Master Thesis,
MSc Social and Cultural Anthropology Graduate School of Social Science
Reclaiming
the right to
the city
Resistance, dreams and initiatives for an alternative society, 8 months after the Gezi-uprising in Istanbul
Student: Julia Mikx
Student ID: #10091696 Supervisor: Oskar Verkaaik Evaluators: Barak Kalir,
Thijl Sunier, Oskar Verkaaik
Date: August 18, 2014
Wordcount: 24258
Summary
This thesis investigates and analyses the actions, initiatives, discussions and developments of the neighborhood assembly “Caferağa Solidarity Group”, established in the Kadıköy-district of Istanbul, which was found after the protests in the Summer of 2013. During the Gezi-protests the Gezi Park in Istanbul was occupied by a community of ten thousands citizens from diverse backgrounds, who resisted against the violent police interventions and the authoritarian rule of the Turkish government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. For years they felt excluded from decision-making processes in Turkey, and therefore the Gezi-protesters demanded a more inclusive democracy and started to reclaim their ‘right to the city’. By revealing the acts, initiatives and discussions of the Caferağa Solidarity Group eight months after the Gezi-protests, this thesis will show how the activists are still fighting the system, and how they are establishing their ideal society on a local level based on direct democracy and solidarity. By claiming, occupying and transforming public spaces the activists reclaim their right to the city. During the fieldwork research Turkey was preparing
for the local government and municipal elections on the 30th of March 2014.This roaring and
insecure period with many political scandals and public protests served as a barometer to examine the sometimes ambiguous relation to, and expectations for, local and national politics of the members of the Caferağa Solidarity Group.
Keywords: resistance, democracy, social imaginary, public space, freedom of expression.
Index
Ackknowledgements Introduction
5 6
I The Gezi-protests: questioning Turkish democracy 7
II Representative and direct democracy 11
III Global distrust in existing political systems? 12
IV The Caferağa Solidarity Group 14
V In this thesis … 17
Chapter 1 The Gezi-spirit: creating an alternative society 20
1.1 The Gezi-spirit and the Social imaginary 21
1.2 The Caferağa Solidarity Group and the enactment of the Gezi-spirit 24
1.3 Establishing Direct democracy 27
1.4 Solidarity is the new currency 30
Chapter 2 Reclaiming the ‘right to the city’: Occupying Public space and street-art 33
2.1 Street art: The silent battle in the streets 34
2.2 Squatting: Publishing public space 38
Chapter 3 Physical resistance, Violence and symbolism 43
3.1 “Her Yer Berkin” (Berkin is everywhere) 45
3.2 Protest in relation to the state: violence and symbolism 48
3.3 Unity and diversity in actions: humanity VS political identity 53
Chapter 4 Preconditions and obstacles to endure the Gezi spirit 57
4.1 The loss of heterogeneity 60
4.2 The a-political Gezi-movement and her politically attached actors 64
4.3 The Gezi-spirit and disillusionment 66
Conclusion 71
Bibliography 77
Attachment 1: News Headlines in months of fieldwork 79
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all my respondents of the Caferağa Solidarity Group, who have become close friends: for the way you warmly welcomed and included me, for the opportunities you gave me to join in all your activities, protests and forums, for your openness to share ideas, emotions and lots of fun and your willingness to help me (special thanks to my translators: Melis, Deniz I., Barış and Yiğit); you gave me a wonderful experience, which I will never forget. Thereby I like to thank my roommates Duman, Kadife and Mariateresa and my dear friends Alev and Joris: my Turkish brothers and sisters who made me feel at home in Istanbul with great meals, beautiful conversations, teas, tears, beers and massive amounts of baklava. A lot of thanks go to my supervisor Oskar Verkaaik for his always critical, inspiring and supportive comments. Thereby I like to thank Betül Erat, my friend and fellow student who inspired me to choose for a research in Turkey, and was always willing to translate were needed. Finally I like to thank my friends, my parents Huub and Ger, my sister Roos and my boyfriend Joey for their endless love and support; without you I had never made it so far.
Introduction
> “I am looking for people with dreams for a better Turkey”
> “Then you are here in the right place, here are many people with dreams, let me introduce you to some”.
On the 18th of January 2014 I stepped into the squat building Mahalle evi. It was the second
week of my fieldwork research in Istanbul, 8 months after the outbreak of the massive Gezi-protests in Turkey. I came to Istanbul to get a grip on the political tensions that unleashed a wave of protests in the summer of 2013 and to find out what was left of the resistance in the period ‘after Gezi’. In the months that I was preparing my fieldwork research, Turkey looked peaceful; I could not find any indication that the protests were still going on. Therefore, I searched for former-protesters to indicate what happened 8 months before in the Gezi Park, to talk about their memories and experiences, and to evaluate why they quitted their resistance
against the Turkish system. What I found was the opposite of what I expected. This day I
walked into a building, occupied by group of individuals who were talking about resistance, who were discussing their ideas and ideals for a better future in Turkey and who were actively working on its enactment.
Before I started my fieldwork research my Dutch friend Joris convinced me to stay in
Kadıköy on the Asian side of Istanbul, because this was a lively, young, political active area. “Don’t underestimate this as a research area, it is a real pocket of resistance”, were his words. And in the first week I found out he was right. I had a dinner with him and his girlfriend Alev and they told me about a squat house in Kadıköy, named Don Kişot. It was the first squat in Istanbul where a group of former Gezi- protesters created a ‘social centre’: a place for discussions, workshops and several other projects in line with the spirit of the Gezi-protests. On their Facebook-page the squatters of Don Kişot declared:
‘Why are we occupying?
Because we believe there are ways other than old-school methods..
Because they don’t leave us room to breathe by abandoning properties as garbage before our eyes first, and then taking them back for economic rent..
For freedom of speech for people with no places to express themselves..
To be a destination for people with no place to go..
For outcasts to be able to live within communities other than ‘the society’..
We do not or cannot dare to change, or say that we can change the world, the society, or any community..
We start the change within ourselves and create our own space of freedom..
