[ICTs-and-Society] Irfan Erdogan: A Report on the Situation in Turkey

[Christian Fuchs]

Dear colleagues,

Here is a report from our colleague Irfan Erdogan about the situation in 
Turkey.

Best, Christian

A Report on the Situation in Turkey
Irfan Erdogan, erdogan.irfan at gmail.com, http://irfanerdogan.com/

I am writing this to inform you that people in over 65 cities of 81 in 
Turkey are demonstrating against the reactionary and oppressive regime 
of Tayyip Erdogan and his party. We have demonstrations even in the most 
reactionary cities in Turkey. People in every neighborhood in the cities 
are on the street. Police throw gas bombs at demonstrators, beat and 
arrest people. It is not like in the late 1960s, because people did not 
care about us much then. We students were demonstrating for independence 
and socialism then. Now everybody is on the street. Nobody cheered when 
we were demonstrating in the late 60s in Turkey. Now people are cheering 
and supporting the demonstrators. Today we have more people on the 
street in my neighborhood in Ankara than yesterday. Police are shooting 
gas bombs inside the houses because people are providing shelter for 
demonstrators who are escaping from gas and police beatings. Youngsters 
and people from every walk of life are on the street and want the 
Erdogan government to resign. Erdogan uses the classic rhetoric about 
demonstrators and he threatens them by saying that he can send one 
million supporters to the street (he means, to smash the 
demonstrations). He says: "I keep 50 percent of the population at home" 
(he means that he can use 50 percent of people who support him against 
the other people). His mindset and approach reminds me of Jay Gould who 
said once that he is not worried about demonstrations and labor strikes, 
because he can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other 
half. For a lot of people, Erdogan is a reactionary dictator. In Turkey 
people are scared to say something against Erdogan. Television did not 
provide any news about the demonstrations except the television stations 
of the major opposition party and Turkish Labor party television, 
because mainstream media either support the administration or are scared 
of Erdogan’s rage/wrath. People in Istanbul walked in front of the major 
television stations and announced that if they do not feature them in 
the news they will occupy the TV station. Then, TV stations started 
reporting,  but in a highly distorted manner. After this incident, very 
few media personnel resigned from their posts in the TV channel. Erdogan 
scolded the Reuters journalist who dared to ask him a question that he 
did not like. The Internet is used for the most effective channel of 
communication and organization of the protests by everybody. Erdogan 
expressed his utmost anger against Twitter and social media. Everybody 
uses their mobile phone for communication and recording the events and 
putting/disseminating them on the Internet. Mainstream media started 
lying as usual. Two main labor unions in Turkey run by those who ask 
some meaningless concessions from the government try to stop workers to 
demonstrate, but workers are on the street, too. Demonstrations are 
rapidly spreading all over the country.  Soon, I know, religious 
reactionaries (not all religious people are reactionary) will attack 
demonstrators. There is a high probability that we will witness a 
domestic/civil war in Turkey.

I was at the center of the demonstrations in Ankara yesterday and the 
day before. Demonstrators do not do anything wrong, but police 
continuously shoot pressured water, gas and noise bombs at them and 
attack demonstrators. Police behave like they are fighting an enemy. 
They curse at and threaten people by e.g. saying: "get lost otherwise we 
arrest you and you know what we do when we arrest you." We know there 
are some progressive and conscientious people in the police force, but 
they are also under the threat of the empire of fear. But we will see a 
differing police behavior as the time goes by in the process. Now, there 
is an indiscriminate uss of gas bombs (CS gas). Your eyes get severely 
burned and you cannot breathe, you start coughing, and you feel dizzy if 
you are close to the fume. Also when it hits you or blows up beside you, 
you get shocked (I saw it). So far we have four killings and many wounded.

As usual, they claim that demonstrators/provocateurs destroy and 
vandalize everything around. Yes we see a lot of destruction; in fact, 
it is started and done by plain-cloth police. How do I know: (1) this is 
a historical fact. (2) I know from the late 60s, because we could 
recognize the police then, but it is difficult to recognize them now. 
(3) How come there is no vandalism, destruction and terror where there 
is no police around? Here are few examples: I attend demonstrations at 
the center of the city where police provokes, attacks and where plain 
cloth police destroys everything aroun,d provoking some young people to 
do the same. My daughter and my wife and neighbors attend huge 
demonstrations in our neighborhood where there is no police presence 
yet: You can see no violence, no destruction and no vandalism in these 
demonstrations. Yesterday, I had to come back home early at night 
because I almost fainted three times because of the police gas. Later, I 
attended two neighborhood demonstrations and there were no destruction 
and violence. Last year, I attended two demonstrations in Athens, 
Greece. There was no police presence and there was no violence and 
destruction. Athens was burning when there was police presence. When 
police was involved, Athens was like a war zone, like in Ankara and 
Istanbul. Those who rule the police force organize and run the show of 
violence and destruction as usual.

