ALL ABOUT TAKSIM

Turkey is recently concerned about the incidents in Istanbul. Taksim, many perceive it as the heart of the city, witnessed the brutal clash among the protestors and police forces for several days. Consequently, on-going incidents left a devastating damage in Turkey including the burned buildings, hundreds of wrecked cars, huge amount of financial and loss. Protestors and their supporters claim that conservationist people gathered in Taksim to prevent the construction of a mall that is likely to be built after cut-off the trees in the area. Initially, protests remained peaceful. Afterwards, the violence took place as protestors throw the stones targeting the police officers. In response to this, police forces fired tear gas cannister, pepper gas and used water cannons to disperse the crowd. Since protests turned out to be a riot againsts the ruling-party , many more supporters arose thanking to the wide range use of social -media usage among the supporters of the riot. In this sense, Twitter and Facebook have been the most common social-media application and have played an essential role in emergence of the riot. It is stated that millions of tweet were shared on Twitter about recent uprising. From this point of view, it could be easily said that social media can be very effective tool for the spread of the news and may also lead to the social movements in a society. For instance; the role of social media is believed to have played vital role during in the Arab Spring and led to the revolution. Having considered the process of demonstration and role of social media on the process, I will emphasize the causes that leads to this situation. In my opinion, there are many reasons that evoke current situation. However, what motivates the crowd most is very clear. It is ideology. The ideological difference among the major part of the protestors and the ruling-party(Justice and Development Party) played an essential role during the emergence of riot. And that is what PM Erdogan refers to in his

speech as well regarding to the latest events. PM Erdogan describes the demonstrations as ideological rather than environmental. Erdogan also stressed that protests has been manipulated by certain local and foreing media agencies and the opposing political party(People Republican Party) in order to overthrow the current government of Turkey. In the mean time, the leader of main opposing party, Kemal Kldarolu, (People Republican Party) announced the demonstrations as a footstep to provide the real democracy. As mentioned here, given the supportive declaration of authorities regarding to the incidents also provokes the people. Indeed, manipulations of some T.V. Channels, Twitter accounts to spread the biased news, provoking declarations of officials from political parties had severely bad impacts on society. However, majority of Turkey population still stands for PM Erdogan and his political Party AKP. Along with the ideological cause, protestors and those who support them complain about some other issues as well. For instance; restriction on the alcohol is the most debated discuss recently. AKP passed the law indicating that the sale and advertisement of the alcohol will be restricted and adapted to the norms of most-developed countries. Some of Media organs and anti-government groups strongly objected this and considered it as a threat to the Secularism and the emergence of Neo-Ottoman Turkey. It is crucial to remind that, AKP has been blamed several times by the secularists for pursuiting Islamist and Neo-Ottoman policies. Furthermore, many other government policies that were very efficient, have been also considered as a danger to the secular structure of Turkish Republic due to AKPs Islamic root. To conclude, PM Erdogan is generally believed to have ruled Turkey successfully for last 10 years. During his term, Turkey has undergone very significant achievements in terms of economy, politics and democracy. So one would wonder why people attempt to revolt all of a sudden. Along with the minor causes(certain restrictions, perception of PM Erdogans

attitude as Reckless), major cause, ideology, has always been deeply hidden in peoples mind. Those ,who do not appreciate the success of current government and ignore the Turkeys growth, do usually claim to advocate the basic principles of Secularism. On one hand, there are certain political parties and NGOs intending to benefit from this mispercerception of the secularism concept among the society. On the other hand, some foreign-backed political organizations and certain countries aim to use these NGOs and political parties to weaken the Turkeys hand in the international affairs. Having mentioned such threats, one can easily understand how peaceful demonstrations turned out to be a riot. Yet, Turkey has experienced coups, military memorandum and many illegal attempts intending to overthrow government. So the lesson is well-taken. I do believe that Turkish citizens will not allow this provocative movement to achieve their goal and put an end to the rule of AKP. It should be noted that majority of the society is still muchly satisfied for having AKP as a ruling-party. So the change of the regime, if necessary, must come with the democratic way. So it is not a revolution they should be looking for but the election to win.