We want to live our dream world in the limits of the occupied space and to share it
with the same feelings and desires..’1
The same week I went to a forum-discussion in the squat, and there I found out that a second building in Kadıköy was planned to be
squatted, to create another social centre like
Don Kişot. And as if they did it for me, the
second squat happened to be in the street where I was living. The group that occupied the building named Mahalle evi (Neighbourhood
house) called themselves Caferağa
Dayanıșması (Caferağa’s Solidarity Group).
When Bașak, the first girl I spoke with, came up with the magical words above, I knew I had to revise my main research question which until then had a retrospective approach, into a new one with a focus on the present and future of
Turkey. Who were the people that were involved in the founding of Mahalle evi? For what motivations did they squat this building? What were their ideals, goals, and future perspectives? Out of this curiosity my new research question arrived: In what ways do these former Gezi-protesters ‘dream of a better Turkey’ and how do they contribute to its enactment?
I
The Gezi-protests: questioning Turkish democracy
To understand how the Caferağa Solidarity Group came into existence, the political context
and the recent Turkish history needs to be explained. Therefore I will start with a brief
summary of the events of last summer’s protests, followed by an abridgment of the local politics.
Initially the incentive for the outbreak of the massive ‘Gezi-protests’ was a relatively
small and peaceful revolt around Taksim Square against the destruction of the adjoining Gezi
Park where an enormous shopping mall was planned to be built as part of a larger city renewal project. Subsequently ‘the Gezi Park protests, which started on May 27 after the police cracked down on peaceful protesters rallying against the uprooting of trees in
Istanbul’s last downtown park, spread to almost all of Turkey’s provinces’2. In the four
following weeks the initial protest, the cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Antakya were, in particular, confronted with a series of fierce protests, which became increasingly directed
towards the regime of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and his government. The Huffington
Post reported:
Istanbul's main square [Taksim Square] after a crackdown on an anti-government protest turned city streets into a battlefield clouded by tear gas. Though he offered some concessions to demonstrators, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remained largely defiant in the face of the biggest popular challenge to his power in a decade in office, insisting the protests are
undemocratic and illegitimate.3
The authoritarian rule of Erdoğan has, thus far, remained essentially unchanged. This
remarkable state of affairs, the dissension within Turkey and the democratic arguments used
by premier Erdoğan and the AKP (the Justice and Development Party) to legitimize the
violent police interventions, raise questions about the meaning of ‘democracy’ in Turkey. In a preparatory interview before my fieldwork, my Turkish language teacher Ismail warned me to be careful: it could be dangerous to research topics like this in Turkey. Especially last year, many international journalists were evicted from the country, because
2 Hurriyet Daily News, 09/26/2013: Parks in Ankara to be named after Gezi protest victims. Ankara - Doğan
News Agency. Accessed 28 Oct 2013
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/parks-in-ankara-to-be-named-after-gezi-protest-victims.aspx?PageID=238&NID=55159&NewsCatID=341
3 The Huffington Post, 06/01/13. Occupy Gezi Protest: Erdogan Defiant As Police And Protesters Clash. By:
Suzan Fraser and Bulut Emiroglu. Accessed 28 Oct 2013
their articles were too critical and thus threatened the authoritarian position of the government.
“This is Turkey, the government is fully controlling the media, many Turkish independent journalists are in jail for years, and TV-stations that bring critical news go bankrupt because of sudden enormous fees or taxes that the government requires from them. The government is controlling us with fear, by means of introducing insane laws. For example, a few months ago a law was approved that prohibited girls and boys to live together in student houses because according to Erdoğan ‘all they do is having sex’, and that is a menace for the Islamic cultural heritage... So now you can get arrested just for living together, and not only the police, but particularly neighbors who support the AKP will keep an eye on you.… As a consequence, many rural inhabitants do not allow their daughters anymore to study in the city, so in a few years the emancipation in Turkey will be over. Every month a new law like this is
introduced and we can’t do anything about it, because they don’t listen.”
Religion-protecting arguments are thus used to control individual lives and choices of citizens. The explanation my roommate Duman gave for the origins of the fear that detains citizens to resist these laws seemed to be ensued by neo-liberal policies:
“Since Erdoğan is Prime Minister 75% of all the big companies and banks are sold to foreign countries. We have nothing left anymore. How can Turkish people work now? Yes we are working, but most people for a minimum wage. There are no jobs to find anymore, so if you lose it you’ll have to live on the streets; the minimum wage is better than nothing. That’s the reason why we were always silent about the freedom limiting political decisions, because if you spoke it out loud, you would lose your job for sure.”
The combination of the religious and neo-liberalist approach of the current government seemed to legitimate decisions, and prevented Turkish citizens to resist. In 2008 Asu Aksoy foresaw that ‘a new perspective’ of Turkey was needed ‘for imagining and ultimately implementing strategies for pushing back the current neo-liberal offensive’ that threatened the freedom in the Turkish democratic system (Aksoy 2008: 82). In her view it was up to Istanbul’s new urban elites to capture ‘the sense that a different global is possible’ (Brenner
Park last summer. Instead the Gezi-community was very heterogeneous, and as I will expose in this thesis, this made the movement extremely powerful.
Although the Gezi-protests seemed to be mainly directed towards the authoritarian
rule and suppression of the national government, the local/ municipal level of
decision-making in Istanbul also gave an important reason to resist, as Aytanga Dener (2012) argues:
Today, Istanbul is under the influence of global flows and the big scaled urban transformation projects are being planned to rearrange the degraded areas. In this context, [poor people] are displaced whereas the land profit is transferred to the big capitalists. However, social movements and resistance arise against these projects and the housing issue of poor people is discussed in various forums for the sake of developing their socioeconomic and cultural status in the cities (ibid: 86).
Aku Aksoy (2012) points out that in the last couple of years Istanbul has been hypnotized by this “projected city”, which involves a collection of gentrified spaces, and argues that the Turkish ‘cultural imaginary is being increasingly shaped by this very project of gentrification’ (ibid: 108). With city renewal projects, the AKP tries to transform Istanbul into an economically flourishing ‘mega pole’ that is open to market-driven global forces’ (ibid.). As a result, while Europe suffered from an economic crisis, until the end of 2013 the Turkish economy seemed to be flourishing. But these developments have negative effects as well. According to Tuna Kuyucu and Ӧzlem Ünsal (2010) ‘the consequences of this ‘forced marketization’ will result in increased displacement and dispossession of the urban poor and heightened the levels of spatial and socioeconomic segregation’ (ibid: 2). Furthermore they point out another major problem in the development of these urban transformation projects: there seems to be an almost complete exclusion of residents from decision-making processes.
