A Few Trees In Gezi Park: Resisting the Spatial Politics of Neoliberalism in Turkey

Part 3

Actions and Interventionsin the Urban Forest

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15 “A Few Trees” in Gezi ParkResisting the Spatial Politics ofNeoliberalism in Turkey

Bengi Akbulut*

This struggle is against all the practices that expropriate our coasts, forests andpublic spaces. It is against the hydropower, nuclear and coal plants that destroynature. It is against the profit-oriented projects that target not only Taksim Squareand Gezi Park, but also Goztepe Park, Kusdili Meadow, Haydarpasa TrainStation, Ataturk Forest Farm and a variety of other commons. It is against the 3rdbridge project for which the groundbreaking ceremony was shamelessly heldtoday, which will destroy all the forests and dry up all the water resources inIstanbul. It is against the 3rd airport project that will serve the customers for the3rd bridge and will pave the way for rent-generating construction in northernIstanbul. It is against the New Istanbul Project that will ruin all our naturalresources . . . The struggle here is for all our people whose houses and livingspaces were confiscated . . . Reclaiming Taksim, the memory of struggle and sol-idarity, means reclaiming not only the square and the park, but also all these val-ues and rights. For all these reasons, we call upon everyone who wants to standup for their rights and liberties, city, living spaces and future to come to Taksim’sGezi Park.

(Taksim Solidarity Press Release, May 29, 2013; author’s translation)

Introduction

Late on the night of May 27, 2013, a message was circulated on numerouselectronic list servers and social media networks among activists in Istanbul. It wasa call for urgent action, more precisely the immediate formation of guard watchingat the now-famous Gezi Park, since a bulldozer was spotted demolishing the park’souter walls and it was rapidly advancing toward uprooting the trees. After beingconfronted on the spot by a few activists and journalists, the officer in chargeclaimed that the demolition was part of a municipal zoning plan, a plan that neitherthe urban planners/architects nor the public at large were aware of. A tent wassoon set up and some 60 people were guarding the park when the bulldozerreturned the next morning to resume its operations, this time accompanied by thepolice. At dawn, 5 days later, thousands of people from the Asian side of the citywere marching to cross the Bosphorous Bridge on foot in support of the resistance.Ten days later, the people reclaimed the park and organized a communal livingspace in the de facto absence of the state. At the same time, millions of people had

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been out in the streets in protest all around the country and countless were injuredand some were killed.

That small patch of urban greenspace at Gezi Park came to serve as a commonground where seemingly isolated grievances were articulated by a society that waslong deemed apolitical. Efforts to adequately analyze the causes and consequencesof the events that precipitated have been countless—and there are likely to be more.One widespread reading among these analyses has been to cast the Gezi revoltspredominantly as a reaction to the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (JDP)Islamist/conservative policies and authoritarian rule.1 In this chapter, however, Iargue that such an interpretation skirts the larger processes implied by theneoliberal developmentalist agenda/growth strategy intensified especially withinthe last decade. It also carries immense political danger as it limits the possibilitiesand potentialities opened up by the revolts by rendering invisible the broaderpolitical–economic setting and the reservoir of social opposition that predated andfacilitated the uprising at Gezi Park.

What I will do here, in contrast, is to utilize a political ecology perspective tolocate Gezi Park within the spatialization of neoliberal capitalism under JDP rulein Turkey and the different threads of social opposition that have surfaced inresponse. This perspective helps to illuminate the making of socio-environments(including urban space) via interconnected processes and their contested, power-laden nature (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003). It urges us to see the socio-environmental changes as embedded within the economic, political, social relationsthat surround and produce them, and the inequalities that both create and arecreated by them. Through the lens of political ecology, it becomes possible toaccount for the historical and geographical political-economic processes that GeziPark and its proposed transformation reflect—as well as the inequalities andinjustices that they created.

In what follows, I first sketch out the contours of the neoliberal growth strategythat marks Turkey’s economic miracle, emphasizing especially its restructuring ofspace. I then discuss the dynamics of urban transformation, particularly ofTaksim—the neighborhood where Gezi Park is located—and situate the proposeddemolition of the park within them. After providing a brief account of theemergence and evolution of the resistance, I (as a situated researcher-activist whohad been engaged with the movement) describe the processes through which thepark was made a space of collective living and commoning where, on the one hand,an alternative socio-economic order was enacted and, on the other hand, a com-moning ground for seemingly separated struggles of reclaiming space, was created.The last section concludes by touching upon the ways in which the revolts havereshaped and motivated the collective political imagination and potential inTurkey.

