You know your Prime Minister is out of touch when he blames "radical Marxist-Leninists" for your country's problems.
Turkey's prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, has vowed to press ahead with the controversial redevelopment of a square in Istanbul, in a move that puts him on a collision course with tens of thousands of anti-government protesters and could provoke further unrest across the country...
Ergodan acknowledged that some of those who had defended Istanbul's Gezi Park had acted for genuine environmental reasons. But he also said "terror groups" were behind Turkey's biggest demonstrations in years and hinted at a plot involving radical Marxist-Leninists.
Everyone knows that, nowdays, it is radical, mask wearing anarchists who are behind all troubles (unless, of course, it is the radical Islamists... But Turkey is a predominantly Islamic country, so blaming Islamists is probably not going to go over well). Radcal Marxist-Leninists are so 1980's (or is that so 1950's? 1930's?)
Look, Tayyip, get with it:
RADICAL, BLACK BLOC OUTSIDE-AGITATING ANARCHISTS ARE RUINING YOUR COUNTRY. THEY ARE FORCING YOUR IMPRESSIONABLE YOUTH TO - GASP! - USE THE SOCIAL MEDIUM THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED: T****. (1)
There is only one solution, Ergodan. You must replenish your depleted supplies of tear gas, send for advisors from the Oakland Police Department (specializing in anarchist threats), and then send in ten thousand police led by bulldozers. No, make that twenty thousand, with bulldozers, helicopter support and a fanatical devotion to the stock market. After all
Turkey's stock market sank dramatically as he (Ergodan) spoke. Protesters massing in huge numbers in Gezi Park - now the scene of a vast Glastonbury-style democracy festival - branded him out of touch with the public mood.
Yesterday, Gezi Park activists put together a
reasonable set of demands. Today, their Prime Minister told them to go to whatever the Islamic equivalent of hell is.
This does not bode well.
-----
(1)
There is a problem called Twitter right now and you can find every kind of lie there. The thing that is called social media is the biggest trouble for society right now.." - Prime Minister Erdogan
A slightly different translation:
There is now a menace which is called Twitter. The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.
10:16 AM PT:
10:19 AM PT:
Since the police withdrawal from the city center on June 1 as a result of clashes with protesters, the Taksim district has been occupied as could never have been predicted. Closed with barricades, the central district now solely belongs to the people, and to ideologies that were previously deemed completely closed to the mainstream...
Inside the Gezi Park, the utopian feeling is multiplied. There are open buffets for people feeding themselves, yoga sessions in the morning and now, a library. Every morning, after the police withdrawal, protesters got the area squeaky clean. People have fun in their own way and nobody intervenes: Kurds dance their halays, Laz people do their horon dance, and a group with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk flags chant their slogans - All this happens within a few meters’ distance.
There are lots of differences, but no conflict. There are no police, but it’s safe. No hierarchy, but a humane order.
For a country where the democratic tradition is about rights being given from the top to bottom, it is about reversing the order.
It is about sharing, kindness, and reasoning. So romantic, for sure; but it is there.
We know that it won’t be forever. Enjoy it while it lasts.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/...
10:28 AM PT: Cool!
Civil Disobedience on a Turkish Game Show
As dozens of flabbergasted viewers reported on Twitter, Ali Ihsan Varol, the star of the Bloomberg TV quiz show “Kelime Oyunu,” or “The Word Game,” crafted the questions so that all of the answers — phrases like “Taksim,” “gas mask,” “Twitter” and “dictator” — were thinly veiled references to the government’s failed crackdown on dissent and the way the news media blackout had been undermined by social networking.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/...