Istanbul park protests sow the seeds of a Turkish spring!
26 replies, posted
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[IMG]http://listelist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/kimyasal-tayyip-eylemci.png[/IMG]
[b]Chemical Tayyip ![/b]
This morning, Turkish police surrounded protesters in Taksim Gezi park, the central square in Istanbul, blocked all exits and attacked them with chemical sprays and teargas.
An Occupy-style movement has taken off in Istanbul. The ostensible issue of conflict is modest. Protesters started gathering in the park on 27 May, to oppose its demolition as part of a redevelopment plan. But this is more than an environmental protest. It has become a lightning conductor for all the grievances accumulated against the government.
Police have waited until the early hours of each morning to attack, just as police in the US did when dealing with Occupy protesters. They set fire to the tents in which protesters were sleeping and showered them with pepper spray and teargas. A student had to undergo surgery after injuries to his genitals.
The occupiers adapted and started to wear homemade gas masks. More importantly, they called for solidarity. In response to yesterday's assault, thousands of protesters turned up, including opposition politicians. But this morning's attack allowed no defence or escape. The park, and the area around it, is still closed, and still under clouds of gas.
In April, a Justice and Development party (AKP) leader warned that the liberals who had supported them in the last decade would no longer do so. This was as good a sign as any that the repression would increase, as the neoliberal Islamist party forced through its modernisation agenda.
The AKP represents a peculiar type of conservative populism. Its bedrock, enriched immensely in the last decade, is the conservative Muslim bourgeoisie that first emerged as a result of Turgut Özal's economic policies in the 1980s. But, while denying it is a religious party, it has used the politics of piety to gain a popular base and to strengthen the urban rightwing.
It has spent more than a decade in government building up its authority. The privatisation process has led to accelerated inequality, accompanied by repression. But it has also attracted floods of international investment, leading to growth rates of close to 5% a year. This has enabled the regime to pay off the last of its IMF loans, so that it was even in a position to offer the IMF $5bn to help with the Eurozone crisis in 2012.
In the meantime, the AKP has gradually consolidated its support within the state apparatus and media, and no longer needs its liberal backers. The Turkish military leadership has been compelled to accept the Islamists, having suffered a significant loss of power relative to other branches of the state such as the police and judiciary. While the erosion of the military's power should be a gain for democracy, journalists have also ended up in jail on charges of plotting coup d'etats.
Of course, there is a history of coup plotting. And the government charged 86 people with plotting to bring down the government in 2008, as part of its investigation into the Turkish "deep state". But it has been able to use this fear to conflate all opposition with anti-democratic instigation, and crush it ruthlessly. During this time, its vote has risen from 34.28% to 49.90%.
It has also demonstrated confidence in the way it has attempted to deal with the Kurdish question, and in its regional strategy. The government embarked on significant new negotiations with the Kurdish Workers party (PKK) in 2009, partly because it wants to forge a lucrative relationship with the Kurdish regional government in Iraq.
Under the AKP, Turkey has been increasing its relative autonomy from traditional supporters in the White House and Tel Aviv, forging close relations with Iran, Hezbollah and even – until recently – President Assad of Syria. This has been interpreted, hysterically, as "neo-Ottomanism". It is simply an assertion of Turkey's new power.
Thus strengthened, the government is on the offensive. It has never needed the left or the labour movement, which it has repressed. It no longer needs the liberals, as its attacks on women's reproductive rights, and its imposition of alcohol-free zones, show.
This is the context in which a struggle over a small park in a congested city centre has become an emergency for the regime, and the basis for a potential Turkish spring.
Source
[url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/31/istanbul-park-protests-turkish-spring[/url]
so basically islamist version of the republicans in turkey? :suicide:
[quote]Under the AKP, Turkey has been increasing its relative autonomy from traditional supporters in the White House and Tel Aviv, forging close relations with Iran, Hezbollah and even – until recently – President Assad of Syria. This has been interpreted, hysterically, as "neo-Ottomanism". It is simply an assertion of Turkey's new power.[/quote]
Turkey has gone to the Dark Side.
[QUOTE]Thus strengthened, the government is on the offensive. It has never needed the left or the labour movement, which it has repressed. It no longer needs the liberals, as its attacks on women's reproductive rights, and its imposition of alcohol-free zones, show.[/QUOTE]
Fundamentalist Islam is taking over Turkey. This is disturbing information. I hope the Turks realize how much success embracing the west and secularism has brought them in the last century.
