey send a clear message to the world: they do not accept that democracy 
is co-opted. Erdogan is known for its calls to other leaders, Mubarak, Gaddafi and more 
recently Assad to listen to the voices of their people, it is time to start listening to 
the voice of his.

On June 2, 2013

(Source: What is happening in Istanbul?)

Today, we are all someone new!

Many words will be spent talking about the last four days. Much will be written and many 
grand and political analyzes are surely underway.

But what has really happened during those four days?

Resistance in defense of Gezi Park operated collective capacity that we, ordinary people, 
we have self-organize and help each other, and act. There just enough of a spark ...

We saw the body of the resistance when he walked towards us on the Bosphorus Bridge, we 
saw stand fearless water cannons along the Istiklal street we recognized its members in 
each of those, themselves suffocating under the impact of tear gas and continued to fight 
to help each other, we saw when traders gave us food when people opened their doors to 
injured, we have seen with volunteer doctors, we have seen when grandmothers are put in 
their windows and banged on their pots all night as a sign of strength.

The police conducted a true offensive war against us, and the police have exhausted their 
stocks of tear gas, they trapped us in the subway, have burnt our tents at night and we 
were shot with rubber bullets - but they failed to break the body.

Because the body resistance, once started, could not stop.

And now all these experiences times are part of the collective memory that flows in the 
veins of the body so that we can always remember one simple thing: we can choose our own 
destiny through our own collective action.

We can recover our lives and where we want to live

What began in Gezi Park fed our strength and courage with his tenacity, creativity, 
determination and mutual trust. In a nod resistance flourished at Gezi Park in Taksim, 
Taksim Square in Istanbul and Istanbul to the rest of the country. The struggle for Gezi 
Park has become a way to express our rage against everything that hinders us to decide our 
own way of living the city.

After this demonstration of anger and solidarity, nothing will be as before. None of us 
will be quite the same. Because now we saw something we had never before seen: what we 
were capable of. We have not only seen, we did it together. We knew making the spark that 
gave life to a body of collective resistance and put in motion.

The struggle for the defense of Gezi Park sparked a rebellion of youth because it offered 
a place and meaning in at least two generations who grew up under the government of the 
AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi / Party Justice and Development) and identify Recep Tayyip 
Erdo?an as a figure of authoritarianism. These are the children of the evicted families 
Tarlaba?? [translator's note: Kurdish and Roma neighborhood during destruction near 
Taksim) on behalf of the grandiose projects of gentrification, it is the workers who lost 
their jobs in the name of cost reduction production and the privatization of factories. 
Any fight that arise from now will be enriched by these generations.

But there is more. The struggle to recover Gezi Park and Taksim Square has changed the 
very definition of the meaning of public space because the battle for the right to stay in 
Taksim Square cut in pieces the hegemony of economic profit as a moral rule . She rejected 
the development plan through which the AKP wanted to decide the social role of our public 
spaces, changing the rules of how we live our city, and at what price and how aesthetics. 
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tried to impose his idea of ??what should be a place, but today 
Taksim is what our strength intended it means: our public square.

We saw one park resistance may cause and we now know that we are perfectly capable of 
turning new sparks and new resistances.

We can feel our collective strength against the will deprive us of our common, because we 
have already tasted what resistance.

We will not back down now. Because we know that we are carrying more spark, more of a 
fight, and it is only a matter of time before a spark turns into fire.

This is only the beginning, the battle continues!

M??tereklerimiz

_____

About M??tereklerimiz

M??tereklerimiz, which means "our common" is an Istanbul-based network of local 
associations, community ecologists, basic movements of people struggling against 
evictions, architects against gentrification, anti-capitalist and labor groups against the 
precarious jobs, claiming their right to common property as housing, decent jobs, the 
rights of migrant workers and the public space.
They were involved in the fight to save Gezi Park and Taksim Square early in collaboration 
with the Platform solidarity Taksim, in the last month, and among those who have called to 
resist the uprooting of trees since the night of May 27 Since they continue to protect the 
park day and night despite police attacks.


The beginning of the end of an era in Turkey

By Zeynep Gambetti

Demonstrations in Istanbul, which began with the rejection of logging in a park in 
downtown joined an exceptional crowd of citizens. But the most important thing was to come.

We all Turkey

To my friends from other countries.

We breathed tear gas to Istanbul from Friday, May 31, when police sprayed tons of gas and 
water and fired tear gas at the demonstrators. People were hit in the legs, back and head. 
Saturday, June 1st in the afternoon, the crowds in Izmir, Ankara and other cities have 
also clashed with police.
Hundreds of people are treated in hospitals. But the people of the city have opened their 
homes, offices and restaurants to treat the injured, although police also chased 
demonstrators inside buildings in the gassing and beating.

