City Squares by Catie Marron

Author:Catie Marron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

Gezi Park, Taksim Square, ©Viki-Picture/creativecommons.org

It all started when the AKP government, with Prime Minister Erdogan at the helm, announced his decision to demolish the park and build a shopping mall. One way or another, politicians seemed determined to flatten one of the very few parks left in central Istanbul. When a number of people—architects, environmentalists, academics—tried to voice opposition, they were brushed aside by the government. There is no doubt that had Istanbulites been asked their opinion, the majority would have preferred to preserve the park instead of getting yet another shopping mall.

When the first bulldozers arrived on the site, a group of young environmentalists had already arrived, camping there with their tents and guitars, determined to stand guard over the trees. At dawn, while the city was still asleep, armored police officers entered the park. The crackdown was aggressive, brutal. Unarmed environmentalists were beaten, their tents set on fire. The next morning the entire country was in a state of shock and outrage when these images of excessive force were shared on the Internet. As in Tahrir Square and in the Euromaidan, social media played a pivotal role.

In just a couple of hours, hundreds of people of all backgrounds took to the streets. Among the unexpected protesters were people from traditional backgrounds, such as clerks or housewives, who showed their support by banging pots and pans from balconies and windows.

In the early days of the protests, there was much hope and good humor on the streets. But the optimism melted fast. Police responded with tear gas and pepper spray, exerting disproportionate violence. As always, violence created more violence. While demonstrations spread to other cities across the country, new groups appeared on the streets, angry and suppressed, ready to resort to violence.

It was a time of mental chaos accompanied by a surge of paranoia. Taksim Square was unrecognizable during those early weeks. For over ten days the protesters had full control of the area, not allowing the security forces to enter. Giant posters were hung from the tallest buildings. Next to a picture of Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, smiled the poster of Deniz Gezmis, a leftist revolutionary who had been sentenced to death and executed, and one of Yilmaz Güney, the iconic Kurdish film director of the 1970s. Like the posters, the people in the square were a mixed bunch. Those who would never come together under normal circumstances found themselves in the same public space, singing, dancing, breaking bread—or simit, bagels with sesame.

The protests went on for weeks. When the dust had finally settled, there were more than eight thousand wounded, three thousand arrested, and eleven dead. There remains in Turkish society, along with an undercurrent of grief, a deep sense of injustice and sorrow. Academics have lost their jobs, doctors have been questioned, journalists have been sued, and artists have been demonized for supporting the Gezi events. Since then Turkish society has never been the same. We are now badly divided into ghettoes—glass ghettoes occupied with angry people who do not talk to each other, not anymore.

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