Judith Butler's Istanbul Lecture: ‘Freedom of Assembly, or Who are the People?’ September, 2013

Judith Butler's Istanbul Lecture: ‘Freedom of Assembly, or Who are the People?’ September, 2013 from Columbia Global Centers on Vimeo.

Watch Professor Judith Butler’s lecture, ‘Freedom of Assembly, or Who are the People?’ held on September 15, 2013 in Istanbul at Boğaziçi University. Judith Butler’s lecture was a collaboration of Columbia Global Centers | Turkey, the 13th Istanbul Biennial and Boğaziçi University. Prof. Butler was based at the Center from September 16-19, co-directing a workshop with Prof. Zeynep Gambetti as part of Columbia’s Women Creating Change initiative on ‘Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance: Feminism and Social Change’. Learn more about Women Creating Change through this link: socialdifference.columbia.edu/projects/women-creating-change

Irfan Erdogan: A Report on the Situation in Turkey from CULTSTUD-L @ Virality, June 5, 2013

A Report on the Situation in Turkey

Irfan Erdogan, erdogan.irfan@gmail.com, http://irfanerdogan.com/

I am writing this to inform you that people in over 65 cities of 81 in

Turkey are demonstrating against the reactionary and oppressive regime of

Tayyip Erdogan and his party. We have demonstrations even in the most

reactionary cities in Turkey. People in every neighborhood in the cities

are on the street. Police throw gas bombs at demonstrators, beat and arrest

people. It is not like in the late 1960s, because people did not care about

us much then. We students were demonstrating for independence and socialism

then. Now everybody is on the street. Nobody cheered when we were

demonstrating in the late 60s in Turkey. Now people are cheering and

supporting the demonstrators. Today we have more people on the street in my

neighborhood in Ankara than yesterday. Police are shooting gas bombs inside

the houses because people are providing shelter for demonstrators who are

escaping from gas and police beatings. Youngsters and people from every

walk of life are on the street and want the Erdogan government to resign.

Erdogan uses the classic rhetoric about demonstrators and he threatens them

by saying that he can send one million supporters to the street (he means,

to smash the demonstrations). He says: “I keep 50 percent of the population

at home” (he means that he can use 50 percent of people who support him

against the other people). His mindset and approach reminds me of Jay Gould

who said once that he is not worried about demonstrations and labor

strikes, because he can hire one-half of the working class to kill the

other half. For a lot of people, Erdogan is a reactionary dictator.

 In Turkey people are scared to say something against Erdogan. Television did

not provide any news about the demonstrations except the television

stations of the major opposition party and Turkish Labor party television,

because mainstream media either support the administration or are scared of

Erdogan’s rage/wrath. People in Istanbul walked in front of the major

television stations and announced that if they do not feature them in the

news they will occupy the TV station. Then, TV stations started reporting,

but in a highly distorted manner. After this incident, very few media

personnel resigned from their posts in the TV channel. Erdogan scolded the

Reuters journalist who dared to ask him a question that he did not like.

The Internet is used for the most effective channel of communication and

organization of the protests by everybody. Erdogan expressed his utmost

anger against Twitter and social media. Everybody uses their mobile phone

for communication and recording the events and putting/disseminating them

on the Internet. Mainstream media started lying as usual. Two main labor

unions in Turkey run by those who ask some meaningless concessions from the

government try to stop workers to demonstrate, but workers are on the

street, too. Demonstrations are rapidly spreading all over the country.

Soon, I know, religious reactionaries (not all religious people are

reactionary) will attack demonstrators. There is a high probability that we

will witness a domestic/civil war in Turkey.

I was at the center of the demonstrations in Ankara yesterday and the day

before. Demonstrators do not do anything wrong, but police continuously

shoot pressured water, gas and noise bombs at them and attack

demonstrators. Police behave like they are fighting an enemy. They curse at

and threaten people by e.g. saying: “get lost otherwise we arrest you and

you know what we do when we arrest you.” We know there are some progressive

and conscientious people in the police force, but they are also under the

threat of the empire of fear. But we will see a differing police behavior

as the time goes by in the process. Now, there is an indiscriminate use of

gas bombs (CS gas). Your eyes get severely burned and you cannot breathe,

you start coughing, and you feel dizzy if you are close to the fume. Also

when it hits you or blows up beside you, you get shocked (I saw it). So far

we have four killings and many wounded.

