Today's Topics:
1. France, Union Communiste Libertaire - UCL press release,
Hanau, the far right, hatred and death (fr, it, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. cnt catalunya: 8M, "IT'S NOT CARNIVAL" (ca, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland): Movement of Freedom -
An overview of the current situation in Lesvos.
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Czech, AFED: Roots of Turkish Fascism (I.) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
In the same logic as the jihadist attacks, those of the neo-Nazi far-right seek to divide and communitarise German society, to install
suspicion between different cultures. But they can also provoke the opposite reaction: anti-racist solidarity against barbarism. ---- On
Wednesday February 19 in Hanau, Germany, 9 people were murdered by the far right. The Libertarian Communist Union wishes above all to
provide support to those close to and victims of these terrible attacks. We also want to assert that the responsibility for these attacks
cannot be limited to that of one man. It is part of a whole political, social and economic system which legitimizes hatred of others and
pushes the perpetrators of violence to act.
Even if we do not yet know all the sordid details of the two attacks that targeted shisha bars, the majority of sources tend towards the
racist and Islamophobic motivations of the main suspect. His video manifesto mixes conspiracy and racism, a call to murder and ethnic
cleansing to protect the purity of the German race.
Seventy-five years after the fall of the Nazi regime, the brown plague wants to impose its terror again, helped by rampant liberalism,
xenophobia motivated by electoralism, and the mainstream media that relay racist theories: overnight of the terrorist attack France Info
thus gave the floor for 25 minutes to Nicolas Bay , MEP National Rally and theorist of the great replacement.
In Germany, the worrying episodes follow one another. Two weeks after a Liberal to be elected with the votes of the extreme right party
Alternative für Deutschland (AFD), a first since the end of III e Reich, and less than five months after the assassination of Halle and the
wave of arrests of far-right activists planning anti-Muslim attacks, the resurgence of fascist violence is no longer in doubt and shows the
inability of liberal democracies to contain it, when they do not fuel it.
Demonstration against racism and fascism in Hanau, February 22. In the background, flags of Syrian Kurdistan.
cc Patrick Scheiber
In France, the notables of the extreme right, Le Pen and Philippot at the head, hastened to denounce these attacks followed closely by the
liberals. However, it is these arsonists who are constantly blowing on the embers of xenophobia and racism. These crooks are the ones who
tell us at wavelength that the "migratory invasion" is underway.
Macron, whose unpopularity is manifest since the first day of his election and who displays alarming benevolence towards the far right,
draws on his speech and his vocabulary: rehabilitation of Pétain, interview in Valeurs current, use of the maurrasian rhetoric opposing the
"legal country" to the "real country" to legitimize its plan to fight against "Islamist separatism", etc.
This tragedy was not inevitable, it was not caused by an immigrant population, it was not due to a lack of control by the police state or to
a "lone wolf": it took root in the violence imposed by the capitalist, postcolonial, patriarchal and racist systems.
Against fascist terror: solidarity, mutual aid and self-management !
Gegen den Faschismus, Internationale Solidarität !
Libertarian Communist Union, February 23, 2020
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Hanau-l-extreme-droite-la-haine-et-la-mort
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Message: 2
Eleven women killed in what we have been this year, and this is only the beginning, unfortunately. ---- It is time to start a process of
recognition among women before a system that isolates and makes us invisible. We are faced with very diverse violence that, after all, is
part of the same structure, and we all have the same enemy in common, which is the State. It is time to start a revolt with the aim that our
claims are not in the background. We want every day to be March 8, we want days of change and feminist days. We cannot afford to wait any
longer, feminism is not only being defensive, but also offensive. ---- This day is a party where there is nothing to celebrate and we
participate in it to our oppressors, who dance to the sound of the batukadas forgetting their true meaning and leaving aside our struggle.
One in three women suffers gender violence throughout their lives, 830 women die every day in the world of preventable causes related to
pregnancy. They are heartbreaking figures, and until when? We are still in the shadow in the workplace, suffering discrimination to qualify
for precarious jobs, not to mention how difficult they have mothers ... How many have not had to hide in an interview their personal
situation to not be discarded!
