Guest contributor Caitlin Scuderi, a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, is a former Boren Fellow who has conducted extensive research in Turkey.
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| Banners of demonstrators in Taksim Square |
The same morning construction crews moved into the park,
environmental activists from around the city converged on Gezi Park – some of
the last green space in a quickly developing city. On Thursday, May 30, police raided the
protestors at dawn and two days later, protests erupted in major cities across
Turkey in solidarity. Police have responded with teargas and water cannons.
Protests against environmental degradation, urbanization,
and pedestrianization are a hallmark of developing and growing cities
throughout the world. The question then is, what makes the protests that began
in Gezi Park and spread throughout Turkey different?
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| A wounded demonstrator |
The AKP has been in power since 2002 and in the 11 years
that have passed, the party under the leadership of Erdogan has become
increasingly more overt in its prescription of adherence to Islamic mores and
directives. In early 2011, the AKP government placed controversial restrictions
on alcohol and alcohol-related advertising.[2]
This move was promptly labeled as a nod to Islam by secularists in Turkey.
While the AKP has fervently denied any hidden agendas
relating to the implementation of Sharia Law throughout the country, secularists
have pointed to the details of the party’s plans as evidence of their ‘real’
agenda. For instance, just prior to the 2011 round of alcohol restrictions, the
government increased a special tax on alcohol by 30 percent – making Turkey one
of the world’s most expensive countries for alcohol. Importantly, this
increased the price of raki, an anise-flavored drink widely consumed throughout
Turkey, to about 35 USD per liter.[3]
Raki is associated with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and it is a widely held belief
that he enjoyed the drink frequently. In this way, an attack on alcohol – and
specifically on raki – is considered an attack on Ataturk, the man attributed
with the founding of the cosmopolitan and secular Turkish state.
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| Barricades in Taksim Square |
In order to even build the military barracks, the historic
Ataturk Cultural Center must be demolished. In the same way that levying a tax
on raki and rebuilding the barracks reaffirms some secularists’ ideas that the
AKP government has a hidden agenda, demolishing a center with Ataturk’s name
sends a message that the AKP government envisions an identity for Turkey
different from that of its founders.
Last, secularists and Turks concerned with the state of
democracy in general have voiced their discontent with the government’s choice
of Kalyon Group as the project’s main contractor.[5]
Kalyon Group’s close ties with the AKP government raise questions of
transparency and corruption within the government (this isn’t the only time the
AKP’s transparency has been question, however. The 2008 1.1 billion USD
acquisition of Turkuvas Media Group by Calik Group raised eyebrows: Calik’s
chairman and CEO is Erdogan’s son-in-law).[6]
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| Makeshift hospital for wounded demonstrators |
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