The Backdrop: Turkey’s Spatialized Growth Miracle

Since coming to power in 2003, JDP has not only retained the historicallystrongcommitment to modernization via economic growth, a defining characteristic of

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the state–society relationships in Turkey, but also adopted an aggressive neoliberalagenda in implementing it. Dubbed as a miracle and praised for its successfulrealization of neoliberalism with a Muslim face, Turkey achieved high-growth ratesin this period. The miracle, however, had a visibly spatial twist: the capitalizationof the natural environment, privatization of realms previously under publicownership, and the expropriation and redistribution of property through “legal”means have accelerated in the last decade. Monumental projects, such as a thirdbridge on the Bosphorous, a third airport to be built in the middle of Istanbul’snorthern forests, and a canal to connect Marmara to the Black Sea to name a few,have served as symbols of progress and welfare, and evidence that the state isworking hard for its people, while their socio-economic consequences have beenbrushed aside.

Given that the state-facilitated (if not led) construction bubble and destructiveenergy investments have been the main pillars of Turkey’s “miracle,” such radicalreconstruction of space is hardly surprising. The contribution of construction toGDP, for instance, rose from 3.8 percent to 4.8 percent in 2006, 5.6 percent in2010 and 6 percent in 2012. The sector’s expansion is best attested by the increasein the number of new buildings per year, which went from 40,430 in 2002 to597,000 in 2006 and to 817,000 in 2010 (TCA, 2012). Massive urban gentrificationand renewal projects account for most of this striking rise in construction, for whichthe government paved the way by undertaking a series of legal changes. In anutshell, the legal structure was revised to allow (state) expropriation of urban landand its redevelopment and marketing. Most notable among them is the Law onthe Transformation of Spaces under the Risk of Natural Disasters passed in 2012,which effectively consolidated the prior piecemeal legislation made for specificneighborhoods under the guise of policymaking for disaster risk. Prepared with noparticipation or consultation with the general public, the Law provides the Ministryof Environment and Urban Planning with the sole authority to assign risk status,and develop projects, purchase and sell assets, and initiate construction on landassigned under risk (UCTEA, 2012). In practice, it removed the few remainingimpediments to accelerated urban transformation in the form of evictions, gentri-fication and expropriation of public and private property. In addition, by way ofnumerous government decrees from 2001 onward, the Housing DevelopmentAdministration, a directorate tied directly to the Prime Ministry, was endowed withextraordinary powers ranging from urban land confiscation to profit-orientedproject development, urban renewal and transformation in collaboration with localgovernments and private companies in establishing housing sector enterprisesdirectly or jointly with the private sector.

Through the legal and administrative changes mentioned above, the stateemerged as not only the regulator but also an active constructor of, and participantin, real-estate and urban land markets; an epitome of roll-out neoliberalism (Peckand Tickell, 2002). This process has opened up new areas of capital accumulationand thus rendered the construction sector the steam engine of economic growth,while displacing large working-class sections of the urban population. It is worthnoting that neighborhoods populated by minorities, such as Sulukule (Roma) and

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Tarlabasi (Kurds), or known to have a radical left history, such as 1 Mayis andGulsuyu-Gulensu, were the first targets. Opposition to the attacks on these mar-ginalized neighborhoods were quickly delegitimized by their portrayal as crime-laden ghettos and threats to social order, and thus failed to garner wide publicsupport. As gentrification processes sprawled to the broader urban landscape,however, reaction and dissent acquired a larger social base.

Even though its ramifications were predominantly reflected in rural areas, thestate’s role was equally pivotal in the case of the energy sector. The restructuringand liberalization of the energy markets started in early 2000ss and opened fieldsof energy investments previously beyond reach, most notably coal and hydropower,to the private sector. This was buttressed by the provision of market assurance, asit was guaranteed that the energy produced could be sold to the energy poolconstructed by the state, and the revision of environmental legislation that couldpotentially halt the development of the sector. As a result, socio-environmentallydestructive energy investments increased radically—and so did the conflicts andresistances that emerged around them.2

Perhaps most notable among these resistances are those related to small-scale,river-type, hydropower plants (HEPPs). Based on the rerouting of streams and theirtransportation to a suitable height by covered channels, from where they aredropped on turbines, these plants have mushroomed especially since the late2000s.3 The HEPPs take up parts or whole water bodies, radically alter ecosystemsand landscapes, and bring about climatic change. In doing so, they not only damagerural livelihoods but they also impair living spaces of rural populations. Concernswith such detrimental effects of the HEPPs, coupled with the substantial symbolicvalue attached to water and the overall decline in the viability of the countryside,produced an unprecedented—albeit fragmented—environmental movement thatjoined together rural populations and urban environmental activists.