Today we say enough! We demand rights that are ours, because we were born with them. Enough of dying in the hands of predators, just treat
us like weak sex. Let's fight for our recognition and for the value of our work, but not productive or labor work, but for the weight that
women have in society.
Let them be days of revolt and that every day be 8 M.
https://www.nodo50.org/cntcatalunya/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=816:
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Message: 3
Tensions have been growing amongst the migrant communities in Lesvos since the beginning of January when the new right-wing government (New
Democracy) implemented more aggressive migration policies with a view to "decongest" the Aegean islands and to stem the flow of migration.
Deputy minister Stelios Petsas announced that "the government, from the first moment, followed a different policy on the refugee-migration
issue. With a comprehensive plan based on four axes: guarding the borders, speeding up asylum procedures, increased returns and closed
pre-departure centers." What this translates to is increased spending on border controls, a staggering backlog of asylum claims, fast-track
border procedures that fail to protect people (including children) from deportation if they are rejected in the first instance, even if they
appeal, along with large scale confinement and detention.
Soon after their election, New Democracy disbanded the Ministry of Migration and Asylum (in Greece of all countries) and so far the impact
of their harsh migration policies and the deteriorating situation on the islands has had fatal consequences. On 7th July 2019, when New
Democracy was elected into office, 5,685 people were residing in Moria camp with a total capacity of 3,100. As of the 5th January 2020 that
number has reached a staggering 19,467 residents with a decrease in capacity to 2,840. In August 2019 a fifteen-year-old unaccompanied minor
was killed in the "safe zone" of Moria camp by another unaccompanied minor. In September 2019 a woman and a child in Moria camp died in a
fire that broke out in their container, and in December 2019 a woman in Kara-Tepe (a smaller state-run camp 5km from Moria camp) died after
a heating device caught fire in her container.
On 6th January 2020 an Iranian migrant was found dead, hung in his cell, in the Pre-Removal Detention Centre of Moria after he was detained
for two weeks in solitary confinement without access to medical or psychological support. Since his death there have been three more
reported suicide attempts in the detention facility. Due to the harsh circumstances in the camp where people are forced to live without any
protection, violence and exploitation escalate, and criminal structures develop. As such, on 1st January, a 20-year-old man from Congo was
stabbed with a knife after he refused to hand over his mobile phone to a small gang. While his two friends were injured in the same
incident, he died in hospital two weeks later. On 16th January, a 20-year-old Somali-Yemeni man was violently stabbed to death during a
similar incident. On 20th January, an 18-year-old woman was stabbed with a knife and is still in a critical condition in hospital. These
deaths, along with the complete lack of protection from the negligent Greek state, the rapidly declining conditions in the camps, and
increasingly restrictive migration policies have directly resulted in the recent protests on Lesvos and have sparked a new liberation
movement among the migrant communities.
On 22nd January the right-wing municipal party ‘Free Citizens' called a general strike on the Greek islands of Lesvos, Chios, and Samos to
protest against the Greek government's migration policy. In Lesvos approximately 9,000 locals gathered outside the Municipal theatre, which
had been draped with a Greek flag alongside a banner reading "Lesvos is Greek." While the call out appeared moderately center-right with
slogans proclaiming "We want our Islands back. We want our lives back", the underlying tone of the rally was nationalist, racist and
xenophobic. The populist rhetoric behind decongesting the islands is a strategic and vain attempt to show sympathy for the people living in
the squalid conditions in the camp, whereas in reality it is grounded in anti-immigrant sentiment and is far more violent. This was clearly
demonstrated as people exclaimed that they will throw the migrants back into the sea and shouted "Paki go home" at passing migrants.
The following Thursday, 30th January, in imitation of the general strike, approximately 300 Afghan women marched to the Municipal theatre to
protest the inhumane conditions in Moria camp, to speed up the asylum process, and to demand a lift of their geographical restriction in
order to move to the mainland. In peaceful protest they blocked the road in front of the theatre for a short time but were soon surrounded
and restricted by riot police. During this time approximately 9 migrants and solidarians were brought to the police station where they were
detained for a short time, questioned, and had their ID's checked. The protest soon dispersed and some women gathered in a nearby squat to
regroup. However, the connection between the squat and the migrant movement was broadcast on local media who speculated over the involvement
of the "radical-left" in the demonstration. They went as far as questioning who wrote the banners for the women, as if all migrants are
illiterate and can't organise themselves.
