Revolt in Turkey - Eyewitness Account

international | anti-capitalism | event notice Tuesday June 04, 2013 18:44 by Turing

Paul Murphy MEP will give an eyewitness account of the explosion of mass struggle in Turkey in the face of despicable state brutality. Discussion and debate will follow.

Thursday, June 13, 2013, 8 pm.

Wynns Hotel Dublin 35/39 Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1

Turkey: Mass movement challenges Erdogan government
WRITTEN BY CWI TURKEY REPORTERS
TUESDAY, 04 JUNE 2013 12:00

Public sector workers take strike action against police violence – For a one day general strike as a next step to bring down the government!
KESK, Turkey’s Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions, announced a national strike against police violence for today (4 June 2013) and on Wednesday. DISK, the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey, a trade union federation with around 350,000 members, calls now also for a strike tomorrow, Wednesday, 5 June, in protest against the police violence. Hundreds of thousands are expected to come to the demonstrations. Yet the police continue to use tear gas and to violently attack demonstrators.

The ongoing police brutality, first seen in Gezi Park, on Taksim Square in Istanbul, shows again the arrogance and arbitrary police violence that the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government rests on. Hundreds were injured, some seriously. In the course of the mass movement, two demonstrators were killed.

The policies in Gezi Park were the spark that triggered an explosion. Now the anger, built up over years, has become visible. It is not only in Istanbul that protests are taking place. Hundreds of thousands are taking to the streets all over Turkey, in Ankara, in Inzmir and in Bodrum. In total, it is reported that mass demonstrations have taken place in 67 cities. There are even reports of divisions within the state apparatus, with military personnel distributing gas masks and some police officers supporting demonstrators.

The potential exists to develop a movement that challenges the Turkish capitalist elite.

This is a turning point. The AKP government, confronted with a sharp fall in economic growth rates this year, is now significantly challenged by a mass movement. The rise of the AKP over the last decade or so was based on several factors. This included the masses’ frustration with powerful Kemalist forces, a deep economic crisis at the beginning of the century, the alienation of many people towards the state bureaucracy and the history of interventions by the army in political life, including brutal coups. The AKP’s was able to present itself as a ‘moderate’ Islamic ‘alternative’ to the old establishment and pursued some populist social policies. But the events of the last days have shaken the rule of the AKP and Erdogan.

The mass movement was initially dominated by frustrated lower segments of the middle classes. They were quickly joined by youth from working class suburbs. Now there is an increasing involvement of the organised workers’ movement (though this is still in its early stages). All this points towards ever increasing sections of society moving into mass action. This may be a harbinger of even greater mass struggles, moving towards a pre or revolutionary situation. Splits at the top of the regime, within Erdogan’s party, are also starting to emerge. ....