Despite grievances voiced against the spatial restructuring that went hand-in-hand with its neoliberal growth strategy, JDP has managed to draw up broad-basedsupport for its rule. The idea of modernization via economic growth has beenworked and reworked to form an indispensable basis of the spatial politics JDP hassuccessfully mobilized: highways, power plants, skyscrapers and the mega projectsmentioned above served to materialize the ideal of modernization in the mosteffective way and received admiration from a variety of different groups in society.4

The construction-led growth model of the JDP reproduced the consent of largesections of the urban population, not only through the distribution of rents accruingfrom construction investments, but also by the effective persuasion of middle-lowerclasses that the growth model opened up opportunities to own housing propertyand higher consumption levels. The parallel silencing and de-legitimization of socialstruggles against ecological destruction and urban transformation, and the closeassociation of construction with modernization in the social imagination, hasbuttressed this strategy (Akbulut and Adaman, 2013).

To sum up, Turkey stood in the midst of processes of radical urban trans-formation, massive urban displacement and aggravated ecological destruction inthe summer of 2013. It was also the aftermath of a few months of escalated violence

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and intolerance against any hint of social grievance, such as protests against thedemolition of the historical cinema theater Emek, and May Day celebrations.5 Inthat sense, the revolts that occurred around the demolition of Gezi Park were hardlyan isolated case from the larger dynamics of the restructuring of urban and ruralspace. Thus, the solidity and the rage that the opposition voiced through the revoltsare partly due to an accumulated and/or anticipated discontent with numeroussimilar processes of urban and rural enclosures.6 The park, however, held furthersignificance as it was implicated in the transformation of Taksim, the most centraland symbolic neighborhood of Istanbul.

The New Istanbul, the New Taksim

During JDP’s general election campaign in 2012, the prime minister announcedthe party’s plans for the redevelopment of Taksim Square, perhaps the single-mostimportant square in Turkey. Some listened to him in admiration while othersdreaded the news. The Taksim Project—as it has come to be known by thepublic—involved not only the pedestrianization of the Square and the re-channeling of traffic to underground tunnels, but also the demolition of Gezi Parkand the construction of a replica of the historical military barracks, which the Parkreplaced in 1940, to serve as a shopping mall complex and a high-end residence.

Perhaps more importantly, the Project formally put into place the government’sgrander vision of a new, transformed Taksim, parts of which were already underway. Within the last few years, a massive urban gentrification project was initiatedin the predominantly Kurdish-populated Tarlabasi, a residential neighborhoodextending from Taksim Square towards the Golden Horn, running side by sidewith the famous Istiklal Street. Evictions and demolitions started in late 2011 toclear the way for the construction of luxurious offices, stores and residential unitsgeared to the service of a visibly different class of the urban population. This wasparalleled by the gentrification of Istiklal Street, both through explicit state inter-vention and the “natural” dynamics of the market economy. With the heightenedattraction of the area as a center of urban middle-class consumption and thecapitalization of its centrality for culture, (local) small businesses that could notafford rising rents were gradually replaced with larger ones, often linked to globalcapital.7 This process of market-led gentrification was augmented by rapid (andshady) privatizations of public estates. One among these in particular, the sale ofand plans to convert the Cercle d’Orient building and the historical Emek movietheater into a shopping mall, spurred a large campaign and a series of protests—in fact, it would not be unrealistic to call it a milestone in the process building upto the Gezi protests.8 The Project was not only a step extending and acceleratingthese dynamics already underway, but added a unique ingredient: the recon-struction and the pedestrianization de facto stripped the Square of its capacity tohost protests and large gatherings.9

In short, the Taksim Project implied a large-scale transformation of the wholeTaksim area and a fundamental change in its character (let alone its users), froma public space with symbolic value (not least due to its historical identity as a place

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of protest and resistance) to a space of capital accumulation and consumption; froma neighborhood of workers, urban dwellers, and immigrants (among others mar-ginalized by the political-economic system) to a sterilized, homogenized spaceemptied of collective memory and identity, marketed in different ways to tourists,shoppers, and real estate developers.

The Project triggered significant public outcry as it, among others, entailed theenclosure of a public space and the destruction of an important urban forest, GeziPark. Once the Armenian cemetery (1560–1865), then the host of Ottoman artillerybarracks (1780), this space had been seized by the Turkish state in 1935 (togetherwith the Armenian gravestones which were later used in various constructionprojects in the city) and was opened to recreational use. In 1940, with the imple-mentation of plans commissioned to Henri Prost, the barracks—which were inruins by then—were demolished and the first urban park of the republican history,Gezi Park, was built (Polat, 2013). The park does not only hold critical ecologicalvalue as a host of fauna and flora and provide invaluable environmental service asan urban source of oxygen, but it had also been one of the few remaining publicspaces in Taksim—until its blockade by the police after the protests in the summerof 2013.

