OccupyGezi

"People shouldn't be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

When I watched V for Vendetta, read 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World for the first time a couple of years ago, it all seemed too far away. Regular people caught up in the webs of totalitarianism rebelling against them, and, win or lose.

But now it is close, right in front of my doorstep, the sounds of revolution, hate, love, and freedom echoing throughout Ankara, the country, the whole world.

 

It all started with a peaceful protest at Gezi Parkı, one of the last remaining green areas in the center of Istanbul, protesting the Turkish PM's decision to build a shopping mall there, cutting down all the trees. There was a sit-in for three days; the weather seemed to agree with the protesters, the sun shined endlessly, people brought their kids, sang songs, read books to each other. The happiness and the peace in the photos of the first few days of the protest are unmistakable.

But then it all went wrong.

The police attacked the sleeping protesters, doused them with tear gas at five o'clock in the morning. Set their tents on fire. This single action of them fired up the whole nation. It was no longer an issue of cutting down a couple of trees. It was now a rebellion against the totalitarian government who has been ruling us in increasing dictatorship for the last 10 years. It was the breaking point.

And ever since that "raid" on the dormant protesters in Gezi Parkı, people of all ages, races, social groups have been united against one, and have been on the streets. The police continues to use excessive force, but the public will simply not back down. The tear gas they are doused in has become "a must" for them, and the pressurized water, well, now, they embrace it with open arms. These will only make them stronger.

CNN, BBC only tell you about the politic side and the surface of everything. People who are not living in Turkey or have friends here do not see the posts of their friends who joined the protests, them saying that they miss the tear gas, that they are proud to carry their wounds, that they will not give up. An amazing wave of cooperation has spread throughout the Turkish Republic.

Similar to the incidence in Reyhanlı on the 12th of May, there is a ban on the press, and the TV channels cannot air anything regarding the protests. However, the Gezi Parkı media blockage differs from the Reyhanlı media blockage. In Gezi Parkı, there was no media blockage at first. While the incidences sprouted and spread nation-wide, before the PM/sultan banned the media, the news channels showed "Food Trips All Over Turkey" and documentaries about penguins. So the channels chose to ignore this act of their own people. They chose their own job security over broadcasting the truth, if they broadcast anything. And again, it backfired. The whole nation started watching a single news channel which was privately funded and did not have any connections to the government. They managed to unite the nation again, all the while trying to break us apart.

 

Last night, I sat in my bed, awake. There are currently two main centers of protest in Ankara, one of them being a kilometer west of my house, and the other being a kilometer east. I could hear the cars honking as they drove past the protest sites, or just any street. I could hear people on their balconies banging pots and spoons, whistling, trying to harmonize with the slogans and the cries of hate, love and rebellion coming from only a few kilometers away. The city was awake. So were the people.

Today, the protests continue. People continue to communicate through Facebook and Twitter, alerting each other of police groups marching their way or of restaurants or establishments which take in protesters promising them safety and help and then turn them over to the police. We are still on the streets, and we will not give up. No matter how much tear gas we will have to bathe in, no matter how many gallons of water we will get soaked in, we will unite under one ideal; doctors, lawyers, conservatives, communists, students, elders, Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, Beşiktaş fans. And we will show those people who underestimated us that they should be afraid of us, and that with our hate we harvested against them for the past 10 years, with our love and dedication to the Turkish REPUBLIC, our lust for freedom, revolution running through our veins, and our will stronger than the ones opposing us, we will walk out of this our heads held high and our goals reached.