‘Chaotic Turkey’ one year after Gezi

There were 25 dead and 203 detentions. The excessive use of force by the police, dragging demonstrators on the ground and the detaining of the CNN International reporter on live broadcast; all contributing to Turkey’s international image falling from grace.

This is the shortest summary of the first anniversary of Gezi.

My childhood was spent at Taksim and Gezi Park. 

I was born in Taksim; I attended school there. I first met nature and trees at Gezi Park when my family frequently took me there, the trees which were about to be cut for the sake of building a mall.

I went to the movies and the theater, and even to the restaurant, for the first times in my life on Ä°stiklal Avenue, the street which was exposed to intense tear gas last Saturday evening, May 31.

I have quite a strong emotional connection with Taksim. For this reason, I have been supporting the Taksim Solidarity (Taksim Dayanışması) from the beginning, which was formed in February 2012, to defend the city, starting from Taksim, and to make Istanbul residents have a say in the future of the city.  

In the press release of the Taksim Solidarity a few days before the anniversary, there was a very simple equation for those eyes that want to see and for those ears that want to hear.

The demand for “a healthy urbanization and a habitable city” united with the demand of millions of people in the country for more freedom and more democracy.

This demand spread around Turkey with the slogan “Everywhere Taksim, everywhere resistance.” The government somehow did not see or did not want to see this equation.

It took shelter in weird conspiracy theories and started searching for a “foreign...