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final sexist party
protests there are ongoing
and i'm
curious just
just forward
our listeners what what was the kind of into this
behind the protest
what watch them
uh... and what what was the sort of initial response
yet turkish government
will be initial of um...
uh... protest was about state park
in um... the european part of of istanbul i was green and the trees for
seventy years old and
uh... the current government in turkey is more a lesson to neoliberal
government that is to say that uh... it values about the market as a way of
getting social work done
and so plans were made to turn that uh... nice green park into
oddball
it'll be like putting the mall of america in central park in new york
uh... not not exactly on that scale but it that just to give you an idea what's
going on
so there are people who uh... uh... who who were attached to that green space
and
the area around it by the way is a kind of bohemia it's a kind of place where
people gather
in the evening to see the cafes and drink beer and there and uh... there
uh... nightclubs and uh... the uh...
tea houses for a pop music is played
uh... so it's it's a it's a kind of counter-culture uh... bohemia kind of
atmosphere
there's also a retail
it's all mixed up together so but but i think people thorough all of the impart
we're not only protesting against those
uh... trading tore down the green space going away
but they're protesting that it was being done by fiat from the prime minister's
office
and they were protesting against a general sense of regimentation of police
brutality are being pushed around uh... by central government which is not now
with this government uh... the the uh... there keep
kpr government that's in power now to this is not very different from his
predecessor in those regards
uh... but but there's a you know there's a growing uh... middle class and in
turkey educated they wrote them with the world i would just minds that kind of
regimentation and so
uh... that that was part of what was being protest
yes it's the same
in terms of tricky because basically
my understanding of the turkish context that the a_t_t_ government came into
power i believe in two thousand three
uh... and this was i think yes it's a new liberal party it's also
party but i i would say it's much more
it's better to think of it in terms of maybe like
christian republicans united states and much more analogous to that than
something like uh... will certainly than some of saudi arabia or another kind of
very extreme its
religious party or religious governments not like that all but they're is the
certain religious conservatism and market focus
uh... at the party and it seems
that the opposition to the
for a long time in turkey
came from kind of
dance of the older secular quarter
uh... which probably had some legitimate criticisms but didn't have a great
democratic record itself and kind of
resented being usurped but it seems like what's happening on
there's environmental component to the
there's an emerging middle class components of the
there's a broader kind of more genuine
liberal thing happening
that's been my read on it
is is that a fair read
or you know i didn't really carry analysis so i think once
once the government pushed back so harshly against the protesters over the
park issue
uh... that that set the young people's smurfs are on the edge
well one thing to say is that the people involved in the protests are young these
are twenty somethings for the most part right
and a lot of them
we're we're just gets when this government came to power nikki has been
elected three times a came to power first in two thousand two
and also uh... they've grown up with that and uh... and some of them are
character tired of it
but they're tired of uh... of the regimentation and uh... you know the
soccer fans in turkey are kind of rowdy
and a lot of them aren't you know that uh... not uh...
they're not religious people upset uh... so although they might not be committed
secularists out that they've been mind to do the dispensed
and and the government turkey although that has already changed in the muslim
movements
it's most most of its policies have been have not been particularly religious
they have been conservative
sublet recently uh... the prime minister announced that you couldn't couldn't buy
beer after can there be a and early last call of well you know there are
countries for you can't uh... you can order after eleven so it it uh... it's
not uh... the end of the world maybe but uh... but a lot of young people
you took it as a symbol
that this is starting to because this is what they are closed for business law
and maybe this is the beginning at other of but that kinda regimentation or and
you know that the restrictions on abortion just uh... i think the analogy
you made to the religious right uh... in the united states is mister apt
uh... so yet as you say it's nothing like uh... saudi arabia iran or anything
like that it's a secular country is in a secular constitution the party
you know it as as it really pushed islamic issues but at the margins it is
pushed in a kind of social conservatism so are the young people are pushing a
back against that and then
uh... that once the crackdown began uh... some of the labor unions joined in
and out stuff strikes
uh... and uh... the labor unions and in turkey are very weak they were destroyed
by the old uh... secular milinda military government
uh... but they still aren't there as you know weeks shadows of the former self
and so they seem to be galvanized by this and then there are uh... there room
for mobilizing again against the uh... the neoliberal
uh... emphasis of the government of you know
it's it's encouraged to realestate speculation the property keeps getting
high people can't afford to keep their apartments are
there's all these new buildings going up in malls and
ill in some ways of progress but it it has becomes
right
and there is this neoliberal flavor nicholson when i'm curious about and pay
no you have to be obviously one issue very careful in kind of drawing these
sort of comparisons uh... and and then
mints in life
obvious and a place like egypt a radically different than something like
occupy uh... energy printed something uh... that's going on in turkey but i
think what's interesting that's happening now is
it seems to me at this is the first type of movement that we've seen
what maybe could be called the second world country or a you know i
developing
uh... place
conventionally first-world yet or have really want to use those terms but
they're is this kind of heavy
backlash in some respects towards a neil liberalism in turkey and he think that
that
it's obviously specific to the turkish a situation but is that connected with
currents in europe and the rest of the
lease does it say something
on the turkish situation
well i didn't get it you know we we we could well start talking about a whole
string of uh... you
uh... and kenya liberalism movements
out there was one in israel spot in the in the summer of two uh...
