A Perspective Of Gezi Park From An Old Turkish Hippie

In the mid-1970s I was working in the Kosmos, Amsterdam's meditation center, and I hadn't figured out I was gay yet. I was in love with this beautiful Dutch woman who was one of the directors of the center. I was kind of shy but asked her out on a date. She asked me if I'd like to come over to her apartment for dinner. I was thrilled. When I got there, a strange local hippie who played sitar at the center, Omar, was helping prepare dinner. He, it turned out, was the boyfriend. We've been friends ever since.

He didn't call himself Omar back then; he still doesn't. And he never told anyone he was from Turkey. He really was more an international hippie than a Turk anyway, but I had the feeling that, as the scion of an old aristocratic Ottoman family-- he has the deed to the Library of Rhodes (which includes an ancient Greek manuscript with an original formula for geometry or trigonometry or something like that); in fact, his family ruled Rhodes for a time-- he couldn't tolerate the way Europeans look down on Turkish guest workers.

Today his family isn't thrilled with him. He left Turkey when he was still a teenager... and never looked back. He's lived in Switzerland, Holland and the U.S. and traveled all over the world... in a VW van. He gave up millions of dollars to pursue his music and his philosophy and lifestyle. One of the last times I was in Istanbul, I went to visit Omar's very elderly mother, who lived in a wonderful old house just across the street from Gezi Park, one of my favorite places in Istanbul since I first visited in 1969. Omar lives in Colorado now-- still a hippie-- and I asked him for his impression of what's going on in his old neighborhood. His response:

Not everyone agrees with the attitude of the elected government. Freedom seekers (even though they don't really know what real freedom is) based on their survival needs, mostly the lower middle class, or young intellectual students, rebel to the oppressive governments all around the world, all the same. There were peaceful demonstrations about the Wall Street or as such banking industry about a year ago. Demonstrations started peacefully but got harsh response from the police and turned into riots.  Bottom line is about GREED.

Here's a funny insight about greed: Let's say a rich man has $100 million, he thinks that's nothing, in fact he feels rather poor and wants another 100 million and pretty much goes out of his way to get it.  In other words NEVER satisfied or stops with what's enough, period.  In a money worshipping world richer the person the more respected.  Governments support that! And of course rich persons create jobs for the needy and they're appreciated for that, but because of bad economy that's caused by greed, the employees' needs aren't always met, therefore the rebellion comes about; of course the employees are not satisfied with what they get either. And there's always the illusion/dreams of a better life ahead. Life goes on, Peace in the world is not attained unless people are no longer raised on GREED and FEAR.

I personally don't know the very details of Gezi Park. Perhaps you know better. The present government is supposed to be turning conservative and religious etc. Conservatism is because of need for more control, and that's every government's agenda. They fear that people will get out of control and there will be chaos and no government, etc. As I understand it was a peaceful demonstration to begin with but the prime minister gets insulted and tells the police to be rough on them to discourage further demonstrations and people get killed etc.

To live in peace is not in the agenda of nations until everyone realizes that we all come from one source of love and that we have to compassionately accept everyone with their differences and when everyone is a loving/responsible being there won't be need for controlling power agents, there won't be fear and mistrust but cooperation to build a better world that comes from the attitude of living in the heart of hearts, instead of greed and competition. Now it's all about ego defending an ideal and judging that his way is right and the other is wrong and believe that one does justice by aggression and oppression. Violence and aggression is already wrong to begin with and leaves the problem without any better solution.

Even the French revolution which was needed at that time didn't change a whole lot, same hypocrisy continues in different forms and systems.

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Conservatives Can't Keep Up WIth Technological Developments

I wish I could remember his exact quote, but a high school history teacher impressed me by explaining how technological achievements galloped way ahead of society's ability to evolve spiritually, intellectually and morally to deal with those achievements. He said it so elegantly though. In her book, Murder in the Name of Honor, journalist/activist Rana Husseini makes a similar point about backward, morally-primitive conservatives and how they relate to women. Last weekend we looked at how horribly conservatives deal with women... and suddenly the Republican War Against Women was in a more international-- and timeless-- context.

