“Man cannot fight the earth and win, for he would be fighting himself” ~Stalking Wolf
This is a favorite quote of mine. It has come up again recently, as we entered a country heated with civil unrest and political tension. In my opinion, this quote defines what is happening in the center of modern Istanbul.
I have been to my fair share of environmental marches, demonstrations, and protests, but environmentalists from Colorado aren’t exactly what I would call “aggressive”. What we saw in Turkey has little to do any more with environmentalism, but instead is beginning to demonstrate the chaos a collective of personal opinion and belief creates.
Almost two weeks ago, a protest began in Taksim Square, a park in Istanbul, Turkey. The protest began when construction workers and demolition vehicles showed up to rip out the trees in the park, in order to build a new shopping center in this very developed part of the city. The protest has since become a collaboration of bright minds and rebellious youth fighting for a number of causes that couldn’t be all be addressed even if the whole world was involved.
Two kilometers away, in any direction, you would never know that there was unrest in the city. But heading down main streets toward the square, political graffiti and broken windows become gradually less scarce, as store-fronts begin to appear totally dismantled and sabotaged.
The square itself is stage for protestors to preach to others about their cause, some holding hands and chanting, others standing before a microphone surrounded with banners, some writing their opinions in spray paint, even one man who stood atop a wrecked police car, mute, but holding a sign with words I couldn’t translate, and an elderly man kneeling down, writing on the sidewalk. Without understandably the language, we have no way of knowing what messages these people were trying to get across, but it was clear that they weren’t all the same.
The park itself crowded with tents and blankets, people selling nuts, drinks, cotton candy, and other food, drums playing, and songs being sung. It oddly resembled some festivals that take place in Boulder in the springtime. On the far end of the square teenagers jumped around in ambushed busses, boys in masks, and girls in short skirts, chanting together and chain smoking.
Though the crowd was generally peaceful during the day, we did not risk sticking around into the later hours as the protesters began to get riled up. Today’s news informed us that now, almost a week after our visit to the square, the area is once again being tear gassed in hopes of flushing out some of the protestors, or at least confining them to the park and not the surrounding area. It is not for me to say which direction this will go, but it does appear that the Turkish government has a bit of a problem on their hands.
I can only say so much about what is happening in Turkey after our short time in the country. However, reading this post by a local woman helped me gain some insight of the situation:
http://defnesumanblogs.com/2013/06/01/what-is-happenning-in-istanbul/
Check it out if you are interested. For now, I will have my fingers crossed that somehow the situation will end well and soon.