On Sunday 2nd Feb, two more riot police units were brought to Lesvos to somehow control the spiralling situation. On Monday morning, 3rd
February, a group of approximately 2,000 men, women, and children from the Afghan community began the 8km march towards Mytilini to demand
their freedom. Upon reaching Kara-Tepe camp they were confronted by riot police who had formed a blockade to prevent the demonstration from
reaching Mytilini. As tensions flared the riot police violently beat back the protestors and fired teargas to disperse the crowd. The
protestors defended their position and their community as best as possible but after many injuries, arrests, and a heavy use of force by the
police, they fled the scene into the nearby fields and back down the road where they returned to Moria camp.
Simultaneously, a small group of approximately 200 people escaped through the fields towards Mytilini and blocked the road outside the
Municipal Theatre. The protest remained peaceful and they held their position without incident. Throughout this time they were surrounded by
riot police on three sides as the sea served as a natural barrier at their back. As the riot police encroached further into their space,
essentially pushing them towards the sea, a coast guard vessel docked nearby and two SAR RIBs were sent out to patrol the area. In Lesvos
there is a special branch of motorbike police who come from Athens and they are well known for being more aggressive and militant than the
regular police. They were dispatched to control and push back the solidarians who were present at the theatre to show support and monitor
the situation. Between the two protests this day, approximately 21 migrants and solidarians were brought to the police station where they
were detained for a short time, questioned, and had their ID's checked.
After approximately four hours and some negotiation attempts, the protestors agreed to walk back to Moria camp. A large contingent of
police, motorcycle police, riot police, and secret police escorted the protestors out of Mytilini in the direction of Moria Camp. Another
riot police unit was dispatched to protect government offices as the march passed by. After the protestors passed Kara-Tepe camp, the riot
police held back and the march proceeded without them. As the protesters neared Moria village (1km outside Moria camp) the residents of the
village erupted in protest and refused to let the group pass through. The situation grew tense as the protesters compressed into the narrow
street leading into the village and the motorcycle police wielded their batons as they tried to pass through the crowd. Some of the locals
threw empty plastic bottles at the crowd and the church bells rang to sound an alarm. The police intervened to separate the two groups and
ultimately forced the protesters to turn around. They circumnavigated the village and made their way to Moria camp without incident. The
group paraded through the camp in a victory march and to express solidarity to their comrades who had been beaten down and repressed by the
police earlier that day. As they exited the other side of the camp to return to the main gate some individuals at the gate tipped three
large wheelie bins over in order to block the road. Upon this potential display of escalation the camp police and riot police rapidly
mobilised and suppressed all further action.
The situation for the migrant communities living in the camp has become so desperate that many fall through the cracks and are left without
food, shelter, medical support, and cash assistance. As a result they are forced to forage for food, building materials, and other resources
in order to survive. Consequently, Moria village has been victim to a string of thefts and break-ins due to its proximity to the camp. This,
along with the ever increasing number of arrivals, the spread of misinformation, and New Democracy's failure to manage the situation, has
created a recipe for hatred, racism, and fear to fester within the local population.
Soon after the protesters tried to pass through Moria village, the residents held a meeting with the mayor of Mytilini to express their
anger and frustration over the spiralling situation and to condemn the NGO's who are perceived to be in cahoots with the migrant communities
and for profiteering from this "crisis." They demanded to decongest the islands and for full-time police presence in the village for their
own protection. That night they formed a blockade on the road going into the village to prevent migrants from entering and smashed the
windows of an NGO house. The police set up a check-point outside the village, presumably to prevent migrants from reaching the village and
to prevent further violence.
The following morning, Thursday 4th February, approximately 100 people from the Afghan community marched once again to the Municipal Theatre
in Mytilini and attempted to block the road. They were met by a small gang of far-right locals and were violently confronted by the riot
police who beat and chased them away. The far-right gang chased some of the migrants through the streets but it seems they failed to
confront them. Several people escaped the riot police with minor injuries, except for one woman who lay unconscious on the side of the road
after. As some migrants and solidarians gathered to attend to the woman, an older Greek man tried to beat and chase a young Greek woman who
was with the group. He implied that he was concealing a knife in his pocket but quickly fled the scene upon the arrival of an ambulance.
