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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / I Have Seen the Enemy and It is Twitter

I Have Seen the Enemy and It is Twitter

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The Guardian has a good Turkey piece this morning, starting with this quote:

‘Social media is the worst menace to society,’ says Recep Erdogan after thousands take control of Istanbul’s main square.

This was interesting, given that it comes from official sources:

The protests had spread across Turkey to half of its 81 provinces by Sunday, the interior ministry, Muammer Guler, said. Guler said 1,750 people had been detained since Tuesday, but most had since been released, while damage costs have not yet been announced. The Turkish Doctors’ Association said the demonstrations had left 1,000 people injured in Istanbul and 700 in Ankara.

Here’s Paul Mason from the BBC:

I have covered Syntagma in Athens, the Occupy protests and reported from Tahrir Square in Cairo. This is different to all of them. First, it is massive: the sheer numbers dwarf any single episode of civil unrest in Greece.

Second, the breadth of social support – within the urban enclave of Istanbul – is bigger than Greece and closer to Egypt. “Everyone is here – except the AK Party” – says one young woman. People nod. In Greece, the urban middle class was split; here the secular middle class is out in force, united across political divisions, to say nothing of football hatreds.

Is this the Turkish Tahrir? Not unless the workers join in: Turkey has a large labour movement, and a big urban poor, working population, and Monday is a work day, so we will see. It is certainly already something more than the Turkish version of Occupy.

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  1. 1.

    Mandalay

    ‘Social media is the worst menace to society,’ says Recep Erdogan after thousands take control of Istanbul’s main square.

    Our Beltway expert in preventing people challenging their betters, Cokie Roberts, was telling us the same thing sixteen years ago. If only poor Mr. Erdogan had had the wisdom to listen to her, and close down the internet at the first sign of trouble from the little people.

  3. 3.

    Shakezula

    Washington Po yesterday had an article abut the Twitter Police. P.C.ness is making everything boring blah, blah how dare individuals call bigots on their bullshit, fart. I didn’t see if the writer mentioned what happens when the real police start policing social media because it was boring.

    @Mandalay: Dear God the lede alone is enough to drive a peace-loving person to acts of mayhem.

  7. 7.

    handsmile

    This morning, Al-Jazeera’s essential program “Inside Story” was devoted to the protests in Turkey and Erdogan’s confrontational response. Twenty-four minutes long, but abundantly informative on the situation and the political climate in Turkey:

    aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2013/06/20136365255648869.html

    As for the BBC, I’d be deeply skeptical of “analysis” that draws any parallel between the Turkish protests and the Occupy movement.

  8. 8.

    ricky

    It is certainly already something more than the Turkish version of Occupy

    What? They have drum circles, guitarmy marches and a sign language method of achieving consensus already?

  10. 10.

    aimai

    Not like Occupy at all. This is not composed of pseudo anarchists and nihilists and its not going to have a chance to “occupy” for long. This is a “revolution of rising expectations” kind of summer protest. That doesn’t mean its ephemeral or that it will over bloodlessly–it means that the aspirations of the protesters are for more of what Erdogan is already giving them (increasing standards of living) and more of what the islamists won’t give them (increasing freedom and true europeanization). If they could throw Erdogan and the Islamists out and replace him with someone more secular and muscularly pro-economy and pro-nationalist they would. They would not replace him with someone that an Occupy movement would recognize as a good leader.

  11. 11.

    aimai

    @Shakezula: Its boring not to be able to insult women, gays, blacks, hispanics, crippled people, etc..etc…etc… Just like sex ed takes the mystery and wonder and eros out of sex (because fumbling in the dark is so very erotic when you aren’t choosing it as a fetish). Truly for the right wingers ignorance is not only bliss, its funny and its erotic.

  12. 12.

    eric

    @aimai: “fumbling in the dark” as fetish….hmmm, no thanks i will take what is behind green door number two.

  13. 13.

    Cassidy

    We can’t have some pesky protesters telling the world about how their skulls are getting cracked.