Residents have become informed of the projects after the fact.… [What] officials view as ‘participation’, is the inhabitants’ acceptance of, or objection
to the projects after their official approval (Ibid.12).
This exclusion of decision-making processes seems to be one of the important motives for the Gezi-protesters to resist. During my three months of fieldwork Turkey was preparing for the
local government and municipal elections that found place on the 30th of March 2014.This
respondents. How do former Gezi-protesters ‘imagine’ themselves nowadays in the current system of Turkish democracy?
II Representative and direct democracy
Seyla Benhabib reflected in an interview on the Gezi- uprising, and argued that ‘the reason for the strange coalition that the Gezi Park
demonstrations produced [was] that a new urban, young middle class, inside and outside Istanbul,
including religious and nonreligious, both students and workers, no longer [felt] itself represented by any party on this political spectrum’ (Benhabib in Dissent, 2013). With a same argument this thesis will show that
respondents from the Caferağa Solidarity Group have many disappointments in the current political system; they feel themselves unheard by politicians and excluded from decision-making processes. This is quite contradictive in a system that calls itself a ‘democracy’, which originally means “the rule to the people” (from the word Demokratia: Demos: ‘the people’, and kratein: ‘to rule’).
Among others, David Nugent (2012)
emphasizes that an important reason for the alienated experience from the democratic system among citizens, can be attributed to the increasingly market-driven character of democracies nowadays. Based on Razsa & Kurnik’s and Polayni’s theory, he states that:
The realm that is strictly off-limits to democratic discussion is the realm of property and the economy… [T]hose who enjoy the franchise in a liberal representative democracy may vote on a great many things (although, as we all know, their elected officials are free to ignore the wishes of their supporters).
DEMOCRACY, N. Government by the people; esp. a system of government in which all the people of a state or polity (or, esp. formerly, a subset of them meeting particular conditions) are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly; (more generally) a system of decision-‐making within an institution, organization, etc., in which all members have the right to take part or vote. In later use often more widely, with reference to the conditions characteristically obtaining under such a system: a form of society in which all citizens have equal rights, ignoring
hereditary distinctions of class or rank, and the views of all are tolerated and respected; the
principle of fair and equal treatment of everyone in a state, institution, organization, etc. Cf. majority
rule n. at MAJORITY n.1Compounds
2, PEOPLE n. 3a, 3c.
What they may not vote on, however, is any fundamental redistribution of property or wealth (Ibid.: 281-282).
This redistribution of wealth and property was an important aim of the Gezi-community as this thesis will show. Another analysis Nugent made in a study on a revolutionary group in Peru seems to be applicable to the demands of solidarity groups, which arose from the Gezi-community, in differing themselves from “Liberal Representative Democracy”:
In seeking not only a set of basic freedoms from state intervention such as freedom of the press, speech, religion, and association (p. 20), but also citizens' engagement in economic decision making; direct decision-making by historically subordinated groups (namely indigenous peasants, laborers, and the middle class); full political participation for women; and a strong state “to guarantee the health, well-being, and democratic rights of its citizens” (Nugent 1999; in Paley 2002: 485).
Razsa and Kurnik (2012) state in their reflecting article on occupy-movements that the system of representative democracy has always been limited. Although it implies that everyone is equal, because of equal rights and votes, it cannot fulfill the idea, ideals and dreams of everyone, because ‘rule’ is based upon the ideas of the majority through consensus. Consequently, minorities can be seen as ignored, and have (almost) no influence on decision-making. Thereby they reinforce about the system of direct democracy that the occupy-movements tried to establish: ‘This version of democracy was a direct response to the limitations of consensus approaches, which excluded minorities and made it impossible for them to advance their interest’ (Razsa & Kurnik in Nugent 2012: 282). In this thesis I will show how the Caferağa Solidarity Group is establishing a system of direct democracy, through which they try to create a local scaled alternative society based on morality, solidarity and equality.
III Global distrust in existing political systems?
Regarding the global context, this quest for the meaning of democracy seems to be relevant. Turkey is not the only nation where uprisings against the government recently took place. In
the last four years, the ‘Arab’ world was confronted with a series of revolutionary protests, demonstrations and riots against oppressive regimes, the so-called “Arab Spring”, and in the
context of the economic crisis several Occupy-movements stated their ideas in the ‘Western’
world. In 2013 Egypt, Greece, Brazil and Thailand were facing protests as well, and currently anti-government protests in Ukraine where reallocation of borders and political governance was demanded, led to a separation of the country. Something is happening in the world, there
seems to be a kind of global distrustin existing political systems and power divisions.
Seyla Benhabib states in Dissent Magazine (2013) that although there is no single set of issues that mobilized the uprisings around the globe, there are some similarities and commonalities. She points out that primarily young people between the ages of twenty and thirty-five led all these movements, guided by varieties of left-wing ideology, whereby other groups joined in later. Thereby, in the organization and calls for the gatherings and action, the social media played a major role. Furthermore Benhabib emphasizes that all these movements had a “spectacle-like” quality, and acted in the awareness that the “the whole world is watching”. Herein the use of symbolic gestures mattered a lot. In Istanbul these symbolic gestures were expressed in several artistic forms of resistance, by putting wish-trees in public spaces, by protesting in penguin-suits (the penguin became an ironic symbol of media silence and self-censorship, after Turkish state television broadcasted a documentary about penguins, instead of showing the riots on Taksim Square in the heat of the moment), and organizing forums in parks with theatre and music. Thereby, the Gezi-protesters celebrated the iftar (Ramadan’s daily evening meal) at communal tables in the shopping street Istiklal Caddesi. By doing so, the protesters showed that they were ‘anticipating an alternate reality of tolerance, civility, friendship, and conviviality’, Seyla Benhabib argues. In this way, they “de-demonized” the images of themselves, which were set up by the media that portrait the protesters as violent, dirty, disheveled anarchists who wanted to destroy everything (ibid.).