Once again, during this demonstration 4 migrants and solidarians were brought to the police station where they were detained for a short
time, questioned, and had their ID's checked.
That night, approximately 40 locals in Moria village gathered to instigate a pogrom against the migrant community and those in solidarity
with them. They smashed the windows of an NGO car as it drove though the village towards Moria camp, carrying two migrants in the back. They
attacked a resident from the village who expressed opposition to the pogrom and they beat a migrant who managed to walk past the police
check-point without being warned of what lay ahead. Subsequently his head was "broken" and an ambulance was called.
Late that night a group of approximately 120 antifascists marched from Epano Skala on the outskirts of Mytilini towards Moria village. This
action was called in direct response to the violent police repression against the migrant protests and to the pogrom organised by the
residents of Moria village. After marching over 2 kilometres, the group reached Kara-Tepe where they stopped to express solidarity to the
residents inside the camp by shouting "Azadi Azadi" ("Freedom Freedom") and as a symbol of defiance against the violence that occurred there
at the hands of the police the day before. In a vain attempt to mobilise and confront the antifascists, members of the far-right circulated
rumours that the aim of this action was to burn down the Public Power Corporation (PPC) power plant near Kara-Tepe. However, no-one appeared
due in part to the heavy police presence.
Riot police blocked the road with an armoured bus several hundred metres beyond Kara-Tepe. With no desire to clash with the police the group
turned around and headed back towards Mytilini where they assembled on Sappho Square (the main square of Mytilini and a historic location
for the antifascist and migrant liberation movement) to reclaim Mytilini's public space. In a final symbolic gesture, they marched to the
Municipal Theatre and pulled down the banner reading "Lesvos is Greek" which had been left up and tolerated since the municipality strike
two weeks prior.
In the following hours after this demonstration, the streets were tense as a small gang of young men roamed around on motorbikes wearing
helmets and wielding wooden sticks. It was reported that they were checking people on the street to see if they were migrants or NGO
workers. Upon seeing some suspected migrants and NGO workers they chased them into a nearby bar and beat one woman who was sitting outside.
They were quickly chased off by a large group of antifascists who were still patrolling the streets. Two days later the police arrested 7
people in Moria village and were searching for two more people on suspicion of planning or carrying out attacks on migrants on the island of
Lesvos. On the 10th February, the police announced that they were investigating 14 migrants (13 Afghan and 1 Iranian). The case filed with
the Public Prosecutor's Office of Mytilini includes charges of inciting violence, disturbing the peace, destruction of property, attempt to
cause grievous bodily harm, disorderly conduct, and violation of gun legislation.
An ideological war has been waged on the political left since New Democracy was elected into power. It started with the violent squat
evictions in Exarcheia, the militant repression of the antifascist movement, further militarisation of the borders, increased detention and
deportations (with promises to deport 10,000 people in 2020), restricted access to safeguards for asylum seekers, scepticism and suspicion
of NGO workers, and it has directly resulted in the confinement of more than 42,080 migrants on the Aegean Islands. With the recent events
in Lesvos, we are witnessing the normalisation of a violent fascist ideology along with systematic oppression and criminalisation of
migration, brutal suppression of resistance movements, and a ham fisted and pigheaded approach to dealing with migration in Greece.
facebook.com/andrewnflood/posts/10159529671378378
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Message: 4
... and the threat it poses. The first part of an extensive text on the roots and essence of the regime in Turkey. ---- Not long ago, Turkey
was a darling of the West. A popular tourist destination for Europeans and Russians, home to one of the oldest US military bases abroad and
a leading recipient of loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The country bridging Europe and Asia had a generally
favorable reputation anywhere from American military officers to financial speculators. This picture has faded strongly due to the recent
Turkish invasion of northern Syria, which caused considerable disagreement between various politicians as well as international social
movements.
