Political culture and national identity in conceptualising the Gezi park movement.

• Author: Abbas, Tahir
• Position: COMMENTARY - Essay

Introduction

This article aims to piece together a definitive understanding of the events relating to the Gezi Park movement and the implications for politics and society in Turkey. It is argued that the initial environmentalist protests were quickly superseded by the motivations of wider interest groups, which had specific anti-state motivations. There were also concerns about socio-economic divisions and pro-secular vs. pro-Islamic ideological perspectives, as well as the seemingly excessive power of the state. Others argue that while this was a major event in the reign of the AK Party, rather than reflecting a major turning point in the politics of the country, the events potentially cemented the nature of power among the AK Party and the dwindling profile of the secular-Kemalist opposition. Crucially, it may have spurred the realisation of a civil society in Turkey that has benefited from globalization and localization combined with progressive EU-driven reforms, which in the long-run could potentially suggest a more determined and active polity in Turkey. This critique summarizes the main concerns of the protests and presents an analytical overview of the primary sociological, cultural and political issues that resonate from the Gezi Park movement going forward.

Asking the Questions

When Turkey began a process through which the whole nation seemingly erupted in a collective response to an alleged authoritarian state's noticeable attempts to quash resistance from those seeking to protect the last bastion of green space in central Istanbul, people did not realize that it would become the story that it did. The public did not estimate how it would shape the way in which the world looked at Turkey and how people inside the country saw each other in the malaise and lack of clarity that ultimately ensued. What happened? Why did it evolve in the way it did? What are the consequences of the actions of the protesters and the police? What implications have emerged for the future of the AK Party and in particular Recap Tayyip Erdogan who remains the firmly seated Prime Minister (PM) in spite of the agitation against him and his party? How have ideology and politics shaped the reality and the narrative? What will become of the memory and the lessons from this experience? Some of the answers here are determined through interviews with protesters in Gezi Park and observations carried out in Istanbul during the time of the unrest in the summer of 2013.

What started off as localized resistance to an environmentalist action project, with the backdrop of a general concern about neoliberalism and urbanization, speedily spawned into a national outcry, with virtually the entire country involved in activities that displayed solidarity against the policies of the AK Party. Did these events spark a distinguishable shift in the popularity of the ruling party and the beginning of its inevitable downfall, or was it more of a localised incident that was blown out of proportion by the opposition among certain domestic media and political actors, combined with wider negative international opinion? One respected observer on Turkey, Mustafa Akyol, wrote that the AK Party behaved in a manner more associated with their Kemalist predecessors, namely in that they were 'overweening, in the sense that they claimed to know the right way of life for Turkish society. They were paranoid, in the sense that they saw all political opposition as the manifestations of an organized plot against their brilliant rule. They were authoritarian, in the sense that they wanted to impose their views on society by using state power and even the media'. (1)

While the first four-day sit-in at the park was peaceful, a dawn raid to forcibly evict protesters on the morning of Friday, May 31st was far from that. Activists, environmentalists and people who lived and worked in the local area occupied the park for several days but the police moved in, using pepper spray, tear gas and heavy-handedness to evict them. While there were arguments made about why the park had to be razed, the manner in which these people were forcibly removed seemed severe to many. These strong-arm tactics encouraged others across Turkey to become involved in resistance to the police, some of whom were there for reasons beyond Gezi Park itself. It was then that the scene turned ugly, with the replacement of peaceful protesters by more active demonstrators who were prepared to engage head-on...