As all access to Taksim (5 minutes from where I live and a main transport hub on the European side of Istanbul) was basically forbidden or blocked off by tanks and cops with machine guns, I chose to take a different route to work and luckily everything went very smoothly. The roads were empty and it's quite possible I made it to work in record time.
However, not everyone was as lucky. There were about 200 policemen at the end of my street in riot gear and 1 tank. Early in the morning, I read reports of people throwing Molotov cocktails and bricks. Newspapers reported that over 1000 people were arrested or detained.
A bunch of teachers got caught in the tear gas/water cannon cross fire. Two teachers even had tear gas in their apartment!
Workers' unions had had plans to march to Taksim and protest there, but this was banned by the government. Eventually they abandoned their efforts and things calmed down.
May 1 is a holiday in most of Europe, but not Turkey. It seems that the government went through extraordinary measures in attempts to control the places people could access yesterday and how they could access them. Wouldn't it have been better had the allowed a peaceful march and provided security for that instead of encouraging people to hate the police more than they already do? (In Turkey, being a police officer is not seen as a good career. When I tell people my sister wants to be a police officer the first thing they ask is why.)
It seems the ruling AKP tried to use May 1 to exert their power (or lack thereof). There is currently a case pending in the Constitutional Court which aims to outlaw the AKP for being "anti-secular."
One union leader expressed his worry that the AKP is only concerned about one freedom - that of allowing girls wearing the türban (a style of headscarf) to attend university. While I am also concerned about that freedom, I'm also concerned about democracy and the right of people to peacefully march and protest, especially on a day like May 1. Not to mention, the connection between many recent events and the "Deep State." (more to come on this later)
Anyway, tomorrow my mom is arriving and we are heading out to Cappadocia on Monday and then the Aegean coast. I'll be back next weekend.
Until then...
Friday, May 2, 2008
mayhem on May Day
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2 comments:
people say the same thing here when i say i want to be a cop. and then most people end the conversation by walking away in disgust. and i say...cant wait to pull you over. gust
they think you are a bad person or just crazy? turks have an innate hatred for the police. my students think you are a stupid, bad person until I explain otherwise. Bribing police officers is still commonplace here.
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