Arjan Appadurai (2002) argues in his article Deep Democracy: Urban
Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics that new forms of democracy, as
counter-reaction to the neo-liberal focused democracies in the world are upcoming, which he calls ‘Deep democracy’: ‘In terms of its semantics, deep democracy suggests roots, anchors, intimacy, proximity, and locality (…). It is a more fluid form of global influence that ‘constitutes an effort to institute what we may call "democracy without borders"’ (ibid.). By investigating and analyzing the actions, initiatives, discussions and developments of the Caferağa Solidarity Group I hope to make a contribution to the quest what is happening in the
world nowadays: what are the protesters aiming for? How do they see the world? What has to be changed to make their dreams/ ideals/ demands into reality? And what are the preconditions to change a system and make another society possible?
IV
The Caferağa Solidarity Group
Although their Facebook-message was very inviting to everyone, when I went to Mahalle evi the first day I was quite nervous, because I didn’t know how the people would react to foreign strangers like me. That day I found out that there were many more individuals who didn’t know each other before, they came to the squat out of interest or to be part of the project. I was just ‘another’ of those curious, enthusiastic individuals and that made my access easy. I think I surprised them when I came back the next day to offer my help in the cleaning and building of the house. To show them my serious interest and good intentions, I worked extremely hard that day and I think they appreciated that. From then on, I came more regularly to the Mahalle evi squat and after a week I came almost every day to offer my help, to attend to forums or just to drink tea. In this way I found a core group of around 40 respondents in the age-group of twenty till seventy years old, of which two-third was under the age of thirty-five. The Caferağa Solidarity Group counted an equal amount of women and men, of whom most were higher educated (students or workers), left-wing activists, and non-religious. Two-third of my respondents was living in the Caferağa neighbourhood where
Mahalle evi was established.
The research group I found seems to be a quite representative sample of the Gezi-community gathered in the summer of 2013. According to a survey- research conducted by
Konda Research and Consultancy wherein among 4,411 individuals were interviewed
face-to-face in Gezi Park:
Fifty-six percent of the Gezi Park protestors [are higher educated, of which] 35 percent were high school graduates, 43 percent had a university degree and 13 percent had a post-graduate degree. (…) Women slightly outnumbered men. Thirteen percent of the protesters hailed from İstanbul's Kadıköy district, making it the district with the highest participation rate. Şişli, where 11 percent
of the protesters resided followed Kadıköy, and 5 percent were from Beyoğlu,
where Gezi Park is located.4
To gather my data I joined the Caferağa Solidarity Group, and sometimes other groups
like the Yoğurtcu Kadin Forumu (feminist-group of Kadıköy) and the Yeldeğirmeni
Dayanıșması (solidarity-group of social center Don Kişot) in almost all events and activities.
In the first weeks I was primarily involved in practical activities of the Caferağa Solidarity Group; in cleaning and renovating the squat Mahalle evi, wherein a kitchen, a public library and discussion- and workshop rooms were created. I joined in forum-discussions, events, projects, concerts, and workshops for the neighborhood. But soon also other activities were initiated in which they allowed me to participate: solidarity-actions and campaigns for suppressed (minority-) groups, like the trips to the Greif-factory to support workers in strike (described in Chapter 1); actions of occupation in the neighborhood, like the occupation of a public square, and a land to create a neighborhood-garden (described in Chapter 2) and protest actions against the government, as reaction to scandals that came up in the news on almost a daily basis (described in Chapter 3).
When time went by my relation with the participants in the Caferağa Solidarity Group became more intense, however I felt an official recognition of acceptance when I was invited to join their football team when the Karsi Lig (a football league for Solidarity Groups to intensify their collaboration) was set up. Every week a small field was hired for a training session, and on Saturdays we played a match in our Caferağa football shirts against other Solidarity Groups, mostly adjoined with beers, songs and banners along the line.
The data I use in this thesis are mainly gathered through participant observation and
conversations I had during these activities. Another amount of data I gathered in the 11
4Today’s Zaman, İstanbul, 14 June 2013. ‘Gezi Park protestors well educated, poll finds.’ Accessed on 15-11-2013.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-318291-gezi-park-protestors-well-educated-poll-finds.html Respondents during Karsi Football League
forum-discussions in Mahalle evi or Don Kişot, that were held once or twice a week, in which a group of among 15 till 80 participants discussed practical and ideological issues, evaluated events and actions and made plans for future activities. During these discussions usually one of my English-speaking friends translated the arguments, which I wrote down in my notebook. Most events took place in the evening, so during the day I was busy writing down observations/ conversations in my diary, searching (news) articles, transcribing interviews, organizing data etc.. One of my favorite spots to work was the Komşu Kafe Kollective, a lunchroom run by a collective of volunteers (of whom homeless immigrants), where all homemade food and drinks were served on basis of free gifts. Another favorite was 26A Kafe, a lunchroom ran by an anarchist collective, where prices were low because of a non-profit and anti-capitalist ideology.
When I walked through the neighborhood (see Attachment 2: Map of Kadıköy / My
field) I usually brought my photo camera to take pictures of the public space and especially of
street-art/ graffiti, which I also used in photo-elicitation interviews. In total I conducted 7 interviews and in the last month of my research I used surveys with 8 open questions, translated by my roommate Kadife, to conduct more information about individual motivations of my respondents. The response was minimal (in total I received 14 surveys). Probably the reason for this was the roaring context wherein worrying (political) developments distracted my respondents, from the time-consuming favor I asked. Because the local elections were coming up, and almost every day something shocking happened (freedom restricting laws, corruption scandals, Twitter and YouTube blocks etc.: see Attachment 1: News Headlines in months of fieldwork), it was a chaotic and insecure period, where the news was of big influence on the acts, actions and conversation-topics of my respondents. Via the Facebook-page and the email-group of the Caferağa Solidarity Group, wherein I was added the first week of my fieldwork and from which I received almost 20 emails a day, I was informed about all (date-changing) events. This demanded flexibility of me as a researcher. For me it was quite hard to understand all the complex developments and news events, to get a good insight in the strange power relations between many actors in and outside the country and to learn the situations of the present day were all imbedded in the whole Turkish history. Therefore, I decided to let my research lead by the conversations and the actions that came up in the group. By laughing, crying, dancing and protesting together I saw how a bunch of individuals, with individual dreams and motivations, formed a firm group, a common goal and a deep friendship.
