Labor and Justice Coalition Declaration on Taksim Gezi Park Protests

[Emek ve Adalet Platformu (Labor and Justice Coaltion) logo.] [Emek ve Adalet Platformu (Labor and Justice Coaltion) logo.]

Labor and Justice Coalition Declaration on Taksim Gezi Park Protests

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[This statement was released by Emek ve Adalet Platformu (the Labor and Justice Coalition) on 14 June. For the Turkish version of this statement, click here; for the Arabic version, click here.]

The intention behind transforming Taksim Gezi Park, replacing it with malls and hotels, springs out of a particular way of thinking that regards city space as property for rent. In every location undergoing gentrification, attempts are being made to clear the path for a new and elite style of life—partly modern, and partly conservative. We are witnesses to the fact that urban renewal projects in Ayazma, Sulukule, Tarlabaşı, or Taksim did not improve life standards of the poor and citizens at large; rather, they infuriated people.

Those opposing the rapaciousness of urban gentrification had been silenced before. They cannot sweep a similar act of silencing under the rug this time, as they are faced with an opposition that broke the wall of silence, an opposition that speaks louder in voice and is claimed by the people unlike ever before. People who fought for trees harboring the poor and homeless faced the harshest form of State’s hubris for protesting the top-down decision to transfer this park into capital. Desecrated by the police, protestors were forced to leave the park. Previously, they attempted to voice their reasonable demands through legitimate channels. However, assimilated in the tradition of Republican Sovereignty that was wayward and confrontational, the conservative ruling party closed its ears to these criticisms. Suppression of each and every reasonable and legitimate protest turned into a habit, throttled people, and led them to a politics of resentment. An opposition block that is unprecedented in its diversity conjured up spontaneously and came to light with a new style of opposition.

Wrongs done by the coup of 1998 are still in the memories of people; those atrocities remain unaccounted for. The party that claimed to be the voice of oppressed mirrors the barbarity of the tyranny it fell victim to. Though now possessed by other hands, unlawfulness still reigns. Thus, tensions that took over the streets this week were triggered by those who wanted to gentrify the city, while ignoring the opinions of its citizens, and last but not least by those who ordered the police to violently suppress the demonstrators.

We declare that it is a non-contestable right to make politics about decisions affecting one’s life. Ruling parties that came to power by elections are responsible for listening to and consulting its citizens. Politics of the people cannot be reduced to voting every four years. The government should stop blocking legitimate protests and terrorizing the opposition.

Meanwhile, we are aware of the fact that Kemalists of the ancien regime, who have been trying to delegitimize the elected government and daydream about bringing down the government by manipulating the rightful protests, are ill-intentioned. We condemn in the strongest terms the enhancement of the secular-religious conflict in hopeful or fearful anticipation of a coup. We invite everyone involved in the making of these collisions to calm down. We reprobate attacks made against hijabis; misappropriation of these acts of harassment by politicians is also despicable.

Ignoring the Gezi Park protestors’ demands, and subsequently labeling them as “plunderers,” reflects the arrogance of a political power that mistakes itself to be the country’s landlord. Ravaging of the environment, cars, and stores was triggered by the rough treatment by the police; whenever police violence stopped, protests took a peaceful turn.

Independent of the personalities occupying the government, we reprove the use of police violence against people. Legal arrangements to stop violent suppression of the right to protest must be made immediately. This country has not made justice to Kurds yet; neither have Alevites found peace, nor workers and the poor are taken care of; people are still dying in labor accidents; a small minority is getting more and more rich with the support of the State’s invisible hand; millions are growing poorer. A political grammar in which capital and domination sets the scene, which sanctifies political power and economic growth, does not reflect Islamic ethics.

In opposition to the arbitrary interventions into the city space, we cry out the priority of the poor. One way or another, pauperized ones exiled to the urban fringe will return to the center one day for their rights. Destruction, Derision, Expulsion: this cannot and should not be the only path for regenerating the city. Transformations can be legitimate and persistent only when people are empowered by processes that better his life world—not by coercion.