  15. 15.

    Shakezula

    @aimai: I disagree. Right wingers have an intense distrust and loathing of both. Their attempts at either are as clumsy as their attempts to reach out to minorities and for the same reasons.

    I am having trouble with words today.

  17. 17.

    Mandalay

    @handsmile:

    As for the BBC, I’d be deeply skeptical of “analysis” that draws any parallel between the Turkish protests and the Occupy movement.

    Huh? That analysis specifically contrasted (rather than drew parallels) between Turkey and Egypt…

    Is this the Turkish Tahrir? Not unless the workers join in: Turkey has a large labour movement, and a big urban poor, working population, and Monday is a work day, so we will see. It is certainly already something more than the Turkish version of Occupy.

    I can’t see what you are objecting to. Are you saying that the protests are qualitatively different, in some fundamental(ist) way?

  20. 20.

    Older_Wiser

    Sen Frank Lautenberg has died of viral pneumonia. RIP. He was the last WWII vet in the Senate.

    Chris Christie gets to appoint an R to serve out his term. This doesn’t bode well for either the immigration bill or other legislation, leaving the Senate with 1 less liberal vote.

  21. 21.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: Quite well. In training. I won’t actually be released into wild on my own for quite some time. They want to make sure we are really ready.

  23. 23.

    handsmile

    @Mandalay:

    Are you saying that the protests are qualitatively different…

    Yes. To invoke the Occupy protests at all in relation to what is unfolding in Turkey indicates to me a lazy and shallow appraisal – of both movements.

    To mention that anti-Putin protests last fall largely occurred in Moscow public parks would be as relevant.

    ETA: ah, I see I’m no more adept at block-quoting with this new format than before. sorry.

  24. 24.

    askew

    @Older_Wiser:

    RIP Frank.

    This is going to happen more and more often on the Dem side unless we can get some of the older Senators to retire at their next election date.

    Let’s hope Christie pulls a Democratic move and just appoints a placeholder.

  25. 25.

    Shakezula

    @Older_Wiser: I think a huge factor is whether the Congress GOP keeps its mouth shut. Anything in the nature of telling Christie what to do will backfire.

    I don’t think the GOP will keep its mouth shut.

  26. 26.

    Chris

    Is this the Turkish Tahrir? Not unless the workers join in

    Interesting that they’re sitting it out.

    Partly OT: I had to do some research last semester comparing the Iranian Green Revolution of 2009 and the Tunisian Arab Spring Revolution of 2011 (why one worked and one didn’t). One of the notable differences; the Green Revolution didn’t seem to have as broad a support as the Arab Spring; specifically, the group that was missing from the Greens was the working class. The articles I read about it speculated that this wasn’t necessarily because the workers were happy with the status quo, but because the Green Movement’s tendency towards economic liberalization meant they didn’t particularly identify with it. As opposed to Tunisia, where the working class, mobilized by lower level union members, was just as on board as anyone else.

    I don’t know how this translates to Turkey, if at all, (Turkey is no Iran and no Tunisia), but thought it interesting enough to mention here nonetheless. Western media has a tendency to look at everything in the Middle East in terms of identity politics, ignoring the fact that other factors like class politics matter equally. (Of course, they kinda do that a lot here, too).

  28. 28.

    El Cid

    I have no need to over- or under-establish parallels between various protests such as the ones in Turkey and various ‘Occupy’ themed protests elsewhere, but for fucks sake, a number of the Turkish protesters in, you know, Turkey referred to themselves with ‘Occupy’ names, most prominently ‘Occupy Taksim’.

    Don’t forget that sometimes people draw parallels that aren’t in the same plane: if various ‘occupy’ movements here struck you as whatever that you didn’t like, it doesn’t mean someone somewhere else uses the terms for the same things.