In response, various non-governmental organizations (NGOs), environmen-talists, neighborhood associations, labor unions and alike, most of which hadalready been active in urban and/or ecological politics, came together to form theumbrella organization of Taksim Solidarity in December 2011.10 In addition tothe legal battle initiated against the Project in general, and Gezi Park’s demolitionin particular, the Solidarity undertook a wide campaign to raise awareness andsupport. When construction in the Square started in the fall of 2012, the TaksimSolidarity organized Taksim Watch Duty, a 24-hour mass guard overseeing theconstruction site, to draw attention to the ramifications of the Project. The watch,lasting for a total of 4 months, was eventually reduced to symbolic weekly gatheringsand later dropped altogether as winter arrived, but an information station replacedit. Most recently, a festival organized by one of Taksim Solidarity’s constituentswas held in the Park in April 2013 with the aim of revitalizing the struggle and toacquire visibility and support. A process of discussing and evaluating ways to movethe struggle forward was ongoing when the Gezi revolt flared up.

“[T]he Fear Threshold is Long Passed. This is Going to String Out”11

After news of the Park’s attempted demolition hit urban-activist circles on the nightof May 27, around 50 people who had gathered—some of whom were affiliatedwith Taksim Solidarity while others had just heard the news and went to the park—decided to spend the night at the park. They quickly organized a watch duty andpitched their tents, while food and blankets were arranged via social media to bebrought to the park. It is worth noting that the core of the group did not only sharea history of involvement with urban-environmental politics, but they were also well-versed in crowd organizing, holding occupations/demonstrations and tactical

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strategizing in the face of possible confrontation with the police. Their priorexperience with direct action was effectively transported to the movement in thepark.

A few dozen more joined the original 50 the following day, reaching around 80people when the bulldozers arrived once more, this time accompanied by thepolice. The scuffle between the protestors and the police ended when tear gas wasused to disperse the crowd. The bulldozers started operating and uprooted moretrees until they were stopped by the arrival of the MP Sirri Sureyya Onder, a formercinema director and a well-known figure, at the scene. Meanwhile, the evidentinsistence to demolish a public space despite wide public reaction and the use oftear gas on a peaceful group of protestors attracted more supporters. An openforum was held later that day to discuss ways to carry on the struggle and to devisestrategies to deal with police violence and the organization of daily life in the park.Solidarity visits were paid by labor unions and NGOs later in the day, perhapsproviding the first signs that the movement to defend the Park was to become auniting ground for a variety of struggles.

Following a relatively quiet night and day, the protestors woke up to an intensecloud of tear gas on the morning of May 30 and they were forced to evacuate thepark while the security forces burned their tents. The park was effectively undersiege by the police while the demolition was started, once again, and stopped, onceagain, by Onder’s intervention. Thousands poured into the park that night,marking the point when the resistance started acquiring a mass-movementcharacter (Figure 15.1). An even harsher police intervention took place the nextmorning, only this time the park’s exits were blockaded by the police. Many wereinjured trying to escape from the flying tear gas canisters, some people were actuallyhit by them. Efforts to reassemble were brutally repressed with the use of tear gas and pressurized water, as were later attempts at staging protests against the

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Figure 15.1 Protestors in GeziPark on the third day ofprotests.

Source: Lara Fresko, 2013.



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persistence in the (unlawful) demolition of the park and escalated police violence.After a main union confederate’s (Confederation of Revolutionary Worker Unions-DISK) press statement and a packed sit-in at Taksim Square was also dispelled bythe use of vicious force, the crowd was chased along Istiklal Street and its backalleys. While the hunt of protestors was ongoing under a heightened dose of vio-lence, thousands were flowing into Taksim to join the revolt. People were out onthe streets en masse, literally marching where public transit was cut off. Protestswere being organized in other cities in solidarity with the Gezi resistance—therevolt was spreading.

Clashes with the police, under clouds of tear gas, continued all night and intothe next day in Taksim streets, which by then resembled a battlefield. Thousandsof people were chanting “this is only the beginning, the struggle will continue”when they finally reclaimed Taksim Square and Gezi Park in the afternoon onJune 1.12 Within the few days that followed, Taksim Solidarity communicated fourdemands to the government: that Gezi Park should stay as a park; that the policeviolence against the protestors should stop immediately and those officialsresponsible for the violence should be dismissed; that the detained protestors shouldbe released; and that de jure and de facto barriers to freedom of speech and protestin all public spaces should be removed.