Husseini's book deals with a litany of horrific crimes by conservative barbarians against women, including conservative barbarians who emigrate to more advanced countries, including our own. I noticed an ironic strand in her work about how technology and social media has lent itself to the murders and brutalizations of women, mostly by husbands, fathers and brothers. "A new addition to the list of murder weapons," she wrote, "is the mobile phone. In Kurdistan, where there has been a sudden influx of cheap mobile phones, men are using them to take photos and record audio and video clips of women and girls who are breaking social codes. These are then widely distributed, damaging women's reputations and putting their lives at risk. The first case is believed to have been in 2004, when footage of a seventeen year old girl having sex with a boy circulated in Erbil. Two days after the video was made public, the girl's family killed her... In 2006, 170 cases of mobile phone-related violence were recorded. By 2007, this figure had more than doubled to 350...

"Kurdistan [said an official of a women's rights NGO] is developing, but people still adhere to the old customs and traditions. And women are still the primary victims."

...The nineteen-year old Iraqi was, according to her father, murdered by her own in-laws, who took her to a picnic area and shot her seven times, Her crime: having an unknown number of her mobile phone.

...In another case that was reported in Al Hayat newspaper in 2003, a twenty-year old woman was stabbed to death by her brothers after she started listening to Um Kalthoum (a famous Arab singer known for her love songs). The brothers believed that her musical taste was evidence of an illicit affair, and, acting on their suspicion, killed her and then turned themselves into the police. Investigations later proved that the victim's husband had bought the tapes for his wife to listen to while he was away.



...[I]n August 2007, the Daily Telegraph reported a story about a young Saudi girl in Riyadh who was killed by her father after he walked into her room and found her chatting to a man on Facebook. The father reportedly beat up his daughter and then shot her to death.

The case remained unreported in Saudi Arabia until April 2008 when Saudi preacher Ali al-Maliki strongly criticized Facebook and called on the Saudi government to ban the internet site because it was corrupting Saudi youth.

"Facebook is a door to lust and young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and the internet than they are spending on food," he said. The story was written up in the local press as an example of the "strife" that Facebook was causing in Saudi Arabia. Ali al-Maliki said women were posting "revealing pictures" and "Behaving badly" on the site, which has become very popular with young Saudis.

...In May 2007, nineteen-year old Shawbo Ali Rauf was taken from her home in Birmingham [England] to Iraqi Kurdistan where she was stoned to death, Her crime was having unknown numbers on her mobile phone-- which proved to her family that she was having an affair.

Conservatives don't "trust" new technology. It should have come as no surprise that Turkish conservative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan started blaming Twitter and Facebook when people in Istanbul demonstrated against her corruption for selling off the city's most beloved park to wealthy developers for a shopping mall. I don't think he has a Twitter handle but he called social media "a menace." Dictators and authoritarians have always hated media they can't control. "Now we have a menace that is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society."

Unsurprisingly, news and rumours about the marches quickly spread on Twitter, which appeared to have galvanised support in other parts of Turkey. Police used teargas on demonstrators in Turkey's biggest city Istanbul, and also in Izmir and the capital Ankara, which sparked further outcry.

Protests were then held across the country, and nearly 2,000 people are said to have been arrested in 67 towns and cities.

Erdogan attacked Twitter for spreading misinformation and helping to fuel the unrest in Turkey. Perhaps he was referring to tweets such as these...

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Protests In Istanbul: "Those Who Present Themselves As Conservatives Only Care About Profit Maximization"

Once a week I like to hike up to the top of the biggest peak in Griffith Park. It takes 2 hours but when you arrive, you have a 360 degree vista of Los Angeles. Griffith Park is one of the biggest urban parks in America-- 4,310 acres. I sometimes ask Roland if he thinks Angelenos will fight when the big developers finally get politicians corrupt enough to start allowing commercial development in the park. He thinks I'm crazy and that (commercial development) that would never happen.

