What Really Happened in Turkey?

Taksim is one of the least visually attractive squares in Turkey. A group of critics had been vocal, for some time, about their opposition to the renovation plan of the square. The plan was accepted unanimously at the city council receiving the support of all of the opposition parties. But critics continue to demand that Gezi Park in Taksim Square be left untouched.

The events at Gezi Park unfolded in a similar way to the events of Occupy Wall Street in New York. The police used brutal force. Masses reacting to the use of brutal police force took to the streets. When the government failed to communicate with the protesters properly, things got even worse. In a matter of 24 hours, the outcry was transformed into a protest in which the political opposition found legitimate ground to protest for the first time in the eleven years the ruling AK Party has been in power.

A number of marginal groups who wanted to take advantage of the situation got involved in the protest from the beginning. Vandalism took off almost immediately. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the disproportionate use of force by the police,and ordered investigations into any wrongdoing.

Following this statement, he announced that vandals would be held accountable, not unlike British premier David Cameron commenting on the disturbances in London in 2011. This is what happened last week in short.

But it is not the whole story. No one had really taken to the streets for a few trees. “Discontent with administration” was the primary motivation behind the demonstrations. Wealthy Turks have been content to have the AK Party in power even though they won’t vote for it. “Let Erdogan win the elections because he is good for the economy,” they say, “but let him not make any other political decisions.”

What they meant by “any other decisions” include issues that effect their own lives and the lives of the population as a whole.

Recently, the government passed a new law that regulates alcohol sales. With the new regulation, Turkey is no longer the country with the “easiest access” to alcohol in Europe.
Parents can no longer send a child off to the market at 11pm to buy alcohol; alcohol sales after 10pm are banned just like they are in many European countries.

The secularists reacted to this ordinary legislation as if alcohol was banned completely. The real reason behind this reaction was the speedy way the government legislated a pre-existing regulation. The ultra secularists consistently failed to achieve power at the polls. They had felt that they held the real power for almost a century even after their parties had lost in elections to the AKP; they felt the powerful military and judiciary were on their side. As the influence of the military and the high judiciary (the guardians of the tutelage system) has been weakened in the last five years through Erdogan’s democratization efforts, the secularists began to feel unprotected.

Those who felt unprotected, but could not find a political representation that satisfied them in the democratic race, form the majority of those who took to the streets.

Some of these protestors still vote for the main opposition party, the CHP. Nevertheless, the CHP lags far behind AK Party and continues to score dismally at the polls.

The opposition accuses Erdogan of treason for trying to resolve the Kurdish issue by holding peace talks with the PKK. It strongly opposes any change even to the most anti-democratic and overtly fascist articles of the 1982 constitution imposed after a military coup.

The same opposition party perceives the opposition in Syria as terrorists trying to bring down President Assad. It is not surprising that Erdogan regards as insincere an opposition that adopts an anti-democratic stance on the most basic human rights violations but makes such a big splash over a few trees.

A wish for the AK Party to be thrown out of power through u