V
In this thesis
In Chapter 1 I will give an insight in how the ‘social imaginary’ (a concept of Hannah Arendt) of the Gezi-community came into existence through action and ‘collective effervescence’/ ‘communitas’ (concepts of Durkheim and Turner) in the Gezi-uprising. Subsequently I will analyze the developments and struggles of Caferağa Solidarity Group in the enactment of their Gezi-dreams in daily life; establishing an alternative system, based on direct democracy, locality and solidarity.
In Chapter 2 I will show how the Caferağa Solidarity Group occupies, claims, uses and transforms public spaces to reclaim their ‘right to the city’. Furthermore I will expose that the walls and streets of Kadıköy are filled with Gezi-symbols and analyze their meaning and function. I will argue that these creative expressions in public space can revive the Gezi-spirit.
In Chapter 3 the value, function and force of (violence in) public protests will be discussed, wherein I will argue that the protest has become a ritual to revive the Gezi-spirit. Thereby I will critically analyze the acts in the protests and argue that the unity of masses is
often disrupted when political symbols are coming into play.
In Chapter 4 I will analyze the preconditions and the pitfalls of the Caferağa Solidarity Group to keep the Gezi-spirit alive and to keep on existing and growing as a movement. Herein I will state that heterogeneity of the Gezi-movement is a precondition to effectively continue and establish an alternative society. Subsequently I will argue that the biggest threat for the Gezi-movement is to fall back in old political patterns that legitimize the current power divisions in the Turkish system.
Dreams for Turkey
What does your ideal Turkey look like?
Ercan (37): I want to live in a more democratic country, where local governments have the power to make decisions. An honest country without restrictions.
Alican (28): My dream Turkey is a country where police does not kill civilians, politicians are not incredibly corrupt, the society is organized and the media is free.
Başak (29): My dream is to live in a country like it was during the Gezi-‐ Park occupation. Where people show respect to one another, for
everything that lives or not. To live safely and in harmony, and where everybody shares without expecting something in exchange.
Yiğit (22): I lived my dream at Gezi-‐ Park. I'm not exaggerating when I say I lived in my dreams. Now I dream what happened back then. I didn't even know what we were capable of. What was the core of that dream is probably the Empathy. People got together and felt the same pain in their lungs. They felt the same anger, same rejection, same joy when police left the park. We all cried to the same thing. We were all chanting the same slogans. Then we understand that we're all the same. We felt that others feel just like us. My dream is about an Empathic Civilization. This is a lot different than an utopia. It's about knowing that you are a mortal, and won't last forever and knowing the guy just passed near you is a mortal too and he has his feelings inside. And that this empathy is extended to even animals. If we can create this Empathic Civilization, everywhere will be like the Gezi Park at 5 June 2013.
Evren (36): I wish to live in the feminist and communist community. Therefore, Turkey in my dream has such view.
Yakut (53): I want to live in a free country.
Fatih (25): A country wherein everyone lives as he or she wants to live, a country without borders and
Erdoğan (63): A country where the mass-‐consumption is reduced, without unemployment, without censure and internet-‐restrictions. With freedom of speech and no infringement of the human rights. A country with justice, where the law system takes less time to prosecute, where everyone has free and limitless access to education and healthcare, and where people have limitless access to all news sources. We need a qualitative education system, with possibilities to study abroad. A country where citizens have more influence on decision-‐ making processes, where public transport is promoted, where consumers rights are defended. Where is no chance to monopolize, no tax-‐fraud, where the differentiation in development of the several districts is dissolved. No doping and bribery in sports anymore. Where the human rights of women, children, disabled and elderly people and workers are protected and
guaranteed. Where governmental institutions look after and stand in for the needs of the people, without making distinctions on ethnic, religious or sexual grounds.
Barış (35): My ideal Turkey is a country where historical and environmental heritage is more important than economic growth. Where people are more focused on their individual development and history, instead of caring about their cars, houses and careers. To achieve this, the social inequality has to be dissolved, especially the freedom of women and LGBT-‐people have to be guaranteed. A country where Kurds, Armenians and other minority groups can hold on to their rights, and where every worker gains enough money to live in prosperity.
Necdet (33): I dream of a geography like it was hundred years ago; that the
middle east, the Balkan, and the Kafkaesk can live together borderless,
equal and free. That local municipalities rule and where woman
and youngsters are in majority.
Betül (22): A country where every individual can capture, express and live his or her own religion, or sexual preference, without being excluded or discriminated.
Emir(28): As it was in Gezi-‐ times, the 15 days community
life in the Gezi-‐ Park, where solidarity, respect, empathy
and social needs were common priorities. Without an
economic system based on money and without the obsession of making maximum
profits. A country with an infrastructure wherein potentials of individuals can
be explored and will be deployed (education, family
structure, social values and
Uzeyir (60): Complete independence. A country that is based on universal laws, instead of liberal economy, where human rights are not violated, where ecology is not damaged, and where cities and our water is not sold. A land without shopping malls, where agriculture is protected and the Anatolian culture is protected and respected. A country with children-‐ and women rights: against child marriages, protecting women against violence. A Turkey without ethnic or religious
Chapter 1: The Gezi-spirit: creating an alternative society
We hold in common a world we create in common, in part by the processes through which we imagine it. It is in these processes that the social imaginary shapes…. The social imaginary foregrounds ways of imagining social life that actually make it possible (Arendt in Calhoun 2002:152, 163)
In this chapter I will analyze the dreams of my respondents and show how my respondents are working on the enactment of those dreams for a better Turkey. The ‘social imaginary’ seems to be a useful concept, which helps to explain what underlies the common drive to work on a better future for Turkey. Taylor (2002) defines the social imaginary as ‘the ways in which people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations’ (Ibid.: 106). According to Taylor, the social imaginary foregrounds a model in which society is based and legitimized. In his article Modern Social Imaginaries, Taylor explains how our modern model of society and the notion of social order came into existence and under which conditions it can change over time. He states that nowadays;
The fundamental model seems to be what we have come to call an economy, [wherein eventually] the main goals of organized society were security and economic prosperity, but because the whole theory emphasized a kind of profitable exchange, one could begin to see political society itself through a quasi-economic metaphor…. The economic now defines a way in which we are linked together, a sphere of coexistence that could in principle suffice to itself, if only disorder and conflict didn’t threaten (Ibid: 101, 105).