The government, however, tried to disparage and slander the resistance fromthe very beginning.13 The protestors were portrayed as alcoholics, degenerates,and vandals; the accusations ranged from a conspiracy by foreign finance capitalto destabilize the economy to an orchestrated move to take down the government.It was in this context that JDP’s deputy chair claimed that the protestors werenot concerned about Gezi Park or “a few trees within it,” and their real aim wasto debilitate the government. The unprecedented scope and support that theprotests gained, however, forced the government to step back. Days after the parkwas reclaimed, a so-called dialogue was initiated and a meeting was called withrepresentatives from Taksim Solidarity on the night of June 14 but it turned out to be futile as the prime minister abandoned the gathering early in themeeting. Meanwhile, the occupants of the park had self-organized open forumsto discuss future demands and further steps that the movement should take. Thefollowing day (a Saturday), when the park was swamped with an unprepared,unsuspecting crowd including children and the elderly, police forces moved inonce again and evacuated the park with the usual—but more brutal—use of teargas.14 The Park was held under siege by police forces for a few weeks, arbitrarilyopened to public at times, and remains closed for large public gatherings to thisday.

Until its final evacuation, the park was made a true common space and aconcretization of collective living by its occupiers. It also became a commoningground for seemingly separate struggles that had remained isolated, namely localecological resistances, urban-neighborhood movements, and different agents of thelabor movement. The park had not only brought together groups whose unionwould otherwise be unthinkable, such as the Kurdish movement, secularist-nationalist Kemalists and anti-capitalist Muslims, but also promoted a type of social

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relationship that enabled them to co-exist. In this double sense, the organizationof collective life in the park was a commoning practice.

Enacting Park-as-Commons

The days when the park was maintained by the protestors demonstrated anextraordinary politics of space that, for many, fell nothing short of the ParisCommune: the main arteries stemming out of Taksim Square, normally congestedwith vehicles trying to make their way into or out of the neighborhood, wereblocked by barricades named after those killed by police violence during the revolt(Figure 15.2). Emptied out of their usual occupants, these streets were walked byprotestor-occupiers carrying necessities to the park as well as white collar profes-sionals going to work in plazas nearby. Entering the park from the east entrance,one would first come across a communal café on the left and the infirmary next toit, whose surroundings had been cleared to ensure easy access in case of an emer-gency. Further on the left laid the patch of land turned into a vegetable garden bya guerilla garden collective, a group that has been active in a number of similarventures around the city. One would then pass by the Gezi Kids workshop next tothe garden and the communal cafeterias located in front of it. Scattered betweenthe tents, announcements for various workshops would be spotted, which hadbecome one of the regular activities in the park together with the open forums.

During this time, the park animated an organization of state-less, commodity-less collective life, with its communal library (Figure 15.3) and cafeterias, volunteerinfirmaries, workshop corners and so on. The variety of goods and services pro-duced in the Park, such as food, media, library services, social education, security,hygiene, firefighting, and more, were produced collectively by the unremunerated

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Figure 15.2 Barricades on a main artery leading to Taksim Square. It is named afterAbdullah Comert, who died after being shot by a teargas canister on the headduring the protests in Antakya.




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labor of the protestor-occupiers. Their distribution took place via non-marketchannels based on solidarity and sharing, rather than exchange. The organizationof these activities, as well as the general organization of the space, did not rely onany centralized structure but was largely autonomous, and at times, spontaneous.15

Attempts in realizing direct democracy in open forums emerged later on, whenprotestor-occupiers discussed experiences and needs as well as demands and pos-sible ways of furthering the struggle.

It would of course be far-fetched to suggest that the park embodied a completedetachment from capitalist relations of production and distribution or the broaderpolitical system. After all, the sustenance of the life in the park depended heavilyon gifts flowing from the capitalist “outside world” and the legitimacy provided bythe support of the larger public. But it indeed represented a space in which analternative socio-economic order was manifested and a different sense of com-munity was constituted. This was a space where the market logic did not havepurchase, use-value superseded exchange value, and an ethic of solidarity wasoperationalized instead of self-interest. The park was constituted as a non-capitalisturban commons by its collective use (rather than the specific property rights definedover it) and its re-production by the practices of its users (Akbulut and Soylu, 2013;Turan, 2013; see also Gambetti, 2013).

But the park has been constituted as a commons in a second sense: it had becomea fertile commoning ground for social movements who had remained largelyisolated and disconnected from each other despite the close resonance betweentheir struggles. Numerous actors that populate the landscape of social opposition,covering a variety of fields—lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transvestiteactivists, feminists, socialist left, anarchists, Kemalists, ecologists, urban activists,Kurds, anti-capitalist Muslims are the first to come to mind—and of organizationalstructures—parties, NGOs, grassroots movements, collectives—have transportedtheir accumulated experience as well as political/politicizing practices to the park.

