On the eighth day of the protests, the people were happy as they could ever be, the students singing songs, holding up signs. Not a patch of green was visible on the slopes of Kuğulu Park.
My sanctuary as a child was now the home of many sharing the same ideals and same thoughts, although they were all drastically different.
Some wore their teams' colors.
Some carried slogans stating that people of their religion were standing with everyone else, then, and there.
And some just sat there, with V for Vendetta masks hung around their necks, beer in their hands, holding slogans painted onto paper that I could never have thought of, chatting, waiting. The secret superheroes of this whole resistance; every one of them being Clark Kent's in the day time, taking their exams, going to seminars, attending their lectures, but transforming into superheroes that Turkey needed in the night, with their nerves and stubbornness of steel. They were waiting for it all to begin.
Waiting.
We pushed through the crowd which was now looking for an indoor place because of the rain which decided to come down a little harder. As we walked down Tunalı, the street which Kuğulu Park is located at the end of, we saw them.
They were walking up, towards Kuğulu Park, with their flags, their horns, their whistles, their black and white shirts, their unity, their youth, their passion.
The fan club of one of the major teams in Turkey, Beşiktaş, had come over from Istanbul, hearing of the increasing use of excessive force against the protesters and of the growing protests, to support us. A crowd of nearly 3000 people was walking up to Kuğulu Park. And they were very much welcomed.
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Yes, those are people on the slope there.[/caption]We went into a restaurant to dry off and eat something for the next thirty minutes. When we got out, all of the people who had gathered in Kuğulu Park had started walking down Tunalı. Destination: Kızılay, the very heart of all protests. We joined them, and walked with them. If under any other circumstance one needed 10000 people to yell out something in unison, or do something together, it couldn't have been done. But last night, everyone acted as if they were one. One for all, all for one was the idea hanging upon Tunali as the crowd marched forward.
Remember the people who were waiting in Kuğulu Park with their beers? They were walking at the front, leading the group, happy to finally belong somewhere.
And the people who were fine with coming out to their balconies and banging pots from there for the past few evenings were on the street too.
The secret superheroes had ripped open their clean dress shirts, and they were coming to the rescue.
Of course, when this enormous group reached Kızılay, the police stood waiting, and dispersed the group using tear gas and pressurized water. The group was physically dispersed, but every one was still together; one heart, one idea.
But that's not important. The groups being dispersed by the outraged police with anger management issues is kind of a given now. The important thing is to see that 10000 people walked to Kızılay with no prior organization, no leader, no commands given. Everyone was there because they wanted to, not because they followed the heads of the bodies of thought that they believed in, not because they were forced to be there by someone else, or something else.
They were there because they wanted to fight.
They were there because they simply could not resist sitting at home while the country was just waking up.
They were there because they wanted to and because they believed in their cause, every one for separate reasons. And when that is the case, everything else ceases to matter.
How do you like my haiku (it's on my blog)?
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