bigOz wrote:I was there again yesterday - everything was back to normal and quiet in/around the park. But it seems the people have won a silent victory against PM Erdoğan because all construction work in and around Gezi Park as well as the new underpass/road going through Taksim Square has come to a complete halt by a High Court Order. There will not be a shopping centre constructed on the park and the future of the underpass will probably remain in the hands of the local municipality. This must be very unpleasant for PM Erdoğan after all the challenges he threw at people.
Although it was very tranquil at the park, it was more crowded than ever probably because of all the publicity it got during the the demonstrations. I also witnessed large groups of young people sitting on the grass - clearly ex-demonstrators keeping a 24 hr watch. To reinforce the decision not to go ahead with the destruction of most of the park - I was pleasantly surprised to see beautiful plants and flowers planted in a garden formed on the very land where some trees were chopped off (not uprooted as Erdoğan claimed!). I was even happier to see a middle aged couple walking through the park "talking Greek"!
He may never admit it, but Erdoğan has lost a lot more than just the case against Gezi Park - I feel a ton of weight lifted off of my body knowing that the majority of Turkish people are well informed and not scared to fight for their beliefs, rather than being just another bunch of Sheria following sheep! The battle may be finished but the war seems to be still going on at this time (demonstrations and demands that those responsible for the deaths of many young people are brought to justice still go on every weekend in İstanbul, Ankara, Hatay, Adana etc). Nothing much changed on the Police front though - each time they start of with water canons followed by pepper gas canisters. I am waiting to see what happens this weekend...
I still think we are in the early stages of a turning point in the history of the Republic of Turkey which, if successful, will usher in pluralist democracy in place of majoritarian democracy, but a huge struggle still remains ahead.
As to Erdoğan, even if there are signs of a slipping of support, I am suprised that more of the party faithful do not object to his repeated recourse to lying, such as the claim, even denied by the officials at the mosque in question, that the protestors drank alcohol and did not take their shoes off in a mosque. Surely lying is a sin in Islam, and he is the leader of an Islamic party and has no scruples about imposing his values on others by force. Does this not impose the obligation to be an exemplary Muslim himself? That is the way my logic works as an atheist. Perhaps there is something about the religious mentality that I will never understand.
On Friday, in the holy month of Ramadan, and addressing at a dinner at the end of the day's fasting no less, he came out with the words, "In Turkey, one, two, three or four people die while using violence against the police." Including among the killed protestors is Ali İsmail Korkmaz. There is an abundance of eye witness and CCTV evidence as to the beating that resulted in his death, and it all shows that this 19-year-old boy was an unarmed peaceful protestor who was set on and brutally beaten when he ran into a side street to escape tear gas. Nobody could accuse this boy of "using violence against the police", yet Erdoğan quite openly tells this lie in the holy month of Ramadan. What kind of Muslim does that make him?
It is amazing that nobody among the party faithful seems to see this, but he is getting carried away and I think that sooner or later he will come out with something so outrageous that it will break the spell he has cast over a section of the population.
