PM’s attempts to censor and discredit by various tricks, accompanied with the police violence have blown up in his face one by one.
In the transition from censorship to tactics of direction-reconstitution; from the slanders of rape, drinking in the mosque and attack on those wearing a headscarf to the lie of “they killed the policeman”, from the repulsions of “that place is smelling urine” to the sedition of Gezi Park “residents” and terrorists, all “genius” operations have been cast away by mostly young people literally “with nails, with teeth, with love, and with dreams”.
Its price has of course been heavy. Four people have been murdered. Our people’s eyes have been blinded by targeting them; their arms and legs have been broken. More than 4000 people have been wounded. Doctors will investigate the long-term effects of the gas.
Resistance has turned into a rebellion. After 17 days, PM accepted meeting with the representatives of Taksim Solidarity. The meeting has happened by listening to each other (not understanding). While Taksim Solidarity repeated its demands and righteousness, PM repeated his own discourses; and when he encountered someone (a woman, for worse for him) at the table who objected him for the first time in his life, he lost his composure and left the meeting. There is no negotiation or an attempt for reconciliation.
The statements on the side of the government are quite interesting. It is even a scandal in a state of law. The administrative court has adopted a motion for stay of execution; the government spokesman is promising that no move will be made in the Park until the court gives its final decision. Is not this the requisite of the law? He is promising that the policemen who use excessive force will be investigated. Is not this the command of independent judiciary and laws? He is meaning to say that they will not prevent judiciary. He is promising that those who did not get involved in crime will be released. How will they keep them if they did not get involved in crime? What is the crime? If it is resisting the police, is not the resistance legitimized by this meeting?
In summary, PM has tried to create the appearance that they have negotiated and have agreed on this and that specification before declaring the demands he already knew and the decisions they had already made. So that the resistance can be stopped/made weaker. By the way, we of course have to underline that the obligation to meet the representatives of “chappullers” at prime ministerial-level is a gain on its own for the self-confidence of the civil movement.
It should not be overlooked that it is not only artists but also the owners of the state that have the ambiguity of the statements and hesitations. The concern of Taksim Solidarity and especially artists that “no other people should be exposed to violence and die” is a humanitarian stance that should be appreciated. However, it should be explained with patience that the politics of AKP cannot be changed with these concerns. It should especially be not forgotten that at this stage of the movement, it is the responsibility of the socialists that hesitations in decisions and choice should not harm the internal peace of the movement.
So will the resistance stop? Or does the Taksim Solidarity have a choice of stopping the resistance? Taksim Solidarity does not have such a choice. It is not the control center of the resistance but the moral center. Only AKP can stop the resistance or rebellion as it has become. (How this can happen is beyond the limits of both this article and AKP).
The elements that amass the pressure in the society are standing with all their weight. 4+4+4 stands as a nightmare. Environmental politics are growing worse and worse, we have observed the impact of the press censorship and pressure on the society with the protests once again; the implementation of the police state, dependence of the judiciary, disrespect for the law, humiliation of life styles, sectarianism-assimilationism, hostility against the women, sexism; making people unsecured, attack against labor… and other neoliberal policies have been implemented for 10 years at full speed. AKP has seen controlling the Kurdish Movement as the only issue, has humiliated other struggles for rights, or has tried to implement the requisites of neoliberalism word for word. And the pressure amassed in the society has started to push the limits of the periphery established by the state.
Turning back to our question. That the resistance starting with Gezi Park spread rapidly displays that an atmosphere has ripened which sustains the transformation of individual right movements to social movements. In other words, the starting point of this issue constitutes only a part of this rebellion. In a short span of time it has leaped to a higher dimension and has transformed into an objection against the government. Even the questionnaire carried out only in Gezi Park by Konda lays bare the situation. In addition, when we think about it in the larger, Turkey scale, the politicized dimension of the situation will outweigh. Therefore, it is possible to say that Taksim Solidarity has a very limited impact on ending or moving forward the protest in Gezi Park and that it is entirely ineffective in the rest of Turkey. Even the PM’s charges against organized left do not reflect the reality. Had the organized left have the strength to start and direct these protests, it would be more difficult for him to speak in this manner. The dynamics of the movement itself highly exceed any organizational dynamics.
So what will happen next? AKP’s aim is to remove the legitimate justifications of its continual as well by removing its justification for starting. However, what AKP made people experience is prone to provide the rebellion many more legitimacies. What is to be expected in this situation is that even if AKP follows successful tactics, the rebellion will at most partially retreat and come back with an instigative element by gathering its strength. What the slogan “Government, resign!” embodies reflects the real danger for AKP, and there is no reason or no step taken aback for the rebellious masses to give up on this slogan, i.e. reduce the rebellion to more individual demands. In other words, even if the mass movement retreats (for this to happen, there should be a satisfying stepping back), it will be to regain the energy to come back. The manner of politics of AKP and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan provides the necessary energy for this exceedingly. What is missing is the intervention by the organized sections of the social opposition to transform the destructive potential of this movement into the energy of revolution.
Samet Karabulut
Vice President of People’s Houses
Sendika.Org