My first trip to Istanbul was early in 1969. It was a major resting spot on the Hippie Trail to India. Conventional hippie wisdom warned that the Turks are a bunch of a-holes and to get out of Istanbul as fast as possible and just drive through Iran towards Afghanistan as quickly as you can. The hippies all gathered in the Sultan Ahmet district-- and so did the people who wanted to prey on them, the dregs of Turkish society including the police. I was actually in the Pudding Shop when the events that soon turned into Oliver Stone's movie, Midnight Express, happened. The whole Sultan Ahmet area was a den of inequity back then-- crawling with hippies coming and going and with people selling them drugs and people ripping them off and police busting them... I couldn't wait to get away.

So I left the Hippie Trail terminus and drove across town to Taksim Square, the heart of modern Istanbul. I found Gezi Park immediately, a refuge of peace and quiet in the middle of the bustling city. My escape from Sultan Ahmet helped me understand the nature and worthlessness of conventional wisdom. Sure, the lowlife Turks the hippies were encountering were a-holes. But that's like judging all Americans by hanging out in Times Square (or the old Times Square before they made it into Disney Land). In Gezi Park I met normal Turks and had a completely different experience than the Hippie Trail experience of Istanbul was.

Since then, I've been back to Istanbul over a dozen times. Ironically, Sultant Ahmet-- which does have the best tourist attractions-- has been cleaned up and is now home to the best hotel in the country, the 4 Seasons and lots of other high end places to stay. Lately I've gravitated back to that part of town. But for decades I always tried staying close to Taksim and Gezi Park.

You probably heard by now that the government has used excessive police violence-- even tossing tea gas canisters out of helicopters-- against demonstrators in Gezi Park who oppose tearing it down to make room for a shopping mall.

Ayaspasa Environmental and Urban Beautification Association board member Cem Tüzün told reporters that the construction work is illegal. “We have submitted a petition to the Regional Board of Protection of Cultural and Natural Assets. We told them that the construction work currently being conducted is out of line with the construction plans prepared at the beginning and with an ongoing highway project,” he said. He added that they hope the construction work stops at once and that the trees that have been uprooted are replanted.

A senior Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) official stood in front of a bulldozer after bypassing a police barrier and forced the machine to stop, in protest of the demolition of Taksim Gezi Park.

Arriving at the scene of demolition along with other protesters in the afternoon, BDP deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder told reporters that the project does not reflect the environmentalist spirit of Mehmed the Conqueror, believed to have said he would give orders to kill those who uproot trees, in open criticism of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government.

“Those who present themselves as conservatives only care about profit maximization through such projects regardless of concerns over the environment,” Önder said.

The BDP deputy then asked the officials in charge of the demolition of the park to show the legal document permitting the work at the site and stood in front of the construction machine.

The officials halted the demolition as they did not have in their possession any document giving them the go-ahead for the work at Gezi Park.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be a "friend" of President Obama's but his conservative, socially backward political party is corrupt and authoritarian at its core. With tens of thousands of protesters demanding his government resign and chanting "united against fascism," brutal police-- mostly from the Anatolian provinces-- brutalized demonstrators. Over 1,000 people were injured on Friday alone. Erdogan, who I'm guessing is making a fortune from the crooks who want to develop Gezi was arrogant about the protesters who want to protect it from the bulldozers. “Every four years we hold elections and this nation makes its choice. Those who have a problem with government’s policies can express their opinions within the framework of law and democracy." He demanded they stop protesting. Instead, protests spread across the whole country.

Yesterday police were using tear gas against protesters in Istanbul and Ankara. Anger against Erdogan's corrupt government has no supplanted the original environmental objectives of the demonstrations.

One Istanbul resident, who gave her name as Lily, told the BBC's World Service: "There are 40,000 people crossing the bridge between Asia and Europe today. All the public transport is on lockdown."

She said that police had dropped tear-gas canisters from helicopters overnight.

"About half past one the entire city started to reverberate. People were banging on pots, pans, blowing whistles," she said.

The BBC's Louise Greenwood in Istanbul says police from as far afield as Antalya are being drafted in to help quell the violence.

She says the central Taksim district and surrounding areas remain cordoned off and bridges are closed to traffic.

