Dear colleagues,

Here is a report from our colleague Irfan Erdogan about the situation in
Turkey.

All the best,

Pelin

A Report on the Situation in Turkey
Irfan Erdogan, [log in to unmask], http://irfanerdogan.com/

I am writing this to inform you that people in over 65 cities of 81 in
Turkey are demonstrating against the reactionary and oppressive regime of
Tayyip Erdogan and his party. We have demonstrations even in the most
reactionary cities in Turkey. People in every neighborhood in the cities
are on the street. Police throw gas bombs at demonstrators, beat and arrest
people. It is not like in the late 1960s, because people did not care about
us much then. We students were demonstrating for independence and socialism
then. Now everybody is on the street. Nobody cheered when we were
demonstrating in the late 60s in Turkey. Now people are cheering and
supporting the demonstrators. Today we have more people on the street in my
neighborhood in Ankara than yesterday. Police are shooting gas bombs inside
the houses because people are providing shelter for demonstrators who are
escaping from gas and police beatings. Youngsters and people from every
walk of life are on the street and want the Erdogan government to resign.
Erdogan uses the classic rhetoric about demonstrators and he threatens them
by saying that he can send one million supporters to the street (he means,
to smash the demonstrations). He says: "I keep 50 percent of the population
at home" (he means that he can use 50 percent of people who support him
against the other people). His mindset and approach reminds me of Jay Gould
who said once that he is not worried about demonstrations and labor
strikes, because he can hire one-half of the working class to kill the
other half. For a lot of people, Erdogan is a reactionary dictator. In
Turkey people are scared to say something against Erdogan. Television did
not provide any news about the demonstrations except the television
stations of the major opposition party and Turkish Labor party television,
because mainstream media either support the administration or are scared of
Erdogan's rage/wrath. People in Istanbul walked in front of the major
television stations and announced that if they do not feature them in the
news they will occupy the TV station. Then, TV stations started reporting,
 but in a highly distorted manner. After this incident, very few media
personnel resigned from their posts in the TV channel. Erdogan scolded the
Reuters journalist who dared to ask him a question that he did not like.
The Internet is used for the most effective channel of communication and
organization of the protests by everybody. Erdogan expressed his utmost
anger against Twitter and social media. Everybody uses their mobile phone
for communication and recording the events and putting/disseminating them
on the Internet. Mainstream media started lying as usual. Two main labor
unions in Turkey run by those who ask some meaningless concessions from the
government try to stop workers to demonstrate, but workers are on the
street, too. Demonstrations are rapidly spreading all over the country.
 Soon, I know, religious reactionaries (not all religious people are
reactionary) will attack demonstrators. There is a high probability that we
will witness a domestic/civil war in Turkey.

I was at the center of the demonstrations in Ankara yesterday and the day
before. Demonstrators do not do anything wrong, but police continuously
shoot pressured water, gas and noise bombs at them and attack
demonstrators. Police behave like they are fighting an enemy. They curse at
and threaten people by e.g. saying: "get lost otherwise we arrest you and
you know what we do when we arrest you." We know there are some progressive
and conscientious people in the police force, but they are also under the
threat of the empire of fear. But we will see a differing police behavior
as the time goes by in the process. Now, there is an indiscriminate uss of
gas bombs (CS gas). Your eyes get severely burned and you cannot breathe,
you start coughing, and you feel dizzy if you are close to the fume. Also
when it hits you or blows up beside you, you get shocked (I saw it). So far
we have four killings and many wounded.

As usual, they claim that demonstrators/provocateurs destroy and vandalize
everything around. Yes we see a lot of destruction; in fact, it is started
and done by plain-cloth police. How do I know: (1) this is a historical
fact. (2) I know from the late 60s, because we could recognize the police
then, but it is difficult to recognize them now. (3) How come there is no
vandalism, destruction and terror where there is no police around? Here are
few examples: I attend demonstrations at the center of the city where
police provokes, attacks and where plain cloth police destroys everything
aroun,d provoking some young people to do the same. My daughter and my wife
and neighbors attend huge demonstrations in our neighborhood where there is
no police presence yet: You can see no violence, no destruction and no
vandalism in these demonstrations. Yesterday, I had to come back home early
at night because I almost fainted three times because of the police gas.
Later, I attended two neighborhood demonstrations and there were no
destruction and violence. Last year, I attended two demonstrations in
Athens, Greece. There was no police presence and there was no violence and
destruction. Athens was burning when there was police presence. When police
was involved, Athens was like a war zone, like in Ankara and Istanbul.
Those who rule the police force organize and run the show of violence and
destruction as usual.

