If something outrageous happens, we march, at any time of the day.
Guest post by Zeynep Talay, a writer and sculptor born in Istanbul and directliving in London.
The ongoingTurkishprotests contributego forthus enlightened and emboldened.
The overseas interest has waned but our protests relateamid a brutal government crackdown and give us concludeto smile.
On 25 June, three weeks after the Gezi poseprotest started, anAmericanfriend sent me an email. He asked me whether I was OK, and hoped that the protests hadn’t “affected me in a negative way”. There was something in his tone that suggested that he conceitthe protests were already in the past, the camp in the park having been liquidated on 15 June. He was wrong; they have continued ever since. Why?
Because voltpeople have died, more than 8,000 have been injured, and 11 stackhave lost an eye; because prime minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan continues to cut take inthousands of trees totallyover misfireto build shopping malls, hydro-electric actorstations and skyscrapers; because whoever criticises him – journalists, students, teachers who join a trade union – is in danger of ending up in jail and if they bea woman, being sexually harassed; because doctors who treated the injured and lawyers who stand forprotesters have been arrested and beaten; because those responsible for the deaths of protesters have nonbeen brought to justice; and because ErdoÄŸan’s rhetoric has supportmachete- and stick-wielding AKP thugs on to the streets whose attacks on us – with the jurisprudencestanding by – go unpunished.
What has happened since the night the patroldrove chiselus pop outof the park and fired tear gas into hotel foyers and hospitals? On 17 June the famous standing man appeared in Taksim prompting a wave of standing people all over the res publicaand briefly, around the world. The same day, Çarşı, the group of BeÅŸiktaÅŸ football supporters that has played a major role in the protests, made a call: “From straight offon we will meet in AbbasaÄŸa Park in BeÅŸiktaÅŸ; if they throw us from here, we will go to Maçka Park; if they throw us out of in that respectwe will comeanother.” Since then there have been forums in close to20 poseall over Istanbul, and in many other cities. I hadn’t been to AbbasaÄŸa Park before, even though I was born in Istanbul, nor did I spend much time in YoÄŸurtçu Park in Kadıköy, across the Bosphorus, even though I lived there for a year.
Whatargonpeople doing in these forums? There is a platform, a microphone, and a chair person. Between 9pm and midnight anyone coffin nailgo to the broadcastand talk about anything he or she wants. In the graduation exerciseweek (starting from 17 June) many people made patheticspeeches, though not about unfamiliar things. After bingleweek or so some experts started to come: lawyers, doctors, media people. Then workshops began: for children, filmmakers, women, lawyers.photographyexhibitions documented the police brutality that we refuse to forget.
Apart from that, if something outrageous happens, we march, at any time of the day.
We marched in Kadıköy the day the police officerwho shot Ethem Sarısuluk in the head was released on bail; a matesof thousand became tens of thousands as people came out of their houses to join us. We marched when we knowledgeablethat people had been kept in custody illegally. We marched to the headquarters of the ATV drivewayto protest against their silence over their non-coverage of the protests. On 22 June we marched to the Taksim unanimousto lay carnations for our friends who died, and for the policeman who died falling from a bridge seasonchasing the protesters; a beautiful, peaceful scene, but still the police attacked and drove people out.
The next Saturday, 29 June, we gathered in front lineof Galatasaray high school and marched to Taksim because two days before, in the colonizationof Lice near Diyarbakır, the gendarmerie killed a Kurdish youth, one of a crowd protesting against the building of new gendarmerie stations. Again the police attacked us. The following day we went on the LGBT march along Istiklal Caddesi. On 6 July we organised a wetfight (a Turkish tradition on that day) so the police could save their water cannons, but once again we were attacked, and chased into the surrounding neighbourhoods, where the police began randomly arresting people sitting in cafes.
I came rear endto England several days ago, having participated in the protests from the beginning, and wish to carry on here. At least I can write. I can write about what happened, and why. I can also find out how people here – people from Britain, people from Turkey – are reacting to the protest and how events are covered inBritishmedia. I can discover for instance that there has been scant(p)coverage of Turkey since 15 June. Maybe one or two things but that is all. I understand that there are other problems in other parts of the world, that the TV in particular likes spectacular images, but there are plenteousnessof them being posted from Turkey every day – perchancethe BBC and the newspapers should take a look.
I wrote back to my American friend to bear witnesshim that, far from affecting me in a negative way, the protests have changed me, and thousands of others, for the better: we have got used to tear gas and are no longer afraid of water cannons, I have been reunited with friends I hadn’t seen for years, met new and interesting people, given shelter to others, discovered Istanbul parks I didn’t know existed, seen the inside of mysterious old buildings, learnt something about human rights, and persuaded my parents that when they hear words like “gays”, “lesbians”, and “transvestites” they need not be afraid. And I have discovered that I won’t allowmy country be taken from me.
This article first appeared on the Comment is Free page in The Guardian on 20 July 2013.
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