In a problem of Ord&Bild exploring Istanbul’s city heritage, Ülkü Holago revisits Gezi Park – one of many final inexperienced areas within the metropolis. Within the early 2000s, as a part of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s city renewal mission, the park was to be remodelled as a shopping center with a freeway beneath, adjusting Istanbul ‘to the dynamics of the worldwide system and the EU course of’.
In June 2022, Erdoğan referred to the tens of millions of people that took half within the Gezi protests as ‘rotten’ and ‘sluts’: ‘They drank beer and dirty themselves within the Dolmabahç Mosque, as a result of that’s what they’re.’
What began as makes an attempt to protect Gezi by architects, city planners, legal professionals and cultural employees developed into Turkey’s greatest ever anti-regime protest. Holago writes a couple of sprawling motion, an Istanbul resistance gathering the 2 primary opposition events: the pro-Kurdish leftwing Peace and Democracy Get together and the Republican Individuals’s Get together.
Opinions surrounding the Gezi protests differ. However they are often seen as a milestone on the nation’s path to authoritarianism. Resentment in the direction of Erdoğan continues to be alive in Istanbul and could be confirmed by the native elections within the spring of 2024. ‘And amidst all of the turbulence and polarisation, it nonetheless stands. Gezi Park. Afterall.
A rustic in fixed battle
There’s an company in Galatasaray the place the telephone by no means stops ringing. Helin Sahin has taken a seat within the ready room. She has been invited to satisfy a lawyer who has devoted her life to serving to girls unprotected by the state.
A younger lady walks in who’s referred to by the others ready as ‘the lady with the initials’. She has been topic to group rape by navy and cops, males in energy. The company is her final hope: ‘The entire company was ready for the lawyer who would assist them. She needed to, there was no different approach. She all the time discovered an answer.’
Helin Sahin leaves the workplace constructing, goes for a stroll and continues telling tales of oppressors and the oppressed, who’re typically one and the identical. She writes of her political hopes and expectations as she recollects a metropolis and nation continually in battle.
Within the Galatasaray Sq., a bunch of girls collect, all recognisable from the ready room on the company. They’re known as the ‘Saturday moms’.
‘In the hunt for their lacking kinfolk … they demand that the state return their kinfolk, alive or useless. One brother was tortured to loss of life in jail. A sibling holds her mom’s arm as she sits in protest together with her son’s image in her hand. Typically the Saturday Moms get their kinfolk’ stays again. In a plastic bag, the state delivers what’s left of what was as soon as an individual with recollections.’
Diaspora and again
‘Sweden and Turkey. Our tales have lengthy been intertwined’. Simon Sorgenfrei is crossing the Galata Bridge, interviewing Kerim Arhan who has simply moved to Istanbul.
Kerim’s household, the Arhans, was the primary Turkish household in Sweden. Arriving in Malmö in 1928, Kerim’s father Mustafa and his brothers have been handled appropriately by the Swedish authorities. Possibly it was simpler to be a Turk in Sweden within the ’30s or ’40s, Sorgenfrei asks. ‘The Orient had, and maybe nonetheless has for some, a shimmer of spirituality and mysticism round it {that a} meals dealer from Istanbul may play on to draw prospects.’
The Arhans have been an necessary household for the Turks that adopted them: ‘The brothers’ carpet outlets functioned as Turkish mini-consulates, along with the actual consulate within the capital, and typically as locations of prayer for Muslim immigrants in Sweden. Kemal Atatürk oversaw the operations from framed images on the partitions.’
Kerim was introduced up within the ‘80s and had a distinct expertise. He recollects the racist graffiti drawn on their home after his father had been photographed within the newspaper. At school, he was merely known as ‘the Turk’. His Turkish heritage had all the time been there, even when it had been tough to know. Kerim had a Turkish father and a Swedish mom. His identification holds a sure different-ness: he’s completely different to Swedes in addition to completely different to Turks.
Now, Kerim is strolling alongside the streets of Istanbul, working to determine a tradition home close to the Swedish consulate. He writes to Sorgenfrei: ‘If there’s one factor I like from my ancestors, it’s sitting in a carpet home and listening to the rustling and smelling the carpets and simply being there … So it was solely pure to promote some carpets. I’ll promote carpets ten minutes from the place my grandfather introduced his first carpets to Sweden.’
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