In Ankara, the tweets and two television very courageous reported the use of rubber 
bullets by police. It is said that the injuries are serious. We continued to communicate 
(mainly through social networks) to find out what was happening. In Istanbul, the crowd 
took over Taksim Square on Saturday afternoon after being gassed an entire day. The police 
withdrew, but there was a tense calm because the demonstrators were attacked in other 
parts of Istanbul, mainly Be?ikta?.
Prime Minister said he will not back down on its plans to transform everything under the 
sun in shopping centers and residences for the upper classes.

It seems that there is a tension between the President and the Prime Minister, because it 
is said that the former is very close to the G?len sect. Led by Fethullah Gulen, this 
religious group, with a modern facade, a control of the media and has schools around the 
world, including the United States. President Abdullah Gul appealed for calm and 
criticized the police violence, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an gave the 
impression that it turned into a contest of wills, as in a remarkably demagogic speech he 
said Saturday that the protesters were only a handful of "provocateurs" who prepared the 
ground for a new coup against the civilian and democratic government.

Indeed, the number of Turkish flags in Gezi Park Saturday was unusually high. It is a 
curious coalition. The Kemalist-nationalist fanatics yesterday now occupy the same park as 
the Kurds, left, anarchist groups and LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender).

Football fans have also contributed greatly to the victory of Gezi Park. There are three 
football teams in Istanbul, whose supporters fought police throughout the day. When they 
are in their stadium, they act like hooligans, but many people here recognize that they 
know how to fight and do not fear the police. How it will all combine in a large 
anti-government manifesto writing remains uncertain.

So, things are pretty ambiguous and, in any case, the battle is not arrested outside 
Taksim. This is not a protest to save trees. The government has gone too far. Gezi Park 
was the straw that broke the camel's back, but we have endured many things over the past 
month: the arrests of Kurds and activists on absurd charges, program changes in schools to 
impose courses of religion for children attempts to ban abortion, and the bombing of 
Kurdish civilians crossing the Turkish-Iraqi border (mistaking the guerrillas), the 
military arm of iron with Syria, the mysterious bomb killed fifty people Reyhanl?, near 
the Syrian border, the attempt to limit the consumption of alcohol, and the gigantic 
projects to completely change the face of Istanbul, the decision to call the third bridge 
over the Bosphorus name of an Ottoman sultan that almost destroyed the Alevi population 
(the largest non-Sunni Muslim sect of Turkey), and finally, the project Gezi Park.

Meanwhile, the Kurds together 500 Turkish intellectuals, journalists and leaders of civil 
society in Ankara last weekend to present an alternative peace plan. How people began to 
take control of their lives, and began to recognize their crimes one vis-?-vis other (eg, 
the Kurds have participated in the Armenian genocide, and LGBT groups are vilified by 
Marxist left) was actually very impressive. They drew concrete demands to impose their 
will on the reductionist vision of government peace.

In short, this may be the beginning of the end of an era. Part of the population feels the 
need to overthrow the government, but what comes in its place is the most important issue 
today.

June 3, 2013

Zeynep Gambetti

(Zeynep Gambetti is Associate Professor of Political Theory at Bosphorus University in 
Istanbul)

Saving a park in a strike of millions of workers

Context of events in Turkey

Today, June 5, 2013, there is a "general strike" in Turkey. It is expected that about half 
a million workers will take part in the strike, which was launched by five unions 'left', 
KESK (public sector), DISK (Confederation of Revolutionary sector union private), 
E?T?M-SEN (teachers) TTMOB (Chamber of Engineers and Architects), and TOB (room 
physicians). Since last Friday [May 31], there have been hundreds of events in 67 of 81 
provinces, millions in the streets of Turkey, at least two people were killed and 
thousands arrested.

How has this situation arisen in less than a week? How a small protest against development 
in an Istanbul park has it become a fire that ignited across the country, and set in 
motion an enormous amount of people. To understand this, it is necessary to examine 
details of the context.

Of course, this is not the construction of a supermarket that ignited the country. Events 
in Gezi Park acted primarily as a spark of an existing magazine. There are five main 
causes of the current conflagration.

? Police brutality. Probably the most immediate cause was the brutality used by the police 
to evict the anti-development protesters in Taksim Square. Turkish police have a long 
history of brutal attacks on protesters and engage in incredibly violent attacks, even 
against small peaceful demonstrations. In recent years, it still seems to have worsened 
with gas guns and water are now the preferred method to manage as different as the huge 
marches May 1 situations, unruly soccer fans and small events environmentalists. It is the 
reaction to this kind of violence that seems to be the element that has inflamed the 
situation.