As usual, they claim that demonstrators/provocateurs destroy and vandalize

everything around. Yes we see a lot of destruction; in fact, it is started

and done by plain-cloth police. How do I know: (1) this is a historical

fact. (2) I know from the late 60s, because we could recognize the police

then, but it is difficult to recognize them now. (3) How come there is no

vandalism, destruction and terror where there is no police around? Here are

few examples: I attend demonstrations at the center of the city where

police provokes, attacks and where plain cloth police destroys everything

around provoking some young people to do the same. My daughter and my wife

and neighbors attend huge demonstrations in our neighborhood where there is

no police presence yet: You can see no violence, no destruction and no

vandalism in these demonstrations.

Read more @ Virality
Pics: Police is throwing urticant gas against demonstrators

Jussi Parikka - Istanbul: Becoming People @ Machinology, June 2, 2013

No smoke without fire, although with the tear gassed Istanbul, Ankara and numerous other cities, one should say: no smoke without tears.

While things are unfolding on the streets of Turkey, the international audience of the events are trying to figure out: what is going on. Who are the demonstrators? Hence, kicks in the usual suspects of repertoire of explanations: is this like Occupy Wall St.? Is this the Turkish version of Arab Spring? Are the demonstrators a vocal minority, and we are just misperceiving lots of social media traffic as a major event?

Perhaps the question itself should be differently posed. There are lots of great commentariesfloating around, longer texts with already now some excellent contexts of the events. Some of it suggests in a rather good way that we need alternatives than just choosing one existing model of explanation.

Perhaps what is unfolding in front of the international community is what Turkish people already knew: a corrupted and authoritarian culture of politics and business where having firm relations with the ruling party AKP is a benefit for a variety of jobs and economic success for private sector companies (see here for some context);  lack of transparency in political decisions that however affect the majority of the people, such as the building of the third bridge or for instance in this Istanbul case, the demolition of Gezi park. The sentiment of dissatisfaction was there already in a way that was not just about secular vs. Islamists.

What is already being voiced is that “This is not about secularists versus Islamists, it’s about pluralism versus authoritarianism,” (quoted in The Economist).

Besides internally about Turkey, the events reveal a lot about the logic of capital: it benefits from authoritarian state measures and tight security controls. As for the case of Turkey, things are supposed to be fine on the economic front.

Interestingly, The Economist writes:

“Like most people, Turks tend to vote with their pockets. A decade of AK rule has brought unprecedented prosperity. Per-capita income has trebled, exports have increased nearly tenfold and Turkish banks are in good health”

But the problem is how much of this growth is exactly focused on the banks as main benefactors and how much of the consumption and investments is done only on credit money. If there is a major economic (read: construction business) bubble growing in Turkey and it bursts, things might very soon be very different – economically and politically. Even a lot of the middle class is actually still, despite university degrees and stable jobs, in a precarious situation.

In any case, the question  ”Occupy or Tahrir” is actually: what is the specific case of Turkey? Besides revealing details of more global trends of how capitalism enjoys authoritarian regimes (seeZizek on this point) it demands the continuous question of what then is happening specifically in Turkey.

Discussing with my friends in Istanbul, one thing popped up when they narrate the events of the past days: even they, participating, just don’t know everything. They are not sure how things will develop, but they remain hopeful. There is  a sense of momentum and an affect that binds across groups, but also the question “who are we”, referring to the protestors, is an open one. Perhaps it is open for a good reason, summarised in one of the placards from Istanbul.

It refers to the various attempts by the prime minister to publicly discredit the demonstrators. But it also gives an affective response, one example of the various texts and visuals that express a strong positive sentiment.

We are not sure who we are, but we will be the people.

A placard from Istanbul:

Day 1 we were the terrorists

Day 2 we were the provocateurs

Day 3 we were the protestors

Day 4 we became the people

Read more @ Machinology