People are against "Erdogan’s empire" that is misrepresented in Europe 
and elsewhere. This reactionary party clearly stated that they "use the 
democracy train until they get the power and reach their destination." 
They are misperceived by Europeans who think that this government is 
anti-racist and democratic. They are not racist because their political 
view belongs to the middle ages of Islamic rule: They think that all 
Muslims are the people of God and those who are not Muslim are condemned 
by God and will all go to hell. That is why Erdogan is against 
nationalism, but his/their nationalism is based "ummad/ümmed" that means 
the collective community/nation/commonwealth/empire of Islamic peoples. 
Their nationalism is based on a different logic, the logic of Muslim 
statehood. A statehood where a prime minister considers himself king and 
tells people that he does anything he wants, he builds a mosque there if 
he wants (“there” refers to the park where people do not want the 
government to cut the trees down). Before the uprising, demonstrators 
were sleeping in the park and police attacked them at dawn. The 
government uses the known tactics of Hitler: The police invades people's 
(e.g., journalists, academicians, army commanders) houses and arrests 
them very late at night, especially at dawn. They call it “dawn 
operation”. They arrest young people for demonstrating or saying 
something against the administration. Students at school cannot wear a 
T-shirt with any message that can be considered “political expression”. 
Now, there are journalists, academics, politicians, army commanders, 
students and other political prisoners who have been in jail for more 
than 5 years WAITING FOR TRIAL OR TRIAL IN PROGRESS.

Their rule is based on material plunder and ignorance that is fed by 
multi-channeled mis-information, education and re-education. Their 
current rule is historically comparable to extensive degrees of material 
plunder: They (party leaders and business owners) allocate material 
riches to themselves and immaterial values to the true and fake 
believers who generally are ready for slaughter while chanting “God is 
great” regardless if opponents are Muslims or not - like crusaders in 
the middle age who conducted killings in the name of Jesus despite the 
fact that Jesus is completely against oppression and killings. We hear 
this chanting on TV news when Syrian opposite forces fire guns and kill 
people. This also reminds me not only od the War Prayer of Mark Twain 
but also the pressure he got from his publisher and family against 
publishing it. The policies of the ruling party in Turkey are also 
supported by some old so called Marxists and/or, Maoists, “leftists” and 
their sons/daughters who mostly reside in Istanbul and live a posh life 
(some work for media corporations with 20-30 thousand dollars salaries a 
month and/or get paid by the media for their appearances in discussion 
shows or get benefits in different ways).

The widespread fear in Turkey is also fed by private enterprises: Once 
there was state censorship (it still prevails), now we have censorship 
by the rule of private enterprises, so-called auto-censorship 
(self-censorship) which is buttressed by organizational and peer 
oppression in media and academia. I wrote a book for a university last 
year and I had to revise it many times because they are scared of law 
suits from private enterprises (especially by the media). You can not 
mention a corporation’s name, you cannot criticize a corporation by 
providing its name. I sometimes watch the Tonight Show and similar US 
shows in English in Turkey and Turkish subtitles do not give any names 
of any corporation that is mentioned in the show. I was sued by the show 
producer last month for 20.000 dollars for criticizing one of the most 
popular TV sitcoms in a meeting (I make about 2000 dollars a month). 
Freedom of thought and expression is suppressed not only by the ruling 
administration but also by the corporations and those who are scared of 
being a target of revenge. Freedom is a right and privilege of the 
ruling and powerful forces who can also manipulate and abuse the law for 
their own interests. Copyright freedom is not a freedom of the writers, 
it rather protects (or turned to be) the property right of the enterprises.

This is the first time I am witnessing a public uprising. It is 
different than the one we had in the late 60s.

People all over the world should know. Yet, unfortunately, the “whole 
world is watching” carefully packaged factoids. In Turkey, the media was 
not proving any news on the uprisings until yesterday, and they were 
broadcasting usual series, soap operas, sitcoms, competition programs 
and films instead. Now they cannot hide anymore, thus they started their 
usual mind management business in the news. To a varying extent, similar 
evaluations can be reached about the coverage on international news 
channels such as BBC, Al Jazeera, The Press TV and RTV that I watch often.