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Figure 15.3Gezi Park Library.




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Solidarity Kitchen, a communal neighborhood collective from Tarlabasi, startedproducing meals on the first day; grassroots environmental movements from outsideof Istanbul organized discussions to publicize their struggles and convey theirexperiences; urban ecologists held a number of workshops on mega projects thatthreaten the socio-ecological sustainability of Istanbul (which sow the seeds of theDefense of Northern Forests, an Istanbul-based activist group fighting against thedestruction of urban space on the Black Sea coast of the city); feminists took directactions such as spraying over sexist street writings and posting signs against sexistslogans. In fact, this potluck of political repertoire is what accounts in part for themovement’s ability to practice a more proactive politics of a solidaristic social andeconomic life. It has also laid the political groundwork, in a more fundamentalsense, that enabled the largely rural and localized environmental resistances andthe urban movements centered on right to the city (Lefebvre, 1995).

Broadly speaking, the environmental movement in contemporary Turkey hasbeen marked by its fragmented, localized character. Barring a few exceptionalefforts, local environmental resistances have remained mostly independent fromeach other despite the close resemblance between the discourses, demands andstrategies mobilized by them. Although this is somewhat understandable, as eachstruggle is inevitably conditioned by the specifics of micro-contexts and particu-larities, their inability to form durable alliances and produce a broader politicalagenda has been a major weakness. However, by transporting their histories andstruggles to the park, local environmental resistances formed a milieu that revealedthe political line connecting them as well as the Gezi resistance: the intricaterelationship between the state, capital, and the environment (Erensu, 2013). Thewords of an anti-HEPP activist is telling in this respect: “If we win [the fight for]Gezi in Taksim, we will have won [the fight in our town]; when we win in [ourtown], we will have won in Taksim as well, we will have won all over the country.”16

On the flip side, the accumulated experience of these localized movements in factplayed an invaluable role in producing the foundation on which Gezi resistancearose. Not only did the strategies and types of direct action employed during Geziresistance (such as hugging or climbing up the trees and standing or lying in frontof the bulldozers) bore the marks of this collective history, but also the key actorsof the resistance, who have long been familiar with it. It is, therefore, hardlysurprising that Taksim Solidarity has consistently made references to variousenvironmental resistances when contextualizing its stance, as the quote in thebeginning of this chapter attests to (Sahin, 2013; Erensu, 2013).

Conversely, the park provided the opportunity for the (mostly rural) environ-mental struggles to come together with the urban struggles that focus mostly ondefense of public spaces and the right to housing. Although it is almost intuitive forthese two lines of movements to stand together, as both problematize and politicizethe restructuring of space—whether urban or rural—by the capital–state nexus,now intensified in the contemporary era of neoliberalism, they had rarely joinedforces in action in the past. Gezi resistance equipped them with a common groundand a shared language that revolves around the enclosure of collective living spacesthat translates into urban parks, neighborhoods, squares in the city and forests,

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rivers, valleys in the country. It has invigorated the political potential of both byenabling them to connect their particular struggles to the more structural processesof capital accumulation and the facilitating role state action plays in opening upspaces for it.

“This is Only the Beginning! The Struggle Continues!”17

The days of the Taksim commune are over, but the struggle is certainly not. Thepolitical reservoir that this urban greenspace has produced continues to energizesocial movements and activism. The seeds of direct democracy sown in Gezi Parkcontinue to grow in neighborhood forums, which sprang up in numerous locationsall around Istanbul immediately after the park’s final evacuation. These forums donot only tackle specific neighborhood issues, but they aim to keep the Geziexperience alive by fostering non-market ways of organizing economic life andproblematizing urban transformation and ecological destruction in the city byholding workshops, forming working groups and commissions, and staging protests.They also engage with larger issues of the national political agenda such as thepeace process initiated by the government with the Kurdish insurgency. One ofthe very first squatting experiments in the country took place in November 2013,Don Quixote Social Center, itself stemmed from a neighborhood forum, owingmuch of its inspiration and legitimacy to the politics of reclaiming common spaceanimated in Gezi Park. The Defense of Northern Forests, a network of activists,academics and urban planners, was formed shortly after the park days to launch acampaign against the destruction of greenspaces lying in the northern part of thecity by the third bridge, the third airport, Canal Istanbul and urban redevelop-ment projects.