We declare that our sole criteria is justice from tyranny, our primary interlocutors are Muslims. We declare:

O! Muslims!

Our lives are changing. We will be leaving a different world to our children. We are constituting a new generation that finds its value in what it consumes. A way of life that is ignorant of ethics and altruism, that is arrogant and cruel, leads to a society that values power, status, and money. This path must be abandoned. Our neighborhood is dying out. We almost turned into a society whose poor and rich are praying in different mosques. Don’t you want our kids to be neighbors the poor, and befriend them? Consumption culture that finds its expression in malls is leading us all into a future from which we cannot return.

We are thankful to the protestors, who curbed the prime minister’s spoiled fantasies about building a barracks/mall/residence. At least everyone should be a good judge of the protests.

We, as Muslims, have not forgotten how media abused the whole country, and sullied the innocent fifteen years ago. Today, the conservative and mainstream media is using the same language to terrorize a certain part of the population—what has changed then? Did we forget what police forces have done to our kids? Why should police be rightful in persecuting others who are not like us? Is not justice a divine command that has to be kept alive against every form of hatred?

Did we forget our responsibilities before our—Muslim or not—neighbors? Are not we entrusted with the rights of others who do not resemble and think like us? Are not we obliged to defend the rights of those who want to execrably tyrannize over us with power and force?

If we want to regenerate the city, our method should not be destruction, expulsion, and derision; we should share our meals with others, we should keep up the justice, we should respect their lifestyles and keep in mind that we are responsible for calling them to the rightful path. Remember that prophets spoke softly to everyone. If we do not respect others’ rights, there is no way we can hold on to the rope of God.

If we are inclined to find governors who are unjust justified because we fear for our religious rights and holy spaces, we should know that our religion cannot be protected by a state or a party. By the will of God, our only guarantee is our belief and the sense of justice.

Being victimized in the past neither requires us to turn into tyrants nor to take the side of tyranny. Quite the contrary, it is our responsibility to appreciate others’ pain, fear, and demands. Suffering belongs to all. May God rest the souls of the ones who died in the events: Abdullah Cömert, Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, Mustafa Sarı, and Ethem Sarısülük. We are sorry for each and every nameless person who has been injured.

We find the following five demands made by Gezi Park protestors, and ask for the government to negotiate with the representatives of the Taksim Solidarity Coalition: 1) Gezi Park must stay as a park; 2) governors and the police chiefs, and everyone who gave orders for, enforced, or implemented violent repression, must resign; 3) tear gas, bombs, and other similar materials must be prohibited; 4) detained citizens must be immediately released; 5) all the meeting and demonstration bans affecting all squares and public areas must be abolished and stopped.

The protests we are witnessing show that a politics that closes its ears to the legitimate demands of society and ignores different opinions continues to produce problems. After all, and in spite of everything, if we learn to appreciate people’s right to the city and the ways in which they express this demand as legitimate protest and not a threat, this process will contribute to the transition to a more democratic and free Turkey.

Labor and Justice Coalition

Fatma Akdokur – Cihan Aktaş – Ümit Aktaş – Hilal Alkan – Nurten Ceceli Alkan – Kamile Batur – Mehmet Bekaroğlu – Ayhan Bilgen - Osman Bostan – Ali Bulaç – Sadi Celil Cengiz – Fatma Çiftçi – Yasemin Çoban – Mehmet Bülent Deniz – Mehmet Efe – Hikmet Eren – Alper Gencer – Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu – Cihangir İslam – Gülnur Kara – Gülsüm Kavuncu – Mualla Kavuncu – Hüda Kaya – Kadrican Mendi – Beytullah Emrah Önce – Ali Öner – Ahmet Örs – Yıldız Ramazanoğlu – Reha Ruhavioğlu - Cüneyt Sarıyaşar – Özkan Şahin – Abdülaziz Tantik – Mehtap Toruntay – Sabiha Ünlü – Ahmet Faruk Ünsal – Fatma Bostan ÜnsalHalil İbrahim Yenigün

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412