Some see it as a modern democracy with an Islamic tint, an improving, reforming country. But if you were in Istanbul during the last month and a half, you’d have seen something completely different: a violent, authoritarian, increasingly suppressive and brutal regime. Tales from the Dark Side, Turkish style. I’ve always been a critic of armchair reporting. But when your [...] → Read the full article…
I hear certain people singing to me, “You are dead for me now”, while some others sing to me “You rose up to my heart like sunshine”… Some request my books enthusiastically, saying “write and send it to me” and some spill out their hatred in a “burn all the memories” fashion. But, what business did I have in the [...] → Read the full article…
After the Gezi Park occupation was dispersed, dozens of neighborhood forums popped up around Istanbul where people get together to discuss a variety of issues. I’ve been attending these neighborhood forums, which are are organized in an “agora” format where speakers line up and take turns to speak. While media attention remains on the frequent Taksim Square demonstrations, the forums [...] → Read the full article…
In his early writings, Marx described the German situation as one in which the only answer to particular problems was the universal solution: global revolution. This is a succinct expression of the difference between a reformist and a revolutionary period: in a reformist period, global revolution remains a dream which, if it does anything, merely lends weight to [...] → Read the full article…
Taksim: A Political Ecology The uprising that started with Taksim Square’s Gezi Park in Istanbul on 28 May emerged as a unique movement of resistance in Turkey’s history and has continued without interruption in the last several weeks. The Gezi Park Movement will be remembered as a successful mass movement of youth activism whose main purpose has been to reclaim [...] → Read the full article…
Part 1: The Dancer. It’s called the Dancer. La Bailarina. Like some crazed Stravinsky diva, the Condor GL 310 gas grenade bobs and weaves when it lands, moving in random patterns, spewing noxious gas into the air. Its jittery swirls are specifically designed to cover large areas with gas, but also–critically–to prevent protestors from grabbing the thing and chucking it [...] → Read the full article…
Turkey has been witnessing one of the most vibrant and creative protests in its history since a group of protestors were subjected to brutal police violence a month ago in Gezi Park, Istanbul. Primarily started as a reaction against the urban regeneration of Gezi Park, protests then proliferated in other parts of Istanbul and other cities, articulating diverse grievances of [...] → Read the full article…
Premier Erdogan’s strong-arm tactics have created a previously unthinkable coalition of the opposition in Turkey What began on May 28 as a peaceful protest against government plans to turn Gezi Park, one of the few remaining green spaces in Istanbul, into a shopping mall metamorphosed into a widespread protest against the ruling Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish [...] → Read the full article…
Zeynep Bilgehan: You released a solidarity message for the protestors from Ankara. First of all how long have you been in Ankara and what’s the purpose of your visit? Tariq Ali: I was in Ankara for three days to give a public lecture at the invitation of the Cankaya municipality that had been agreed several months ago. Naturally I observed [...] → Read the full article…
It has been more than four decades since Henri Lefebvre, Marxist philosopher and theorist of socio-spatial processes, presciently argued that the globalization of urbanization and the role of distinctively urban processes in the accumulation of capital were bringing about a specifically urban crisis that could not easily be subsumed under the crisis of industrial capitalism. This led Lefebvre to highlight [...] → Read the full article…