? Taksim. Taksim Square itself has a special place in the history of the working class and 
the left in Turkey. It is the center of Istanbul, the traditional place of steps 1 May, 
and this is where, in 1977, that 42 people were killed and 220 injured in the May 1. In 
recent years, with one notable exception, the marches were banned from the site, and there 
was street fighting on a large scale when people were trying to achieve. Taksim has a 
special place in the heart of the Turkish left, and maybe even that worse than the 
construction of a supermarket, there is the government's intention to build a mosque.

? creeping Islamization. The Party of Justice and Development (AKP) is the direct 
descendant of the Welfare Party (RP), which was forced out of office in 1997 in what is 
known in Turkey as a quick post-modern state. The following year, the party was banned for 
violating the constitutional principles of secularism. It has been in power, increasing 
his majority at each election since 2002, and 2011 elections, he won overwhelmingly with 
49.8% of votes. During this period, he slowly slashed the secular system. The most famous 
example was the wearing of headscarves in universities, but there are more recent 
examples, including restrictions on alcohol advertising, and sales in stores, lowering the 
age admission to religious schools and announcements in the Ankara subway warning couples 
not kissing in public. Across the country, the general feeling is that the government 
wants to make Turkey another Iran.
Another element that has profoundly affected the members of the largest religious minority 
in Turkey, Alevis [20-25% of the population] is the name that was chosen by the state to 
the new bridge over the Bosphorus. The name of the new bridge, Sultan Selim, is so 
controversial that even the company that built it is reluctant to use and simply called 
"third bridge". Sultan Selim, known as "Selim the Grim" in English ["Selim the cruel", 
1467-1520], was responsible for large-scale massacres against Alevis and other Shiite 
Muslims. The equivalent would almost call a bridge in Iraqi Kurdistan called Memorial 
Saddam Hussein ...

? The regional policy. Both probably the most important aspects of Turkish politics have 
been the peace agreement with the PKK, and support for Syrian rebels. Of course, the laity 
are not satisfied with the government's support for an Islamist opposition against a 
secular state, and lost missiles, bombs and the masses of refugees that has brought the 
country. The peace agreement between the government and Kurdish nationalists also caused 
concerns among Turkish nationalists left and right. The statement of the Central Committee 
of the Communist Party of Turkey on June 4, made ??it clear that the Turkish national flag 
is "in the hands of the people", the Kurdish nationalists should not deal with the AKP, 
and should become a part of a "labor movement of the people, united, patriotic and 
enlightened" probably waving flag that covered with blood as they do.

? The workers' struggles. Recent years have been relatively quiet since the large centered 
around the struggle TEKEL [former company state alcohol and tobacco] during the winter / 
spring 2010 movement. However, recently there has been a marked increase in the activism 
that has seen major strikes in the textile sector and the ports of the south coast. 
Turkish Airlines workers have been on strike for two weeks, and even before these events 
burst, the 240,000 members of KESK were to strike today anyway. In addition, the 110,000 
workers of the powerful metalworkers union should organize a strike at the end of the month.

When all these elements are wrapped together in style semi-imperial Tayyip abrasive and 
autocratic government, it is not surprising that things have broken in this way.

Gezi Park for a general strike

After the initial attack by the police Gezi Park, protests have spread rapidly across the 
country. At the beginning spontaneously with people who just came out on the streets. 
Newspapers and television channels close to the government have downplayed or even just 
realized the subject, but word spread quickly through Twitter and the Internet, prompting 
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to nominate social media as "the greatest threat to the 
country." Twenty-four people have been arrested for the "crime" of posting on Twitter.

The main opposition party, the Kemalist Republican People's Party (CHP) has organized a 
large demonstration in the form of a walk to Taksim and other protesters put off by 
closing the subway, crossed the bridge over Bosphorus by the thousands to join the 
protests. The morning of June 1, Tayyip said that the police had to stay in Taksim, but at 
15:45 the same day, the police began to withdraw from the place, leaving the protesters 
take control. In other cities, the protests have become increasingly violent the police in 
Ankara, tear gas was fired from helicopters, and at least one protester was killed when 
police tried to turn the protesters central square.

Other major cities across the country have also experienced massive demonstrations with at 
least one other victim in Antakya. In Tunceli, it is also a rumor that one protester was 
shot dead. In Izmir AKP offices were burned, and in major cities across the country, not 
only in the center but also in the suburbs, in small towns.