It is true that the Gezi resistance became somewhat of a multiplier that broughttogether different groups with different sources of discontent (from secularKemalists to anti-capitalist Muslims) in an anti-government front. I have tried todemonstrate, however, that the resistance should not be seen as a mere vehiclethrough which discontent with the authoritarian politics of JDP has been mobilized,but rather be situated within a nuanced and historical reading of the broaderpolitical-economic context. I have offered here one such reading from the lens ofa political ecology perspective. Building on the premise that socio-ecologicalmovements cannot be understood outside their socio-spatial contexts (Kaika andSwyngedouw, 2011), I have argued that the Gezi revolts were never an isolatedcase from the larger dynamics of restructuring urban and rural space. Gezi Parkand the politics built around it reflected the dynamics of capital accumulation,neoliberal enclosures of space and power relations; processes that are hardly uniqueto the case of Gezi Park, and are deeply imprinted by inequalities.

The fact that the collective grievances and rage of the losers of spatial dynamicsof neoliberal capitalism, ranging from villagers fighting for their water in thenortheast Anatolia to residents of gentrified neighborhoods in Istanbul, found acommon voice in the Park was arguably the most distinctive feature of the Gezirevolts. The languages of opposition found within the movement were hardly

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confined to the Park but alluded to the larger, more structural processes and injus-tices discussed above. The movement also went beyond forming an oppositionalfront and animated the organization of a non-capitalist, communitarian, socio-economic sphere. In these senses, the Gezi Park protests presented a contrast tomost socio-ecological movements trapped within a narrow not-in-my-backyarddiscourse who remain reactive rather than transformative (Kaika and Swyngedouw,2011). In a related vein, they have been an invaluable experience for those of us—political ecologists—who have a political stake and an analytical interest in theemergence, maintenance and evolution of social movements.

How the long-term impacts of the Gezi revolts will play out in the political settingof the country remain to be seen. But it would not be far-fetched to suggest thatthey have left an irreversible mark on our collective political imagination andpotential. Above all, it has enabled us to rediscover our capacity to self-organizeand to reclaim our right to self-determination. The movement’s motto, “this is onlythe beginning, the struggle will continue” holds more meaning for us today thanever.

Notes

* To the memory of Abdullah Comert, Ali Ismail Korkmaz, Ethem Sarisuluk, MedeniYildirim and Mehmet Ayvalitas who were killed by state violence during Gezi revolts.

1 See a piece by renown writer Elif Safak for a glorified example of this position:www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/03/taksim-square-istanbul-turkey-protest(accessed March 26, 2014).

2 Certainly, this is not to suggest that the only destructive interventions undertaken underJDP rule are energy investments nor that the JDP government has been an exception inits disregard for the socio-environmental implications of developmentalism. SeeAkbulut (2011) and Akbulut and Adaman (2013) for a treatment of growth fetishism inTurkey as an integral part of state-making. See also www.ejolt.org/2013/06/turkeys-tree-revolution-part-2-everyday-im-chapulling/.

3 In mid-2013, the number of SHPs at various operational and planning phases was over1700.

4 The idea of modernization and catching-up with the West dominates the socialimagination like no other in Turkey. More specifically, it has been the building blocksof the state–society relationships and as the Turkish state has historically achieved itspower and legitimacy, first and foremost, from the promise of fulfilling the ideal ofmodernization (Akbulut, 2011; Akbulut and Adaman, 2013).

5 As will be discussed below, the government then declared a ban on holding meetingsand protests in Taksim Square and those who tried to practice this very right wereregularly subjected to police brutality.

6 That children from Tarlabasi have set construction scaffolds and huge advertisementboards of the Tarlabasi Renovation Project on fire while marching to Taksim Squareis a telling example of this (Ozgur, 2013).

7 The municipality’s “tables-and-chairs” operation was the finishing touch for the foodservices. In the fall of 2010, outside seating was banned in Taksim, which forced manysmall restaurants and cafés to down-size or shut down altogether. There has been awide consensus among the urban activists and local business owners that this wasindeed a move to open up space for large capital.

8 See www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/15/turkey-historic-emek-theatre-final-curtain (accessed March 26, 2014).

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9 This particular dimension was later operationalized formally as well, first with thedesignation of Taksim Square off-limits for May Day celebrations and later with thegovernment’s more general ban on the holding of protests in the Square and itssurroundings in May 2013.

10 Although political parties of the left as well as non-party leftist organizations were alsoincluded in Taksim Solidarity, they have generally been less than motivated. This hasusually been interpreted as a sign that the left in Turkey essentializes the labor struggleand belittles social movements, and that they have not attached much politicalimportance to the spatial politics of opposing the enclosure of a public space (Ozgur,2013).