The dreams of my respondents show clearly that there is a need to revise the current model of society based on the principles of economic profit, wherein people are linked together based on profits and economic exchange. There seems to be a common dream or ‘social imaginary’ of another Turkey that is based on more moral (social, free, equal, and human) principles. To explain where the common force to revise the system came from, I will start this chapter by analyzing the experiences of my respondents in the months of the Gezi uprising, and argue
that in and through action the ‘social imaginary’ started to take shape and developed.Hereby,
I will use Emile Durkheim’s concept of ‘collective effervescence’ (in The Elementary Forms
Process, 1969). Both concepts help to clarify the sudden Gezi-uprising that created an
unstructured community characterized by equality, solidarity and togetherness, by means of intimacy, intensity, and immediacy. In the end of this chapter I will show how the Caferağa Solidarity Group seeks for ways to implement and endure this community and Gezi spirit in their daily lives and environment. By organizing forums and activities in and for the neighborhood they create awareness, support and involvement for their new alternative society model based on locality, equality and solidarity. I will show how in the development of establishing this new model by means of direct democracy, (practical) obstacles are conquered, discussed and compromised on, and how through action the ‘social imaginary’ is ever evolving and becomes reality.
1.1 The Gezi-spirit and the Social imaginary
When my respondents were talking about their ideal world, their dreams for Turkey, many of them were referring to the unbelievable time in the Gezi-Park. Respondents kept on repeating how amazing these days in the park were; everyone was sharing everything: food, music, books, workshops, theatre, and ideas, ideals, and dreams in forums (conversation-groups). Emotions were shared with ‘strangers’, but at the same time no one felt themselves a stranger, because everyone was part of the same community wherein everyone was seen as equal and treated respectfully, all bound by the conviction that something had to be changed in Turkey.
Alev: “Everyone supported each other. No one came to the park for just one person,
everyone came for everyone”.
Alev told me that in her life she was often confronted with discriminating remarks by Turks who had deep-rooted prejudices, because of her Kurdish background. Consequently she felt a bit like an outsider in the Turkish society. But this summer in the Gezi Park she felt accepted and loved by everyone and for the first time in her live she thought: “This is also my park; these are my trees, this also my fight, for my country”.
Duman: “It was so strange, everyone was friends, everyone had the same idea that something had to change. All different kinds of people were in de streets and formed one big group: communists, nationalists, fascists from the MHP (political nationalist party), socialists, feminists, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people, bourgeois people, workers. Everybody was nice to each other. Although I never in my
life spoke to someone of the MHP, I am a ‘commanarchist’ [combination of communist and anarchist] you know, then we were one, it was us together against the
system.Gezi showed us that we are all the same, we are all humans.”
It is still amazing that so many people from different religious, ethnic and political backgrounds, from different ages and economic positions, came together in the Gezi Park and formed one big community. Even football-rivals from Besiktas and GalataSaray stood hand in hand these days. Victor Turner describes a social phenomenon like this as ‘communitas’:
Communitas is an unstructured or rudimentarily structured and undifferentiated communion or community of equal individuals. It is an essential and generic human bond; "it involves the whole man in relation to other whole men," and is the "quick" of human inter-relatedness, devoid of judgementality; it is comprised of egalitarian, direct, non-rational bonds between concrete, historical, idiosyncratic individuals who are equal in terms of a shared humanity; it is a modality of human interrelatedness, "human beings stripped of status role characteristics - people 'just as they are,' getting through to each other". The experience of communitas is also usually a "deep" or intense one, and belongs in the intuitive or emotional realm, as opposed to the rational one (Olaveson 2001: 104).
That the Gezi-experience was intense and emotional is described by many respondents. Merve Öner’s experience about the day that the Gezi Park was conquered gives an insight in the emergence of the communitas. In the night of her birthday she heard about the violent attack of the police in the Gezi Park, on the small group of environmental activists. The day after, May 31, she saw many announcements on Twitter and Facebook that people were going into the streets to show their disgust about the police violence. It made her curious and with a friend she walked out of her door in the neighborhood Bostancı on the Asian side of Istanbul. What she found was amazing: thousands of people were in the streets, banging on pots and pans. They came from everywhere, old and young people, some of them still wearing pajamas. She stepped into the crowd, and, without realizing where they were walking to, she was carried away into the direction of Kadıköy. No one could tell her what they were doing and what would happen. They just walked together, made a lot of noise, shouted slogans and sang songs. Another hundreds of people aligned from side streets during this march, and when they arrived in Kadıköy the crowd was enormous. After a few rounds
through Kadıköy’s streets, the crowd held still at the bridge that crossed the Bosporus. Now people started to scream: “Let’s go to the other side, and support our friends in Gezi Park!” A big wave of enthusiastic screaming was the response. Merve Öner told me that the massive amount of people gave each other the strength to cross the bridge. No thinking, just doing, following the crowd, being the crowd. The traffic at the bridge got stuck, but many cars honked to show their support. When they arrived at the European side they were hold back by
Toma’s (the armed police of Turkey). There was a nervous tension for 15 minutes. But then
suddenly the police withdraw, probably because they realized that the police force was not strong enough to fight this massive crowd. The moment the protesters set foot on European ground was magical. People were hugging each other and crying out of happiness. Merve Öner thought: “Is this real, or am I dreaming? It felt so good, that we did it, that we reached the other side. It was unbelievable, but at the same time so real”. From that moment the crowd split up in smaller groups and via different routes they reached the Gezi Park. Also there the police was not strong enough to push the protesters back and in this way they
occupied Gezi Park. “There was so much happiness, love and positive power; we did it and
we could make a change together, for the first time in our lives we believed that ‘a new society is possible’. I miss that feeling, it was so intense.”
