Turkey in Revolt!

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VOL. 31, NO. 6, JUNE 2013 WWW.SOCIALISTACTION.ORG U.S. / CANADA $1 ISTANBUL—Since May 31, Turkey has been the scene of a popular uprising. As of June 5, numerous protests have spread across 77 of the 81 major pro­ vincial cities. More than a million peo­ ple protested in the streets of Istanbul, and hundreds of thousands in Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Bursa, and Hatay.

The revolt grew rapidly after the Turk­ ish police brutally attacked protesters in Taksim Gezi Park, an urban green space that the Metropolitan Municipal­ ity of Istanbul wants to demolish and replace with a shopping mall. The pro­ tests spread to the other cities in the following days, as they have become popular upheavals against the increas­ ingly anti-democratic AKP government.

The masses won a partial victory when the police had to retreat from Is­ tanbul’s central Taksim Square on June 1. Gezi Park has become a festive place where the protesters meet in solidarity and discuss the course of events. Clash­ es with police continue in other parts of Istanbul and in other cities. According to the Turkish Medical Association, 43 civilians were severely wounded and two protesters were killed as of June 4.

Is this the Turkish Spring? Is Taksim the Turkish Tahrir Square? Not until the workers’ organizations actively take the lead.

The left-wing labour union confedera­ tions, KESK and DISK, launched a soli­ darity strike. And leftist protesters call for a general strike. Important meetings are held to mobilize the progressive, as well as conservative, labour unions, which have issued timid statements, at best. There were numerous but frag­ mented strikes in several sectors and workplaces, like the Turkish Airlines strike, before the revolt. Uniting and po­ liticizing these struggles with popular demands and helping the workers to initiate a strike wave remains a central task.

Not surprisingly, the leaderships of the biggest union confederations and of the largest unions are holding back. In Tur­ key, unions are organized on a national scale along occupational/sectoral lines. In most cases, there are two or three competing unions that are members of different confederations, and these did not actively support the protests, as they are controlled by Prime Minister Erdogan’s AKP (Justice and Develop­ ment Party). The labour bureaucracy is an obstacle in the path towards or­ ganized labour joining in the revolt and fostering a Turkish Spring.

This is a popular uprising bringing together people with widely different cultural backgrounds. The protesters are mostly young workers, mostly em­ ployed in the service sector, as well as students. Since June 3, many high school students have joined the protests.

The energetic and creative character of the youth is visible in the way they use technology. Social media outlets have been very useful because all major TV stations first avoided covering the protest news, and then distorted it. For example, protesters communicate tips and tricks about how to reduce the ef­ fects of pepper spray and tear gas used by the police. They circulate lists of equipment needed.

This is not merely a protest of and by youths, though. People of all ages are protesting in the streets. Clanging pots and pans protests are growing in the neighborhoods. People are building barricades in Istanbul’s historic streets.

This revolt is already among the big­ gest popular political actions since the coup d’état in 1980 in Western Turkey. The nationally oppressed Kurdish peo­ ple are familiar with huge protests.

However, while many young Kurdish people are in the protests, the leader­ ship of the Kurdish national movement does not actively support the revolt. That leadership could mobilize over a million people, just in Istanbul and could easily spread the movement to the cities of Eastern Turkey. But it is re­ luctant because it negotiated a so-called peace process (ending the armed strug­ gle in exchange for a series of democrat­ ic reforms concerning Kurdish national identity. Thus it is an important task to link the Kurdish movement and its lead­ ership to the revolt.

The broad movement lacks a political leadership. In other words, no political organization in Turkey is ready to lead Tony Savino / Socialist Action (Above) June 8 New York rally in solidarity with Turkish struggle.

(Left) Protesters in Istanbul. such a massive movement with a wide social base.

The main opposition, CHP (Republi­ can People’s Party), is a bourgeois party. It supports the movement against Erdo­ gan’s AKP. More specifically, its decision to cancel its previously arranged mass demonstration set for Taksim was a sig­ nificant factor in the police retreat from the square.

But the CHP is concerned about the protests’ posing a challenge to capital­ ist rule. This was the worry when the Istanbul stock market crashed on June 3, with the flight of short-term foreign capital. CHP softened its rhetoric and joined the chorus warning the masses against “marginal groups” and “provo­ cations.”

Nevertheless, CHP leadership does not fully control the militants in its rank and file. There is a huge possibility that its militants will to break away from the bourgeois CHP if the revolt advances.

The movement embodies a strong secular outlook. There has long been a tendency to equate secularism with Kemalist elitism and anti-democratic militarism. But now, the links between democracy, freedom, and secularism are being re-established.

Although some segments of CHP and the ex-Maoist (now Eurasianist) Work­ ers’ Party (Aydinlik) raise pro-military and Kemalist slogans to appeal to secu­ (continued on page 7, in “Lakota file genocide charges against U.S. government”)

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Tony Savino / Socialist Action

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INSIDE SOCIALIST Reuters

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MONSANTO See page 12 .