The events seem to be the expression of a movement interclassist including those who feel 
anger against the regime. All kinds of political groups are represented, from extreme left 
to extreme right. In Taksim Square, the banners with pictures of the imprisoned leader of 
the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdullah ?calan were deployed at the same time as 
people waved Turkish flags, and some were even the salvation of Grey Wolves ( Turkish 
ultra-nationalists).

What about the working class?

Of course, a mass movement like this can not proceed further without the power of the 
working class. Calls for a general strike on Monday began circulating on Twitter and 
Facebook Sunday evening. However, there is unlikely to be included, although some 
universities in Ankara and Istanbul began a strike on Monday with some hospitals in Ankara 
who said they would provide only emergency care and demonstrators.

Unions "left" met Monday to decide their response. KESK changed his call already organized 
a one-day strike in a 48-hour strike on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Dikk the E?T?M-SEN, and 
TOB TTMOB agreed Wednesday to join with major events organized in the three largest 
cities, Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Although these organizations say they easily combine 
more than one million members, it seems reasonable to expect that about half a million 
people are effectively on strike today. An opposition group within the main trade union 
confederation TURK-IS has also issued a statement urging its members to support the fight 
by a long list of methods, including the last one is really striking.

At events around the conflict TEKEL three years ago, it seemed that the movement had lost 
its momentum after the general strike. Workers have struggled for months occupying the 
center of Ankara, and organizing many events to force their union so that triggers a 
general strike. When it finally happened, it appeared that no one had any plans to carry 
the movement forward. With the general strike today as with this one, the real question is 
what will happen tomorrow.

Devrim

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013

(Source: here )

Statement of the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK) on the wave of protests in Turkey

In a written statement on the growing resistance of the population throughout the country 
statement, the Executive Council of the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK) states that 
this resistance has sent a message to build a new democratic Turkey. The KCK called the 
Kurdish population to take the initiative in the resistance and to assume responsibility 
for the healthy progress of the process with the democratic powers in Turkey.

The KCK said that the current situation in Turkey is a process that reveals significant 
changes in the way that Turkey is now borrowing to democracy and warned against 
"opportunistic" approaches results. The KCK appeal to workers in the community to 
strengthen the democratic process "democratic solution" against those who try to sabotage 
the peace process.

The KCK said that excessive use of force by the police against the growing democratic 
public debate is the manifestation of the anti-democratic mentality of the nation-state. 
The KCK also noted that excessive police violence is in conflict with the spirit of the 
democratic process in the search for a solution to the Kurdish question. The KCK said that 
the process of democratic solution is to democratization, not only in the Kurdish region, 
but also the whole of Turkey, stressing that democracy can only be achieved by the 
liberation of society from violence and militarism. The KCK said that police violence is 
supported by the government against the will of the people, which has aggravated the 
problems to the current situation.

The KCK said it was very important for the present and the future of the Turkish state to 
pay particular attention to the requirements of public resistance Gezi Park and meet 
protesters demands.

"In order to strengthen the process of democratic solution, democratic environments and 
workers must pay attention to the nationalist and racist powers seeking to sabotage the 
process and abusing people's thinking," said the KCK which noted the following with 
respect participation of the Kurdish people in the resistance:

"The unification of the Movement for the Liberation of Kurdistan with the Democratic 
reflection against the unjust and undemocratic practices and fascist repression in Turkey 
allow the democratic transformation and the way of meaningful results. The objective of 
this unification must be manifested in the democratic will of the people and impose the 
necessary conditions for a democratic Turkey. In this sense, the duty of the democratic 
will and significant changes in Turkey and the Kurdish struggle is to unite and fight 
shoulder to shoulder with the objective of ensuring a solution to the Kurdish issue and 
release Turkey all kinds of repression and violence. "

With reference to the withdrawal process during the Kurdish guerrillas outside the Turkish 
borders, KCK said that some activities of the Turkish armed forces can lead to problems in 
the process, if one remembers the clashes that have short opposed Turkish soldiers and 
Kurdish guerrillas during the withdrawal Uludere and Bing?l.

The KCK said that the Turkish army shows an attitude of provocation against the process by 
making changes in its military positions and causing clashes with the guerrillas on the 
way from the Kandil mountains.

The KCK said the AKP government adopted an unacceptable position using excessive violence 
against the people and leads to a kind of atmosphere of war against what must be done in 
the ongoing process of peace and a democratic solution.


[Translations: XYZ OCLibertaire]

Photos

http://roarmag.org/2013/06/the-day-the-people-of-turkey-rose-up-in-pictures/

http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/

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* Organisation Communiste Libertarie - Courant Alternatif CA