Although many people were surprised by the invasion, Turkey itself has always been shaped by some form of fascism. We are talking about an
ethnic state built on the Armenian genocide, the displacement of the Greeks, and the colonial assimilation of the Kurds. Its foundation, as
well as its identity, were shaped for the benefit of the Muslim population and inspired by the "national system" through which the Ottoman
Empire divided society according to a religious key.
During its first 27 years of existence since its founding in 1923, the Turkish state has been governed by a one-party corporatist system
that can be fairly described as fascist. After 1950 the regime relaxed and new political parties could sit in parliament, but only in a
military coup in 1960.
Over the years, Turkey was influenced by a worldwide left-wing revolutionary wave. This relatively inclusive period ended in another
military coup in 1980, followed by a fascist neoliberal regime strikingly similar to Chile's August Pinochet. The war against the Kurdish
movements intensified during political instability in the 1990s, when coalition governments collapsed one after another. At the beginning of
the millennium, Recep Tayyip Erdogan took power and initially seemed to flirt with liberal democracy, but these courtship slowly cooled and
authoritarian neoliberalism began to mix with traditional Turkish fascism. The latest version of Turkish fascism, embodied by President
Erdogan, is a cocktail of deep-rooted nationalism with a newer version of political Islam.
Since we are used to the contradiction of these ideological currents, this fusion seems strange at first sight. The constitutional
principles of the Turkish state, as formulated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, stressed that it should be a secular state. This secularism, in
addition to being repressive in some respects and, for example, prohibiting the public wearing of church clothes, was far from complete.
Since the founding of the state, his ministry of spiritual affairs has repeatedly tried to channel and instill Sunni Islam throughout the
country. More importantly, the Armed Forces alongside Sunni militias and civilians have repeatedly massacred the Alevis. Let us mention at
least the slaughter of the Alevis Kurds during the Dersim Uprising in 1938, the cleansing in Maras and Malatya in 1978, Çorum 1980, Sivas 1993.
Despite the nationalist nature of the state and the regular mobilization of Islam in the service of Turkish nationalism, this form of
hegemonic fascism emphasized the Turkic roots of the Central Asian steppe rather than a mixture of today's Erdogan Ottoman imperialism and
Islamic fundamentalism. She opposed in particular the student left-wing movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, from which the founders and
cadres of the Kurdish Workers Party ( Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), including Abdullah Öcanal himself. State armed forces and allied
fascist paramilitary units committed massacres, such as the 1978 crackdown in Ankara, during which seven young members of the Turkish
Workers' Party (Türkiye Isçi Partisi) were murdered. Some of the perpetrators of this massacre later became agents of Operation Gladio, a
paramilitary organization led by the CIA and NATO, which in Italy is responsible for launching the so-called. "Strategy of tension" (
strategia della tensione ) against autonomistickému movement of the seventies. Their terrorization and oppression lasted for decades. The
same officials organized a hunt for PKK members and sponsors throughout Turkey in the 1990s.
The rise of political Islam
During the era of violent clashes between left-wing students and state-backed fascist paramilitarists, the founders of modern Turkish
political Islam were secluded. These included Fetullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic cleric currently hiding in exile in the Pocono Mountains,
Pennsylvania. Gülen's long relationship with the Justice and Development Party (Adalet in Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) and Erdogan himself was at
least restless. He began his career in Erzurum, Turkey, as a member of the Congregation following the teachings of Said Nursi. At the turn
of the 1960s and 1970s, Gülen became the imam of a small group of followers in Izmir, western Turkey. A passionate anti-Communist Said Nursi
was persecuted by the Turkish state until his death in 1960. His specific version of Islam was considered a threat by Kemalists,
Erdogan's roots go back to the competing Islamic Movement National Perspective (Millî Görüs) with reference to the relationship between the
Turkish state and Islam according to the Ottoman tradition, whose father is Necmettin Erbakan (1926-2011). Gülen and Erbakan disagree on
strategy issues. Erbakan defends the path of the political movement to take parliamentary seats and eventually seize the government, while
Gülen takes a more insidious approach that combines trade-building and infiltration into state authorities, especially the police, the army
and the judiciary.