If it's gonna happen, it better hurry up. There's less than a month until summer.
how not to run a country 101
Just read this on reddit. Holy shit, I had no idea it was this bad.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40856873]Turkey has gone to the Dark Side.[/QUOTE]
Turkey's never really been a Western nation
One of my closest friends is turkish and she is now back in Turkey for a few months now, this is slightly worrying.
[editline]1st June 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=scout1;40859824]Turkey's never really been a Western nation[/QUOTE]
You'd be surprised.
[QUOTE=Wizards Court;40856819]so basically islamist version of the republicans in turkey? :suicide:[/QUOTE]
Republicans are going to love this.
I hope both parties get to debate on rape at some point, that ought to be fun.
[editline]1st June 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40858914]Fundamentalist Islam is taking over Turkey. This is disturbing information. I hope the Turks realize how much success embracing the west and secularism has brought them in the last century.[/QUOTE]
Chances are they are going to bite the bait until shit goes terribly bad.
[QUOTE=scout1;40859824]Turkey's never really been a Western nation[/QUOTE]
Turkey was pretty secular and western after its revolution. They embraced western values and culture as well as industry and trade. The recent events in the Middle-East have only recently sparked this reactionary fundamentalist Islam movement.
No, no, no. :suicide:
[QUOTE=scout1;40859824]Turkey's never really been a Western nation[/QUOTE]
Turkey may as well have been a European state for centuries now.
Now just if we could make it Roman, or Ottoman again.
[QUOTE=scout1;40859824]Turkey's never really been a Western nation[/QUOTE]
Well, Turkey has been considering joining the EU (or was it that they WANTED to, but weren't allowed to in no small part due to this sort of power consolidation/authoritarianism), and embracing the West after the original revolution, so... I'd say they weigh in at "fairly western" at the very least.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40860896]Turkey was pretty secular and western after its revolution. They embraced western values and culture as well as industry and trade. The recent events in the Middle-East have only recently sparked this reactionary fundamentalist Islam movement.[/QUOTE]
Its a totally different story if you look from the other perspective.
[quote]The Sad Story of Turkish Secularism: Do We See Light at the End of the Tunnel?
By Dr. Ahmad Shafaat
Secularism won its first and greatest victory in the Muslim world on Oct. 29, 1923, when in Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk came to power and systematically proceeded with his program of secularizing that remarkable Islamic country.
Ataturk began by putting the administration of all religious affairs, including religious education, under his government's control. Then in 1924 he ordered the army and the civil servants to wear the European style hats, instead of the Turkish cap, the fez. A little later, a law completely banned the fez and obliged all male Turks to wear hats. On Feb. 17, 1926 the laws of Shariah were replaced by what was almost a verbatim translation of the Swiss code. On April 9, 1928, a clause in the Turkish Constitution which declared Islam the country's religion was removed and teaching of Islam in schools was banned. A decree in 1928 discarded the Arabic script in which the Turkish language was previously written and imposed the Roman script. Attempts were also made to remove Arabic and Persian words from the Turkish language.
In 1935, Friday was replaced by Sunday as the weekly holiday. The old Turkish titles such as "pasha" were abolished and family names were introduced as in the West. As part of this new enlightening tradition, Mustafa Kemal assumed the family name of Ataturk and became Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, although some people, who would, I imagine, be considered ignorant and backward by the Kemalists, still call him Mustafa Kemal Pasha.
After the death of Ataturk the imposition of secularist order was continued by his successors. But although Ataturk and his followers were forceful in introducing European dress, day of rest and the system of family names, they showed only faint and theoretic interest in another European tradition: democracy and freedom of expression. Ataturk practically ruled as a dictator and those who succeeded him ruled under a one party system. Opposition was ruthlessly suppressed. The justification given by the Kemalists for their un-democratic ways was the usual excuse of dictatorial regimes: people were not ready for democracy.
But the Turkish people were ready for democracy. In 1946 the Kemalist government was obliged to recognize at least one opposition party: the Democratic Party founded by Celal Bayar, which was defeated in the first election but came to power in the next.
As Turkey became more genuinely democratic, its Islamic character was able to assert itself a little more. The national assembly was soon obliged to discuss the re-introduction of Islamic education in schools. But the Kemalists were still too strong and Islamic forces still too disorganized. The discussion in the national assembly resulted only in the introduction of Islamic education for two years in primary schools and that outside regular school hours.
Yet even now Turkey is far from being a real democracy. Over and above the elected politicians there stand the Armed Forces, something like the Monarchy in Britain. Just as in Britain it is illegal to insult the Monarch, so in Turkey Article 159 makes it illegal to make fun of the Turkish Armed Forces. Prohibition of insulting the Armed Forces is not the only restriction on the democratic freedom of expression. If any intellectual or journalist criticizes Ataturk, he or she can be imprisoned for as many as 15 years. A copy of every book printed has to be sent to special police. Expressing socialist ideas can result in imprisonment and torture. Women writers could be gang raped by the police, as happened in the case of Asiye Zaybek. Women students or professors can be thrown out of university for covering their heads.