    It’s a very useful meme, for whatever set of reasons, including that it creates a self-marketing phrase which labels what some group is doing yet avoids the super-specificity of a particular aim. Someone using the phrase “Occupy Taksim” (like this Turkish writer in Turkey in a Turkish newspaper may not necessarily mean ‘it is analagous to Occupy Wall Street in methods X, Y, and Z’.

    What would become the Occupy Taksim protests had been bubbling beneath the surface in recent months as the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) staging political campaigns with its conservative agenda on different groups in Turkey. Taksim was a symbolic venue for the silent quarrel between the conservatives and others given its traditional significance as the city’s political and cultural center and due to its attractions that irk conservative values.

    The passive aggression in the district started with the so-called “table operations” nearly two years ago as the side streets were stripped of tables serving alcohol. Then, it was put under a blockade with an urban project. While the AKP upped its campaign with its recent war on alcohol, like many others in the rest of the country, Istanbul’s locals felt threatened by an attack on a lifestyle different than what the government wished them to have. This was a reminder of feeling when the AKP first came to power nearly a decade ago, but now it was not only the old Republican “guards” of Turkey that were troubled by the actions of the authorities.

    The growing discontent was the boost for the core Occupy Taksim protesters waiting for more hands in the middle of İstiklal on Saturday morning. What they just wanted was to let the AKP government know that their deeds also needed to be heard.

    The protests united people with different motivations, ethnic backgrounds, political identities and religious beliefs. People at odds with each other in their daily life have been coming together when coming under heavy police attack while mocking them with slogans such as “Give us more tear gas.” Having similar characteristic with the so-called “Arab Spring” with its leaderlessness, the Occupy Taksim protests have turned into a political challenge to the AKP government, something that has been missing in Turkish politics for years. It could have more echoes, with senior Turkish officials signaling a U-turn over the controversial Taksim project.

    Despite the high decibel and defiance, it would be still too early to make comparisons between the Occupy Taksimers and Arab Spring protesters while the labels, such as “Turkish Spring,” are still unripe for now. That being said, what the protests showed to both the country and its rulers was that the popular voice shall confront authority despite having long been weak.

    Before reacting to anyone’s use of the term ‘Occupy’ in this sense or making any analogies to said-named prior movements with ‘blargh no not angry stupid nihilists blargh’ try to ask how the protesters involved may be using the terms, how, and in what contexts. They may not think it expresses the same things you do.

    How does the writer seem to be using the name and terminology of ‘Occupy’? Well, first, it refers to a group of people assembling in some contested area to protest something regarding that area or a theme that that area represents. It involves a mix of planned and spontaneous arrivals. It is not the activity of one particular group or prior existing coherently identified social movement organization (a labor union, an environmental group). The protest actions have a great amount of satirical and sarcastic challenges to authority.

    So maybe it’s not the most ridiculous thing for a BBC observer to drop the phrase ‘occupy’ since (a) people there in Turkey are on occasion using ‘Occupy’ terminology themselves and (b) no one using such terminology had to meet someone’s preauthorization checklist on what they would use that terminology to mean.

  29. 29.

    cat48

    They have better protestor vandalism. They set the AKParty Building on fire in the 3rd largest city; meanwhile, in Ankara, the capital, a protestor stole a bulldozer & chased a police vehicle & ended up at one of PM Erdogan’s seaside offices. They went quite crazy last night.

  30. 30.

    Matt McIrvin

    So, this guy I know keeps insisting that this is actually largely about US foreign policy; in particular, that the main thing that got people fed up in Istanbul was actually that the Obama administration is trying to drag Turkey into a war with Syria, and Erdogan’s rhetoric strongly supporting the Syrian rebels is part of it.

    Juan Cole did mention a public poll that seems to lend support to the idea that Erdogan’s statements concerning Syria are part of the building resentment against him. But the whole US-Syria angle seems to be played down or omitted entirely in most accounts of what’s going on. I suspect my acquaintance may be exaggerating the significance of it; he has some other unusual opinions, and not everything is about the US. But as a US citizen I’m naturally interested in that angle.

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