People are against "Erdogan's empire" that is misrepresented in Europe and
elsewhere. This reactionary party clearly stated that they "use the
democracy train until they get the power and reach their destination." They
are misperceived by Europeans who think that this government is anti-racist
and democratic. They are not racist because their political view belongs to
the middle ages of Islamic rule: They think that all Muslims are the people
of God and those who are not Muslim are condemned by God and will all go to
hell. That is why Erdogan is against nationalism, but his/their nationalism
is based "ummad/ümmed" that means the collective
community/nation/commonwealth/**empire of Islamic peoples. Their
nationalism is based on a different logic, the logic of Muslim statehood. A
statehood where a prime minister considers himself king and tells people
that he does anything he wants, he builds a mosque there if he wants
("there" refers to the park where people do not want the government to cut
the trees down). Before the uprising, demonstrators were sleeping in the
park and police attacked them at dawn. The government uses the known
tactics of Hitler: The police invades people's (e.g., journalists,
academicians, army commanders) houses and arrests them very late at night,
especially at dawn. They call it "dawn operation". They arrest young people
for demonstrating or saying something against the administration. Students
at school cannot wear a T-shirt with any message that can be considered
"political expression". Now, there are journalists, academics, politicians,
army commanders, students and other political prisoners who have been in
jail for more than 5 years WAITING FOR TRIAL OR TRIAL IN PROGRESS.

Their rule is based on material plunder and ignorance that is fed by
multi-channeled mis-information, education and re-education. Their current
rule is historically comparable to extensive degrees of material plunder:
They (party leaders and business owners) allocate material riches to
themselves and immaterial values to the true and fake believers who
generally are ready for slaughter while chanting "God is great" regardless
if opponents are Muslims or not - like crusaders in the middle age who
conducted killings in the name of Jesus despite the fact that Jesus is
completely against oppression and killings. We hear this chanting on TV
news when Syrian opposite forces fire guns and kill people. This also
reminds me not only od the War Prayer of Mark Twain but also the pressure
he got from his publisher and family against publishing it. The policies of
the ruling party in Turkey are also supported by some old so called
Marxists and/or, Maoists, "leftists" and their sons/daughters who mostly
reside in Istanbul and live a posh life (some work for media corporations
with 20-30 thousand dollars salaries a month and/or get paid by the media
for their appearances in discussion shows or get benefits in different
ways).

The widespread fear in Turkey is also fed by private enterprises: Once
there was state censorship (it still prevails), now we have censorship by
the rule of private enterprises, so-called auto-censorship
(self-censorship) which is buttressed by organizational and peer oppression
in media and academia. I wrote a book for a university last year and I had
to revise it many times because they are scared of law suits from private
enterprises (especially by the media). You can not mention a corporation's
name, you cannot criticize a corporation by providing its name. I sometimes
watch the Tonight Show and similar US shows in English in Turkey and
Turkish subtitles do not give any names of any corporation that is
mentioned in the show. I was sued by the show producer last month for
20.000 dollars for criticizing one of the most popular TV sitcoms in a
meeting (I make about 2000 dollars a month). Freedom of thought and
expression is suppressed not only by the ruling administration but also by
the corporations and those who are scared of being a target of revenge.
Freedom is a right and privilege of the ruling and powerful forces who can
also manipulate and abuse the law for their own interests. Copyright
freedom is not a freedom of the writers, it rather protects (or turned to
be) the property right of the enterprises.

This is the first time I am witnessing a public uprising. It is different
than the one we had in the late 60s.

People all over the world should know. Yet, unfortunately, the "whole world
is watching" carefully packaged factoids. In Turkey, the media was not
proving any news on the uprisings until yesterday, and they were
broadcasting usual series, soap operas, sitcoms, competition programs and
films instead. Now they cannot hide anymore, thus they started their usual
mind management business in the news. To a varying extent, similar
evaluations can be reached about the coverage on international news
channels such as BBC, Al Jazeera, The Press TV and RTV that I watch often.



-- 
Dr. Pelin ÖZTÜRK GÖÇMEN (PhD in Graphic Design Education)
Gazi University, Turkey
http://websitem.gazi.edu.tr/pgocmen
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