uh... twenty eleven uh... and it was about parma grants for young people to
some extent and had a great success as one of the most important recent israeli
social movements beating out those be indignant ones in uh... in spain you
know i have some similarities
uh... and end date also were protesting the liberalism especially the way you
know the macneil liberalism is very much implicated in the real estate uh...
collapse and the economic collapse in spain
odd even though that many of those policies were pursued by
a bio uh... socialist government are that the policies themselves uh...
willful worse were somewhat neoliberal
and so um...
haha in chile view you've had uh... a huge uh... demonstrations uh... that the
the government was was hit by a
a billionaire and wanted to raise to raised the fees for education in the
students came back and said we know we want free education i mean that's a
at a typical neoliberal buckeye move in the government's part to to to have a
education be a market writing people would pay
poor the certification as middle class people so as to raise their
uh... incomes in life and uh...
and the young people were arguing that no education is like water at the public
that it should be free
and then that it is just being the war let's uh... uh... student demonstrations
in chile uh... columbia as well
so i mean these things don't get a lot of press because uh...
uh... that they don't seem obviously connected to to one another and while
they can be quite large and and quite significant uh...
uh... domestically they don't seem to have a lot of international our resident
since but i think
since two thousand eight out there have been tera number is out of these things
and that turkeys
as many similarities to the others
uh... fascinating the finals that question
on turkey do you think it seems to me
you know prime minister air to why
and uh...
uh... furtive compared to
a turkish george w_ bush he's very uh...
coughing easily skill unlike bush he did win genuine large election victories
about his response has been to call the protesters uh...
hooligans
be pretty dismissive
other ministers in his government is actually taking a much more conciliatory
uh... tone
do you think that that's a good cop bad cop or is there a g_m_
uh... possibility of some
uh... different instincts inside a kitty
the a_t_t_ government and how
do you think this might all sort of turnout
so i think the a k p government history internally divided in
that airfare to one has a particular point of view on things coming from is
on biography
you know he was once put in jail by the old secular military government korean
poem
and the poem like interment or rats to spears
uh... so the government charged him with terrorism and put him in jail
and you you know if you if you are a kind of uh... religiously observant
muslim in turkey under the section secular military government
uh... you were not a happy camper value teenage girls could go on college
campuses are in public buildings with uh... with the bail
uh... and uh... cape people were you know that it was a like american
secularism which when the government's post being neutral toward religious
movements like the french where
the government considered it religion to be
like smoking you know it's it's it's a public health problem that should be
discouraged and uh... so uh... he follows life against this uh... what he
saw as religious discrimination
uh... and we finally got into power and and he won all these elections he got
real push back there is danger of a military coup from the secularists
so he thinks
as far as i can tell from his speeches
that the old secular party republican people's party is secretly behind d's
scott demonstrations that that that that they're manifestations of a political
plot against him
to undo
the results of democratic free and fair elections that that this is uh... this
is just about the kind of cool
might protest
uh... and that's why he says things like will will teach them real politics in
about seven months while collections at all p pants off them again
uh... and so uh... i think he doesn't understand what's going on he doesn't
understand this is a huge movement
he doesn't understand why people would be upset about progress like a new mall
instead of diesel trees
uh... so it's it's just his pointers i think
right but i guess the dcr he does have a pretty political biography and subject
accomplishments discredit unfortunately
state current and
and kind of anticipate what's what's going on
now made because those plans as you say are
professor cole
so much for your time