Historicizing the Gezi protests

Abstract

The period between May and June 2013 witnessed the outbreak of an enormous wave of mass movements in Turkey aimed at stopping government attempts to demolish Gezi Park, located in the Taksim area of Istanbul, and put up a shopping center designed to resemble the old Taksim Military Barracks. The street actions that began in Istanbul around Taksim Square swiftly spread across Turkey, many parts of Europe, and even some cities in the United States. It is true that the single most important site of this people's protest was Gezi Park, occupied for a full fortnight, with the otherwise ubiquitous police nowhere to be seen. This was a genuine local commune with all needs being met in a communal manner. But to restrict the understanding of the movement to this location because it was so spectacular implies a kind of reductionism and prevents us from understanding the many different manifestations of opposition against the oppressive AKP government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then prime minister, currently president of the republic.