These rival branches of Turkish political Islam gained importance after the military coup on September 12, 1980. The coup established the
military government of Kenan Evren, which arrested 650,000 people, mostly leftist revolutionaries. 49 people were executed in police cells
and 171 were tortured to death. This brutal wave of repression paved the way for political Islam, which was supposed to be the counterpart
of a left-wing movement gaining momentum between Turkish youth and workers. With the arrival of President Turgut Özal, repression escalated.
It has transformed Turkey's economy into a global neoliberal system by reducing public investment, taking measures to attract foreign
capital, enacting a large-scale privatization of public services, and moving to an export-oriented economy.
Öcalan fled the country before the 1980 coup. During the 1980s he began to organize the PKK with greater precision in Syria. He introduced
official military exercises and began spreading his ideals in Kurdish society in rural areas and towns in southeastern Turkey.
In the end, both branches of political Islam - the "Congregation of the Gullenists" and "Erbakan's National Perspective" - succeeded in
their different strategies. The Congregation deeply infiltrated the army and the judiciary, while Erbakan's Welfare Party ( Refah Partisi )
became the leading force of the coalition government after the 1996 elections with its founder as prime minister. Erdogan's political career
began in the Welfare Party, from 1994-1998 as mayor of Istanbul. The party's influence was suppressed by the Turkish National Security
Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK) and Erdogan was imprisoned for four months for reciting an Islamic poem, and in 2001 the Justice and
Development Party (AKP) was established.
The AKP took power after a landslide victory in the 2002 elections. For the first time since the government of Özal in the 1980s, it formed
a one-party cabinet. It has succeeded in mobilizing voters frustrated by the neoliberal response to the 2001 Turkish economic crisis.
Alliance with the Gülenists also contributed to its rapid rise. Congregational cadres played a key role, since by this time Islamist parties
and movements had been suppressed by the military and the judiciary. Thanks to the collaboration of competing streams of political Islam,
conspiracy theories have succeeded in ridding the long-term influence of Kemalist nationalists in the Turkish army.
The fragile alliance, however, fell to pieces around 2011. The causes of the split were complicated. The official cause was the peace
negotiations between AKP and PKK in Norway. The negotiation was a thorn in the eye of the Gülenists sharply targeted against the PKK.
Disruptions were also accelerated by disagreements over the Turkish and US approach to the conflict in Syria, as Gülen became a partner in
the United States. The deeper cause was the distribution of economic power. Erdogan's AKP was able to benefit economically from its
influence, while the Gullenists began to find themselves in the sidelines. During the first years of the AKP government, the extent of
privatization was unprecedented. Wealth transfers from the public sector to private hands amounted to $ 60 billion, nearly 10 times more
than during previous governments. The conflict between the two streams bloomed for five years and resulted in 15.
A foiled coup
The coup attempt gave Erdogan the perfect excuse to consolidate power. Now he could get rid of his old allies of the gullen, who became a
threat to his government. At the same time, he could unleash a storm of repression against all opposition, including the Kurdish movement
and various left-wing activists and groups. At the time of the alliance, Erdogan spoke very flatteringly of Gülen as his hojo, or, say, a
scholar, now he begins to call him contemptuously according to his exiled sanctuary "Pennsylvania". Along with his habit of speaking of the
YPG as a "foreign power" (it always spells English), this shows how Erdogan pretends to be an anti-imperialist before Turkish society and
the entire Islamic community.
The declaration of a state of emergency immediately after the coup attempt allowed Erdogan to issue extraordinary decrees. This led to the
imprisonment of over 8000 members of the Halklarin Democrat Partisi (GDP) parliamentary left and pro-Kurdish party, the release of 6,000
academics from universities for their opposition views and the imposition of a zero-tolerance policy against any AKP public criticism
nothing in common. The extent, if not brutality, of the repressive floods launched by Erdogan after the coup is comparable to the events
following the 1980 military coup.
The thwarted coup also gave AKP the opportunity to come up with a "new story". Her ideological foundations wobbled in the foundations after
the Gezi Park revolt. At the end of May 2013, the heavy-armies brutally vacated the tent camp at Taksim Square in central Istanbul, built to
defend the Gezi Park. The demonstrators then forced the police out of the area and built barricades in the streets. They held positions for
ten days and built a "no-fool zone" in the heart of Istanbul, while hundreds of thousands of people, from football fans, a number of
left-wing organizations and anarchists demonstrated against the government all over Turkey. Looking back, it was one of the last explosions
of the revolt series, which began with an uprising in Greece in December 2008 and ended with an uprising in Ukraine of 2014, dominated by
fascists.
