The Turkish Gezi resistance movement against the Islamic
-Fascist AKP government has become a phenomenon internationally. This movement has germinated among the
millennials which include anyone born after 1990, initially starting as a
protest against the government’s decision to tear down a small park called Gezi
adjacent to central Taksim Square. A
larger resistance movement has then been formed in reaction to the use of
police force against urban activists, quickly evolving into a classic study in
civil disobedience. The Gezi movement
has brought together many oppressed minorities working in collaboration and
equality to come up with a grassroots system to further their anti-oppression agenda.
Gezi Park, before it was evacuated on June 15th
by the government forces with tear gas bombs, physical violence and pressured
acid water, had turned into a celebratory summer-camp for self-taught democracy
for university students, communists, the LGBT community, feminists, Armenians,
Kurds, trade unions even doctors and engineering organizations- all keeping
guard to protect the park from government tear down.
The day after their forceful evacuation of Gezi, the
#Standingman and #standingwoman protest was started by a Turkish dancer who
merely stood in the square, spread into popular “standings” by all in the
Taksim Square as well as all over the country, including in places where police
victims were killed in Taxim and the capital Ankara.
Next, organized by the decentralized resistance movement, forums
have sprung in more than a dozen parks through Istanbul. Locals, including children, grandparents, resistance
movement participants, students and small business owners attend these forums
to speak about their views and ideas for two minutes. Contributions are then recorded and published
online. These outdoor town halls are well moderated
and are helping the population gain courage, confidence and most importantly,
leadership skills. By providing a basis for constructive social
engagement, they are also helping build a needed foundation for unity,
collaboration self-organization.
It’s like Turkey’s timid and apolitical population has morphed
overnight into a democratic power base with it’s authentic voice, led by the
youth and is constraining the Erdogan dictatorship at every turn while exposing
to the rest of the world the oppressive tendencies of the 10 year AKP regime.
The resistance movement has caught many by surprise both in
and outside of Turkey: Older generations
in Turkey are shocked by the courage and efficiency of it’s youth and skill. As
revealed in conversations with older opposition party leaders, academics and
top business people, the initial reaction is one of overall support mixed with disbelief,
quickly followed by skepticism: “The
movement needs a leader”. I have
witnessed naive attempts to even think through viable candidates to find
someone palatable to the millenials but with “more experience” (older). While this is well intentioned, it is
unnecessary: The resistance derives much
more power with the all inclusive and decentralized structure it has
adopted. Once a leadership is identified,
it is likely to face risk of oppressive targeting and dispersing by the AKP
regime. The resistance movement, as a
whole, is better equipped to craft a strategy in collaboration when compared to
the limited ability of an individual or a smaller committee. In
addition, it would be premature to limit the leadership potential of the
movement at early stages when the first objective needs to be public inclusion
and education in order to help build a large power base.
The government of Turkey is the second contingency who has been
caught short by the resistance movement: Erdogan’s reaction to each new innovative form
of civil disobedience has been completely erroneous, responding to peaceful
protests with violence. Police officers,
whose id numbers, which appear on their helmets, was concealed. AKP has prohibited the media channels they
control (which is most of the newspapers, channels in Turkey) from covering the
protest movement, and fining independent Halk TV for their uncensored coverage with a pretext
of showing cigarette smoking. During the
June 22nd riots in Turkey, Halk TV cameras were attacked by the
police and while the pro-government NTV channel’s reporter was on live TV
talking about the lack of violence and use of chemicals for public control,
they started coughing due to tear gas.
The third contingency surprised and unprepared against the
movement is the international community:
While Claudia Roth of the German Green Party traveled to Turkey and
experienced the police violence first hand, US President Obama, a “close
friend” of AKP’s Erdogan, by self admission, has to date failed to issue a
statement condemning the use of police violence against peaceful protestors. The US
nod to the resistance movement would have been a keen foreign policy move for
several reasons: Domestically, such a
statement would espouse the democratic values of the USA, and from a foreign
policy stand-point, a “moral investment” in the future decision making body in
the new Turkish government would constitute a wise decision for purposes of future
collaboration. Sadly, it appears that
the US foreign policy strategists have not internalized the lessons of 9-11 and
the Arab Spring and will wait until a regime change instead of keeping their
hand of the pulse of the popular consent.
Despite miscalculations by the older generations in Turkey,
the oppressive regime and the international community, the resistance movement
forges ahead to help develop not one but multiple natural leaders in the long
run, while establishing as powerful an influencing base of power as possible. The
resistance movement has become a force to drive change bottom up: Ethnic and religious minorities function
together with tolerance but in equality. The resistance is clearly the new guard for anyone
who suffers from government oppression, gender or ethnic discrimination or does
not want to live in, or bring their children up in a third world nation under
control of outsiders. That’s
most of Turkey right now.
The level of skill required to undertake a successful civil
disobedience movement is what’s required to run Turkey. The movement does not have to be understood at
this stage by all domestic and international contingencies in order to produce
it’s own natural leaders and path.
