The image was stark — a silent, solitary figure standing in passive defiance to the Turkish prime minister’s demand for protesters to clear Taksim Square in central Istanbul.
The challenge by performance artist Erdem Gunduz is catching on with other protesters in Turkey, encouraged by social media into imitating his gesture across the country.
It’s too early to tell whether the “standing man” protests will make a difference in the weeks-long challenge to the authority of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
But singular actions, captured in images distributed around the world, have sometimes influenced the course of history and transformed obscure figures into symbols of their era.
