As Turkey’s protests have become an international sensation, pundits and commentators have constantly and instantaneously attempted to (re)define what they have been witnessing. A plurality of names has been offered to denote these protests: ‘Young Turks Revolts’, ‘Turkish Spring’, and ‘Turkish Tahrir’ are just a few. Out of all of them, the Turkish Spring seems to offer the most plausible definition for some, especially at the initial stage of the protests, when confrontation between police and demonstrators were the most intense and when pictures of the clashes from Turkey went viral to the rest of the world. These scenes interpreted by some as sowing the seeds of a Turkish Spring similar to that of the Arab Spring countries.
Yet, even a scant examination of protests in Turkey and the uprisings in the Arab World would have found that both events were motivated by different factors and dynamics and were a result of different political and historical experiences. The nature of events in Turkey coupled with the country’s political-democratic experience significantly undermines any attempt to draw parallels between protests in Turkey and Arab Spring events. An examination of Turkey and the Arab Spring protests via the main slogans and goals along with a cursory analysis of their political histories is enough to point out their difference in nature.
First, “bread, freedom and dignity” has been the most recognizable slogan of the Arab Spring. This slogan represented a basic human desire for economic welfare, along with representation and recognition. In addition, demands that have been expressed by this slogan are concrete therefore deliverable.
In Turkey’s protests, at the initial stage, the demands had been concrete and environmentally focused such as preventing the uprooting of trees and the building of an Ottoman era military barrack. These initial demands were delivered to a great extent by the court’s decision to suspend the project and the government’s declaration to comply by the court’s pending final verdict, but this was regarded sufficient only by a fraction of demonstrators. Yet, after the early stage, the main slogans of the protests have become Kemalist, neo – nationalist, secularist, and extreme leftist in nature, thus abstract and open to interpretation. “Resign Erdogan”, as expected, was the most popular slogan chanted by protestors, however what followed were not slogans expressing a concrete or deliverable demand; rather it was the abstract chant of “hepimiz Mustafa Kemal’in askerleriyiz” (We all are soldiers of Mustafa Kemal, founder of Modern Turkey).
How should one interpret the demand expressed through this slogan? For some, “being soldiers of Mustafa Kemal” may mean upholding the secular principle of the state and life style, but for others, this may denote an authoritarian single party governance or the establishment of a tutelage regime. In fact, one can make an argument that given the composition of groups that joined the protests, this slogan covered all of these demands, depending on the groups that were chanting it. This amorphous nature of Turkey’s protests’ slogans demonstrate the pursuit of political perspectives, different than that of the ruling AK Party, in defining political space.
Second, the protestors in the Arab world were almost unanimous in demanding the toppling of their discredited, undemocratic, authoritarian, and unpopular rulers. In contrast, demonstrators in Turkey, putting aside some delusional fringes, are aware of the mass popular support that both the governing AK Party and his leader still enjoy, hence most do not ask for the removal of the government. In addition, the demands of protestors are more plural; as there are groups who want(ed) to set