"Quell the violence?" Good old BBC. The police are the violence-- especially the ones from the distant (backward) provinces. Turkish spring? The Guardian's reports are far less skewered towards society's perpetually paranoid property owners than the wankers and hacks at the BBC. Rather than talking about flying in unformed thugs to "quell" the violence, the Guardian began a report by explaining how "Turkish police surrounded protesters in Taksim Gezi park, the central square in Istanbul, blocked all exits and attacked them with chemical sprays and teargas." The Guardian also made an attempt to put the situation in context.

The AKP [Erdogan's Justice and Development party] represents a peculiar type of conservative populism. Its bedrock, enriched immensely in the last decade, is the conservative Muslim bourgeoisie that first emerged as a result of Turgut Özal's economic policies in the 1980s. But, while denying it is a religious party, it has used the politics of piety to gain a popular base and to strengthen the urban rightwing.

It has spent more than a decade in government building up its authority. The privatisation process has led to accelerated inequality, accompanied by repression. But it has also attracted floods of international investment, leading to growth rates of close to 5% a year. This has enabled the regime to pay off the last of its IMF loans, so that it was even in a position to offer the IMF $5bn to help with the Eurozone crisis in 2012.

In the meantime, the AKP has gradually consolidated its support within the state apparatus and media, and no longer needs its liberal backers... [S]trengthened, the government is on the offensive. It has never needed the left or the labour movement, which it has repressed. It no longer needs the liberals, as its attacks on women's reproductive rights, and its imposition of alcohol-free zones, show.

The President of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, is worried that the situation is spiralling out of control. There have been rumors that the military could move in if the police violence doesn't stop. And yesterday, Erdogan was pressured into withdrawing the police from Taksim Square and allowing the demonstrations to continue unmolested... for now-- and while his government works on shutting down Twitter and Facebook. Demonstrations have continued in Bursa, Izmir, Ankara, Eskişehir, Muğla, Konya, Yalova, Antalya, Bolu and dozens of other cities. Sunday morning found protesters still occupying Gezi Park and the police back in their barracks. At least 2 people were dead and demonstrations spread to 48 cities across Turkey-- as well as to Boston, London, Barcelona and Amsterdam. Today, fighting seems fiercest in Ankara, with the police gassing demonstrators.

Police eventually withdrew from the city's central Taksim Square early on Saturday evening, bringing an end to the clashes. By late night thousands of people were celebrating there. "This is it, we won, Gezi Park is ours again," said Burcu Kurhan, 33, one protester who joined the crowds in the inner-city park where peaceful protests started on Monday. "But we hope that Tayyip will have to go!"

...Inside the park, the atmosphere resembled that of a summer music festival, with people scattered on the grass, singing, chatting and enjoying a beer. Celebrations united many factions of Turkish society-- leftist groups, unions, nationalists, Kemalists and members of the gay and transgender communities waving rainbow flags.

"This is just the beginning, our struggle will continue!" chanted a euphoric crowd. The original protest was aimed at saving a city centre park in Istanbul from shopping centre developers who had been backed by the government. But it rapidly snowballed into a national display of anger at the perceived arrogance of the country's rulers.

While the ferocity of Friday's police crackdown attracted worldwide headlines, the mass protests against the government went largely unreported on the main Turkish TV channels and government-supporting newspapers. Erdogan, usually quick to respond to major events, also remained silent until Saturday, when he delivered a lengthy address on television. Calling for an immediate end to the protests, he pledged that the government would press ahead with the construction of the controversial shopping centre.

"Police were there yesterday, they'll be on duty today and also tomorrow because Taksim Square cannot be an area where extremists are running wild," Erdogan said. "If this is about staging a protest, about a social movement, I would … gather 200,000 where they gather 20, and where they gather 100,000, I would gather 1 million party supporters. Let's not go down that road."

This evening, Haaretz seemed to take some perverse pleasure in reporting that "Syrian authorities, battling a rebel uprising in which 80,000 people have been killed, issued a travel warning advising its citizens against traveling to neighboring Turkey for safety reasons. 'The demands of the Turkish people don't deserve all this violence,' Information Minister Omran Zoabi says. 'If Erdogan is unable to pursue non-violent means, he should resign.'"

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