Kemalism was a product of a sickness from which Turkish culture was suffering at the turn of the century. Due to military defeats and other factors, the Turkish culture had lost much of its self-respect and vitality. Kemalism thrived on this condition and tried to cut Turkey from its roots, of which it was ashamed. But cultures never flourish by turning against their own roots, except by a free and healthy process of self criticism. It is therefore not surprising that despite eighty years of Kemalism, Turkey has not moved forward. Bribery and other forms of corruption are the order of the day. Economically, the country's condition is mediocre at best of times and in technology it is behind many Muslim and Asian countries.[/quote]
In my opinion, the oppression committed by secularists for 80 years was far far worse than what the current government is doing.
You cant force people to change, there will be a blow back eventually.
Turkish people wanted islam in their lives, they got it because those were the majority (ie democratically). The few (the by-product generations of the secular rule) who want the western life-style obviously cant bear this and are now revolting.
What they (the protestors) dont know is that civil war isnt going to help them. With fighters pouring into Syria from all over the world to fight for their cause, and extension of civil conflict will only be bad news for these guys (minority).
Pretty much why the US is silent on this issue.
Think about it. Do you really want a civil war in a country wherin people (who are more inclined towards an islamic state) get access to weapons?
An expanded civil war in the region is only a dream come true for islamists.
God that's fucking sick. The US won't do anything anywhere it's actually needed. Very ashamed of my country.
[editline]1st June 2013[/editline]
I bet if the Chinese conducted a genocide they could get away with it due to all the money we get from China.
[QUOTE=VTG;40864258]God that's fucking sick. The US won't do anything anywhere it's actually needed. Very ashamed of my country.
[editline]1st June 2013[/editline]
I bet if the Chinese conducted a genocide they could get away with it due to all the money we get from China.[/QUOTE]
Are you fucking retarded? What's the US supposed to fucking do? Invade Turkey because a few people have died in riots?
There were massive riots here in the UK around a year ago because the police shot a guy and people wanted a reason to riot, buildings were burned down and people were hurt and killed, should the UK have been invaded then?
[QUOTE=C47;40864252]
You cant force people to change, there will be a blow back eventually.
[/QUOTE]
tecnically you can, just look at chinese culture which was almost annihilated or russia which managed to do a pretty good job at removing religious influence during soviet era, or if you want more western examples see enlightment, the thing is in order do so you have to be utterly fucking brutal, but it is possible.
the west became more "liberal" exactly because for a long time its leaders decided religion was more trouble than its worth, either for philosophical reasons or just pragmatic ones.
if you think the middle east will ever improve by people being peaceful and nice, considering the guys on the other side(hardline islamists) are willing to murder everyone who don't agree with them you're delusional.
btw i'm not defending this, merely saying how things generally happen, middle east will sooner or later, especially with climate change affecting food prices which was one of the main reasons the arab spring happened, have way more serious conflicts.
[QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;40864335]Are you fucking retarded? What's the US supposed to fucking do? Invade Turkey because a few people have died in riots?
There were massive riots here in the UK around a year ago because the police shot a guy and people wanted a reason to riot, buildings were burned down and people were hurt and killed, should the UK have been invaded then?[/QUOTE]
But do you not know that America is the world police?
What's going to happen with the secular stuff?
I hope that a secular state will exist.
If this does turn into a revolution against the president, anyone think it will spread like it did last year?
This disappoints me a tiny bit. I remember going to Turkey from Greece and marveling at how much more stable and clean and rich everything was.
But if all that comes at the cost of an unfair system, then let the protests continue.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40858914]Fundamentalist Islam is taking over Turkey. This is disturbing information. I hope the Turks realize how much success embracing the west and secularism has brought them in the last century.[/QUOTE]
Its not all about Islamic fundamentalism , its about the fact that Erdoğan is being a dictator..
Great, my parents are going there in 3 days to see my brother get married in Istanbul, I hope nothing worse happens, and things get better.
[QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;40864335]Are you fucking retarded? What's the US supposed to fucking do? Invade Turkey because a few people have died in riots?
There were massive riots here in the UK around a year ago because the police shot a guy and people wanted a reason to riot, buildings were burned down and people were hurt and killed, should the UK have been invaded then?[/QUOTE]yes
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