Merve Öner describes her experience as if she was a participant and initiator at the same time: ‘following the crowd, being the crowd’; every step taken encourages others to take the next step; the direction is unknown, but moving forward seems to be a goal in itself. Durkheim describes this social phenomenon in his concept collective effervescense:
The very act of congregating is an exceptionally powerful stimulant. Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and quickly launches them to an extraordinary height of exaltation. Every emotion expressed resonates without interference in consciousnesses that are wide open to external impressions, each one echoing the others. The initial impulse is thereby amplified each time it is echoed, like an avalanche that grows as it goes along (Olaveson 2001: 99).
During my fieldwork I heard many similar stories about the days in the Gezi Park. The way my respondents were talking about their memories, the way they looked me in the eyes to make sure I would absorb every single word they told me, touched me deeply. It often gave me goose bumps and sometimes even tears in my eyes. “We longed our whole lives for
a revolution and suddenly we were part of it,” Kadife told me. ‘Suddenly’ is a word regularly heard. No one expected such a big protest, people were amazed when it ‘suddenly’ happened. They tell it as if something took control over them and put them there in Gezi Park. How is this possible? In the ‘dreams for Turkey’ we can find many concrete statements about how society should look like, however the plans and ideals of my respondents are as diverse as their backgrounds are. Although some common aims of Gezi participants can be filtered like freedom, equality and justice, these concepts seem to be too abstract to bring thousands of
people to action at the same sudden moment.Merve Öner’s experience about the occupation
of Gezi Park made me realize that there was not one explicit common ideology or dream that brought the Gezi-protesters together. There was just a deeply felt anger about the violent acts of the government that brought the protesters to the streets and in this action communitas arose:
Communitas is not merely instinctual; it involves consciousness and volition.… It is a transformative experience that goes to the heart of each person's being and finds in it something profoundly communal and shared (ibid: 105).
Hannah Arendt would describe the ‘communal and shared something’ as ‘the social imaginary’, emphasized by history and evolved in action (Calhoun 2002: 152). When the protesters went out into the streets, they seemed not to be driven by one explicit rational choice, they just had a strong feeling that something had to happen, and in the common action (the process of walking to and occupying the Gezi Park) the dreams and motivations became more concrete. In this way we can state that a social solidarity between protesters, the motivation of the protest and the social imaginary, which I call from now on the ‘Gezi-spirit’, developed during the action itself: the social imaginary came into existence through action.
1.2
The Caferağa Solidarity Group and the enactment of
the Gezi-spirit
Collective effervescence is ephemeral or momentary in nature, an "active and fluctuating communion"; although it is real, it cannot exist in a permanent or prolonged state. It is a temporary condition, and must be "recharged" (Durkheim in Olaveson 2001: 102).
The conversations I had with my respondents show clearly that there is a period ‘before Gezi’ and a period ‘after Gezi’. My respondents are stating that before Gezi they were not so much interested in politics. Sometimes they talked about stupid new rules made by the government, but most of the times they ignored it because it depressed them. But Gezi made people more interested and optimistic, and during and after Gezi conversations about politics increased. This time, they felt and realized that they could do something. During my fieldwork I saw that the Gezi-spirit still existed. Eight months after the outbreak of the Gezi-protests I found many social initiatives that kept the spirit alive by ‘recharging’ it repeatedly. The social imaginary about a new society model in Turkey was not seen as a fantasy anymore, Gezi-dreams could become a reality. Melis: “Gezi proves it is possible. We can make it happen again.”
Alican: “When the Gezi Commune was dispersed and park forums started, I thought we should be organized in the smallest scale possible (…) I started following Caferağa Dayanışması, because I wanted to be a part of a local organization which could be pressure force for direct democracy, stand against governmental oppression with everyone else and also have a say in the decision making at the municipal level: Make a difference in all levels…”
In the first international forum that took place in Mahalle evi, on 2nd of February 2014, Barış
and Deniz I. explained how Caferağa Dayanışması came into existence:
Deniz I.: “We started the protest actually to protect Gezi-park, but then it spread all around the country and all around the city. And in the city then the people started to gather in districts, and then at the neighborhoods, so all horizontal and vertical.
Barış:“The Caferağa Solidarity was actually set up as a part of the Yoğurtcu Park Forum that was more essential for the Kadıköy region; Caferağa broke up from that. And a local neighborhood forum was set up to hold up the Gezi-spirit. What we are trying to achieve in all these local neighborhood assemblies, is to continue this spirit in different parts of the city.” (…) “From the very beginning the agenda items for these [local neighborhood forum] meetings were decided by everyone participating in the assemblies, so that everyone was able to make a contribution and the decisions were also taken in this way.”
Deniz I.: “[In the months after Gezi] we organized penal discussions and memorial days for the ethnic groups who also used to live in Istanbul (…) to raise awareness to face on these. And we screened many films in the Caferağa neighborhood.”
Barış:“ ... To continue and increase these activities we realized that, especially during
the winter, we needed a covered space, a closed space to continue our efforts. Subsequently it took us three or four months to conduct the field study in the area and we tried to figure out which buildings can be occupied. We decided on this building, and agreed that this place would not be used as a residential area, so it will be a social center, people won’t be living here.”
Barış: “The building [Mahalle evi] has a historical character so we will set up a construction/ restoration workshop. Renovators and architects will come here and work on the building and at the end it will be an exhibition open for everyone to visit. And then we will also hold a carpentry workshop. Actually we are planning to make a library in this house, so we will need some shelves, and the carpenters will first of all, you know, cut those shelves and then make a library. And then we will have a photography workshop, which will also include a darkroom, so guys who know how to work with analogue machines will use a space. Well, we also will have an amateur’s sports club. Actually once a week people go out to run and now we are also planning to set up an amateur football league in this district. We are also planning to set up a radio station, which will be here opened in the squat. Also there will be language courses, language workshops. First of all in Kurdish, Armenian and Greek, in all the languages, but also we plan to set up a workshop where foreigners in Istanbul will discuss in Turkish and also in English, whatever, so conversation workshops.”