The revolt in Gezi Park has been the longest-lasting, most widespread, and most "street" revolt in western (non-Kurdish) Turkey. The
community spirit that was born in the camp offered an outline of future revolutionary social relations. After the evacuation of the camp,
the vitality of the movement did not decline and the strength began to lose in the next year.
The movement was no longer recovering from the police 're-taking control of the streets (the' no-fool zone '). This was partly due to
exhaustion. The spontaneity of the movement, undoubtedly one of the main sources of power, no longer offered a clear solution to reunite the
protesters after they were forced out of Taksim Square. Various political factions retreated into their ideological ghettos. Yet the revolt
in Gezi lives in the memory of many people, despite the fact that it is difficult to speak publicly after the suppression of the Gülenist
coup after the suppression of street politics.
Erdogan went so far in propaganda that later in 2016 he began portraying the revolt in Gezi as another failed coup. Although it was no
longer possible to organize itself according to the ideals of Gezi, Gülen's coup allowed Erdogan to create a new myth in which he and his
government played the role of the savior of Turkey against the external and internal enemy. After a thwarted coup, the lands of crowds
celebrating the "martyrs" fell on bridges and crossroads to fight the treacherous part of the army to keep the events alive in the minds of
the Turks and to create a sense of national unity in the face of "traitors".
After the coup Erdogan consolidated his control in the ground. At the same time, he became more isolated and vulnerable, causing him to seek
new allies. The alliance with the ultra-nationalist (thanks to the connection with the Gray Wolves considered to be neo-fascist) the
Nationally Active Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), which now ruled in a coalition with the AKP, was essentially offered. The
coalition became the epitome of a long-term effort to synthesize Turkish nationalism and Islam. It is today the dominant political ideology
of the Erdogan regime, which is best illustrated by the four-fingered symbol (R4BIA), both in AKP rallies and among the jihadist allies of
Turkey operating in Rojava. On the one hand, there are the Gray Wolves, the fascist symbol of IHL, on the other, the four fingers of Rabbi,
Before the invasion of Rojava (Spring of Peace, October 9, 2019), Erdogan's power stood on shaky foundations. It was a big shock for AKP
when the election for the post of mayor of Istanbul was won by Ekrem Imamoglu, an opposition candidate of the Mid-Left Kemalist People's
Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP). At the same time, the elections had to be repeated at the command of Erdogan, and Imamoglu increased
his head start many times over. The CHP won in part thanks to the support of the (again) ultranationalist Iyi Party and the full support of
GDP. Meanwhile, some long-standing members of the AKP, including its founders, began to turn away from Erdogan and contemplate the creation
of a new political grouping. Similar internal cleavage was initiated by former MHP members.
If we look at contemporary world autocrats, such as Bolsonaro, Duterte, Trump, Putin, Xinjiang, as-Sisi and Orban (not to mention ambitious
demagos who are just breaking into power), one might say that Erdogan is a model despot (omitting Putin). Erdogan and the other autocrats
celebrate each other. Orbán poems about "the strong legitimacy of the Turkish leader," while Trump comments on the lifetime nomination of
Xinjiang by saying, "Maybe we will have to try it once, too."
Similarly, revolutionaries from the US to the Philippines must learn from what happened in Turkey. We should analyze the alliances between
the acting right-wing parties, even though they are obviously fragile. Investigate the political ideologies of the various factions and,
above all, find out how to sow the seed of discord in their relations and crush the coalition they form. On the one hand, we need to
understand the basis on which nationalism and religious fundamentalism are mobilizing together, which reinforces each other so that we can
destroy their alliance before any self-organization and political action is impossible. On the other hand, we must address an alternative
vision with the part of society that suffers the most under the rule of nationalists and fundamentalists.
(to be continued)
https://www.afed.cz/text/7122/koreny-tureckeho-fasismu-i
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