People's Assemblies springing up across Turkey (Updated)

[Fire Walk With Me]

Last edited Wed Jun 19, 2013, 03:27 PM - Edit history (1)

15MBcn_int ‏@15MBcn_int

Protesters are starting to counter-pose their own direct democracy to the sham of a democracy proposed by Erdogan
http://roarmag.org/2013/06/assemblies-emerging-in-turkey-a-lesson-in-democracy/ …

Something quite amazing is happening in Istanbul. In addition to the silent “standing man” actions around the country, people’s assemblies are slowly starting to emerge in different neighborhoods across the city. As in Spain, Greece and the Occupy encampments before, the protesters in Turkey are starting to counter-pose their own form of direct democracy to the sham of a democracy proposed by Erdogan’s authoritarian neoliberal state. If there was ever any doubt, this shows how deeply intertwined the global struggles truly are.

As the state launches its merciless witch hunt on protesters, activists and Tweeters, thousands of people are starting to gather in dignity in various public spaces. As Oscar ten Houten reports from on the ground in Istanbul, the Beşiktaş Assembly in Abbasaga park, which has been going on for days, tripled its number of participants on Tuesday night, with a total of ten popular assemblies taking place in Istanbul alone and at least one more in Izmir. As Oscar writes on his great blog (which he started at the occupation of Puerta del Sol in Madrid in 2011):

These meetings have nothing to do with Taksim Solidarity any more. They are spontaneous initiatives by local people who are fed up with Erdogan’s disregard for the Turkish citizens, their rights and freedoms, their history, beliefs and traditions. … We arrive in Kadıköy, and truly, I couldn’t believe this was happening. Well over two thousand people were gathered on the green, to express their anger with the government’s eviction of Gezi, and to share their hope for a better Turkey. Like anywhere else, it was a cross section of the population, which included all races and creeds.

Interestingly, the members of the popular assemblies in Turkey use the same hand-signs as the indignados, indicating that some of the methods were directly inspired by the real democracy protests in Spain. This, in turn, seems to confirm the idea we raised very early on in the Turkish uprising, and a claim that many Turkish activists have been making from the very start: namely that this movement is not just a local or national protest, but part of a global struggle against the subverted nature of representative capitalist democracy and for real democracy and total liberation.

(More at the link.)



Occupy Utrecht ‏@OccupyUtrecht

#OccupyGezi NOW LIVESTREAM from Assemblies #Istanbul #Turkey
http://www.live...
http://dlvr.it/3XkTL3


Global Revolution ‏@GlobalRevLive

#DirectDemocracy Explosion! Now in Istanbul there are 35 #PeoplesAssemblies going on 9 in rest of #Turkey.
LIVE: http://bit.ly/18zK4KE #YAL

[starroute]

1. Here's a link to Oscar's own blog

http://spanishrevolution11.wordpress.com/

He's a first-rate writer -- especially considering English is not his first language -- and excellent at evoking the spirit of a time and place. I followed his blog for a while last year when he was part of a group walking from Spain to Greece, but I'd only recently rediscovered the link. Here are a few paragraphs from his latest entry:

There is a sense of euphoria in the air, the happiness people experience when the artificial walls of society are being torn down. We are all one. And it’s true what they say. After Gezi, nothing will ever be the same.

The assembly abruptly ends when the sprinklers go on. People run for cover, they giggle and reunite in small groups to discuss their organization, their coverage, their goals and demands.

We head home. At the bull statue in central Kadıköy we experience another of those beautiful emotional moments that characterise revolutionary times. A dozen people are standing silently in protest, some holding Turkish flags, some holding images of Atatürk, some simply reading a book. People from the neighbourhood bring them supplies. Someone lifts a bottle of water to their lips. Passers by are applauding, cars are honking. This is happening all through the country. At the moment, hundreds of people are standing in Taksim.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Wow, thank you!