11 One of the many tweets that circulated on May 31, 2013.12 Although political parties of the left as well as non-party leftist organizations were also

included in Taksim Solidarity, they have generally been less than motivated. This hasusually been interpreted as a sign that the left in Turkey essentializes the labor struggleand belittles social movements, and that they have not attached much politicalimportance to the spatial politics of opposing the enclosure of a public space (Ozgur,2013).

13 The prime minister himself had called the protestors çapulcular (looters) during the firstfew days of the resistance; a name quickly reverted, embraced and used by theprotestors when referring to themselves.

14 The protests and street clashes continued after the Park was dismantled. Istanbul, aswell as other city centers, was once again turned into a battlefield during the night andday following June 15. Weekly demonstrations to condemn police brutality and thePark’s completely unlawful blockade were held for a while with Taksim Solidarity’sinitiative, but they were heavily intervened by security forces as usual. Thedemonstrations were gradually stopped with the general realization that fightingagainst police violence was becoming futile and stealing from the movement’s energy.

15 While Taksim Solidarity was still the main body that held a legitimate claim torepresent the resistance, it had been considerably slow in responding to the needs anddemands that arose out of the organization of the daily life in the Park—unsurprisinglyso, as it was an umbrella organization that brought together very different actors, fromorganized left to grassroots movements, that required lengthy deliberation anddiscussion before taking action. The absence of a central organizing body, however,turned out to be a positive force as it enabled the protestors to discover their self-organizing potential.

16 Quoted in Erensu, 2013.17 This phrase was the most commonly chanted slogan during the revolts, and became

somewhat of its trademark. It is also telling that the slogan was first chanted duringEmek movie theater protests mentioned earlier.

References

Akbulut, B. (2011) ‘State Hegemony and Sustainable Development: A Political EconomyAnalysis of Two Local Experiences in Turkey’. PhD dissertation, University ofMassachusetts, Amherst, MA

Akbulut, B. and F. Adaman (2013) ‘The Unbearable Charm of Modernization: GrowthFetishism and the Making of State in Turkey’. Perspectives: Political Analysis and Commentary

from Turkey, 5.13.Akbulut, B. and C.I. Soylu (2013) ‘¿Tragedia o cercamiento?: Imaginar y promulgar

Parque Gezi como bien común’ (‘Tragedy or Enclosure?: Imagining and Enacting GeziPark as Commons’). Ecologia Politica: Cuadernos de Debate Internacional, 45 (December 2013)pp. 43–47.

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Erensu, S. (2013) ‘Ekoloji Mucadelesi: Gezi’den Once, Gezi’den Sonra’ (‘EcologicalStruggles: Before Gezi, After Gezi’). Uc Ekoloji: Doga, Dusunce, Siyaset. Summer 2013.

Gambetti, Z. (2013) ‘Gezi Resistance as Surplus Value’. www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/12672/the-gezi-resistance-as-surplus-value (accessed March 26, 2014).

Kaika, M. and E. Swyngedouw (2011) ‘The Urbanization of Nature: Great Promises,Impasse, and New Beginnings’ in The New Blackwell Companion to the City (G. Bridge andS. Watson eds), Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Lefebvre, H. (1995) Writings on Cities. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Ozgur, D. (2013) ‘How the Gezi Revolt gave Birth to Park Democracy’. Perspectives: Political

Analysis and Commentary from Turkey, 5.13.Peck, J. and A. Tickell (2002) ‘Neoliberalizing Space’, Antipode, 34(3): 380–404.Polat, I. (2013) ‘Gezi: Merkezi Yonetimin Vesayetine ve Kentsel Donusume Isyan’ (‘Gezi:

Revolt against the Tutelage of Central Administration and Urban Transformation’). Uc

Ekoloji: Doga, Dusunce, Siyaset. Summer 2013.Sahin, U. (2013) ‘Ilk Soz: Gezi Direnisi: Bir Demokrasi ve Ekoloji Mucadelesi’ (‘Prelude:

Gezi Resistance: A Democracy and Ecology Struggle). Uc Ekoloji: Doga, Dusunce, Siyaset.

Summer 2013.Swyngedouw, E. and N.C. Heynen (2003) ‘Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics

of Scale’. Antipode, 35(5): 898–918.Taksim Solidarity Press Release, May 29, 2013.Turan, O. (2013) ‘Gezi Parki Direnisi ve Armagan Dunyasi’ (‘Gezi Park Resistance and the

World of Gift’). Toplumsal Tarih, 238, October 2013.Turkish Contractors’ Association (TCA) (2012) ‘Analysis of the Construction Sector’, April

2012.Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (UCTEA) (2012) Press Release.

www.mimarlarodasiankara.org/index.php?Did=4426 (accessed march 26, 2014).

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A Few Trees In Gezi Park: Resisting the Spatial Politics of Neoliberalism in Turkey

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