Deniz I.: “The thing is, it all pursues in a horizontal way. We’re trying to create these spaces, by means of democratic organization, for people, for the civil society to participate. So these workshops are also kind of a way to create the ways to attract more people and to actually have more people participating in these decision-making mechanisms that we create. So we have not the continuation of a previous political line, but we aim to bring together here all different political movements, political ideas, which have been excluded by the mainstream (…)”
Barış: “(…) In a much more concrete way, we now try to formulate concrete demands about what we can do. I mean there are a lot of concrete problems in the neighborhood, such as parking lots, traffic issues, the use of the neighborhood space… For example, the municipality is trying to construct a building in the coastal line in Moda, but we oppose this and we had talks with the municipality and it seems like they will accept our demands.”
1.3
Establishing Direct democracy
I followed the Caferağa Solidarity Group in their process to constitute the Gezi-ideals and solidarity in daily life. The Caferağa Solidarity Group was searching for alternative forms to have influence on decision-making, because they had the feeling that the Turkish government was not willing to listen to their opinions and ideas. Local forum groups (solidarity groups) came up in several areas of Istanbul, to discuss possibilities and to start the change of society in their own environment and in this process they choose the system of ‘direct democracy’.
A ‘direct democracy’ is a form of democracy in which people decide new policies directly, so in a horizontal way wherein everyone can be involved. It is thus opposed to a ‘representative democracy’ in which people vote for representatives who then decide on policies, in a more vertical way. The goals my respondents try to achieve through this system of direct democracy are: more equality, justice, freedom and inclusion (of especially minority-groups) in decision-making processes and social life. A beautiful ideal, though soon in the accomplishment of this decision-making system the first difficulties appeared:
Because of the squat house Mahalle evi, the Caferağa Solidarity Group attracted more people and the group was increasing, and with the growth of the group, also the attendance to the forums increased. By the end of January 2014 most forums were attended by around 80 people. A great achievement, but this also led to some practical problems: the squat house was not spacious enough to fit everyone in the same room. Consequently, in the discussions that were held, primarily people who were sitting in the central room were involved. Soon the group realized that the directness of discussions and decision-making was under the threat by the lack of space. Therefore, new forms of communication had to be found. The email-group that was invented a couple of months before the squat was established became more
important as a discussion-space. For a long time this was fine way of communication, but at one point, it led to a fierce discussion. Some people were offended by the fact that decisions were taken in email discussions (mostly about practical issues: When shall we do another cleaning day? Which room shall we prepare for workshops? Who is buying tea and toilet paper?), instead of forum discussions. Especially elderly people felt excluded, because not everyone had internet access and not everyone was used to the speed of email. Therefore they stated the email-group led to undemocratic practices. But the use of email was almost inevitable; practical decisions were made more quickly and effectively, which made the progress easier, because of the flexibility. Thereby, having a forum discussion about every small detail was quite unrealistic, because then forum discussions should be held on a daily basis, and the people with busy lives would be excluded. Not long after a solution was found; subject-based groups (atolyes) would take responsibility for specific practical issues: the
Greif-solidarity-atolye, the neighborhood-garden-atolye, the benefit-concert-atolye, the
neighborhood-involvement-atolye, the activities-in-the-house-atolye and so on. Everyone was free to join in one or more atolyes of their interested, and the atolyes independently made appointments with the joining members for discussions and gatherings. The developments and decisions of the groups were discussed in the weekly forum in Mahalle evi, where also general subjects and the ideological line were discussed.
Although some practical problems were turning up with the growth of the group, the Caferağa Solidarity Group was still actively trying to get more people involved by organizing neighborhood days, workshops and open discussions. By focusing on ‘neighbors’, instead of (ideological, economic, political, religious, ethnic) convictions and backgrounds of newcomers, the group stayed open to everyone. The ‘localness’ became the commonality between the members, which made the Caferağa Solidarity Group an open community of independent individuals that found each other in discussions on the basis of humanity. Soon it seemed like the neighbors were getting used to the attendance of the Caferağa Solidarity Group in the neighborhood. Some neighbors became actively involved and were attending discussions and/ or offering their help in projects. Others supported the group in a more passive way; often a bag of böreks (Turkish pastry) was found at the doorpost of Mahalle evi. But there were also less supportive reactions. Especially some shop-owners in the direct surrounding saw the activists as troublemakers and blamed them for everything that frustrated them, like the demolished windows and lowered sales due to the regular protests in Kadıköy. But because the focus of the Caferağa Solidarity Group was on the improvement of the
neighborhood, the confrontation with negative neighbors was never avoided. A discussion in the end of February shows this.
Almost every evening youngsters were hanging around in the street of Mahalle evi. Some neighbors were very annoyed by these people who were sitting on the sidewalks, drinking cans of beer, making music, talking loudly, often peeing in corners and sometimes having fights. Although the members of the Caferağa Solidarity Group did not even know these youngsters who were using the street as unofficial hangout spot, some neighbors blamed them for the daily unrest in the neighborhood and came to the house to complain and demand for action. A discussion about this topic was organized and the arguments that were put forward started like: “We are not responsible; this is a problem of the municipality and the police. If we try to do something about it, it will seem like we are responsible for this problem, and that will harm our reputation.” But the discussion turned soon in: “Mahalle Evi is here for the neighborhood, and if the neighborhood asks us to take action, we have to react. It is the task of the Caferağa Solidarity Group to bring people together, to talk about problems and to show that we take concerns seriously. This is our chance to show our neighbors that we are trustable and care about their problems.” One month later a couple of shop-owners were sitting around the fireplace in Mahalle evi, to express their frustration and to brainstorm about possible solutions with the members of the Caferağa Solidarity Group.
As these discussions show, not everything is flourishing directly in the alternative system the Caferağa Solidarity Group tries to establish, but little by little they accomplish their goals. Everyone is invited and everything can be discussed. Thanks to their optimistic approach, the group is flexible and always focused on possibilities:
Barış: “This is only the beginning; we have to learn from ourselves, this is the first time in history that so many initiatives for an alternative society are coming up in Turkey.”
1.4
Solidarity is the new currency
New ways of imagining identity, interests, and solidarity make possible new
material forms of social relations. These in turn underwrite mutual commitments (Calhoun 2002: 149).
