"Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
Today in Istanbul, according to Reuters, in a report that seems accurate from everything I know:
Police in Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city with a large Kurdish population, also moved in to break up a Newroz celebration just outside the city's ancient city walls.
Clashes broke out when police prevented two groups of more than 1,000 people each coming together, Turkish media said.
Police said they arrested 106 people in the demonstration.
Haci Zengin, the head of an Istanbul branch office of the BDP, died after being hit on the head by a tear gas canister, BDP members of parliament posted on their Twitter accounts.
This account, too, is accurate from what I know:
Tens of thousands of people led by Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) politicians gathered today in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır to celebrate Nevruz, ignoring a ban on the festivities.
Police removed barriers surrounding the area where the celebrations were held as masses flocked to celebrate the holiday.
A similar ban was imposed in Istanbul, where police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse thousands who gathered in Zeytinburnu’s Kazlıçeşme neighborhood. More than 100 were detained.
BDP deputy Sebahat Tuncel told the Hürriyet Daily News that one party member died due to injuries he sustained during the clashes.
In Diyarbakır, BDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş; BDP deputies Sebahat Tuncel, Ayla Akat Ata and Hasip Kapalan and BDP Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir led crowds trying to breach the police barricade to enter the city’s main square. Thousands managed to enter the area following minor clashes with police.
“This is the biggest civil disobedience action in history,” Akat Ata wrote on her Twitter account.
These dispatches from abroad actually represent a great deal of human suffering.
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
Claire: the political/cultural implications of this violence is hard for me, and I suspect other members of Richochet, to understand. Can you provide a high level summary of how all this fits into the current Turkish political environment?
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
I'm not sure where to start on this, and when I try I feel the same helplessness that you'd probably feel trying to explain the American Civil War in 200 words.
I think this may be the way to summarize it. Here's the International Crisis Group's list of recommendations for ending the PKK insurgency. I pretty much agree with it all. But at this point, I don't think any of it will happen. I see no sign of the kind of political maturity--on either side--that would make this scenario plausible.
May '11
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
Claire, is the heightened tension from PKK insurgency exacerbated by the Islamascist tendencies of the current regime? Did the Kurds have a more respected position in the Attaturkish environment? There is no underlying sarcasm in this question. I really don't know.
Edited on March 18, 2012 at 8:20pmRe: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
Only if you consider the denial of their existence, the banning of their language, the burning of their villages, extrajudicial killings, mass graves, and the internal displacement of about a million people "respected." The best thing you can say about the treatment of the Kurds here is that it was worse in Iraq, and that the only thing more disgusting than the behavior of the Turkish state in the 1980s and 90s was the behavior of the PKK. And between them, they brought the AKP to power.
I should probably add that Kurdish culture is about as lovable as Afghan culture. Not that feudal societies where women are treated like donkeys and Maoist insurgencies don't have their fey, ethnic charm--above all to the Left.
I'm simplifying, of course. This is a good summary.
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
I think this is getting the causality wrong. Again, I'm simplifying, but the military in many ways nourished and used political Islam as a response to the PKK.
You'll never hear me saying that the AKP is vastly worse than what came before--only that not much has changed.
May '11
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
You'll never hear me saying that the AKP is vastly worse than what came before--only that not much has changed. · 44 minutes ago
I suspect you are right and sadly that seems to be what would be considered an optimistic assessment of situations throughout the Islamic world.
And I might add, it seems to me, Turkey remains the closest approximation of what a beacon of enlightenment would look like in the Islamic world.
Edited on March 18, 2012 at 10:15pmRe: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
Southern Pessimist
And I might add, it seems to me, Turkey remains the closest approximation of what a beacon of enlightenment would look like in the Islamic world. · 27 minutes ago
I suppose. Turkey has its own history. Yes, of course it's a beacon of enlightenment compared to Mauritania--but Turkey has much more in common with Greece. The comparison class isn't really a fair one.
Dec '10
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
If Nawroz is also an Iranian holiday, and if Iranians are making large investments in Turkey, how is it possible for the AKP to crack down on Kurds celebrating the holiday without interfering with Iranians doing the same? Or is the common interest of Iran and Turkey in oppressing the Kurds enough for Iran to turn a blind eye to whatever impact this might have on Iranians in Turkey?
May '11
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I should probably add that Kurdish culture is about as lovable as Afghan culture. Not that feudal societies where women are treated like donkeys and Maoist insurgencies don't have their fey, ethnic charm--above all to the Left.
I'm simplifying, of course. This is a good summary. · 4 hours ago
I responded without reading the link. That was a terrific link that summarizes the history of the post Ottoman Turkey as it pertains to Kurdish autonomy as well as anything I have read. Turkey is a country I have great respect for and hope to visit many times again. The attempt by the Ergodan regime to eradicate secular/western cultural norms troubles me greatly. I long to read something that makes me think there is hope for a democracy that resembles Ataturks dream if not its reality which you rightly point out was not that democratic.
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
Hi Stuart, ethnic Kurds are about 20 percent of the population here, and this is the fundamental political conflict in Turkey, whereas Iranian business investors are--well, they have very different reasons for being here, and no interest at all in making a big deal out of Newroz at the expense of their investments or good relationship with the government. No one is interested in preventing private celebrations of Newroz--these were massive political demonstrations. (And in fact, Newroz wasn't yesterday: The BDP just declared it was to get more people out.)
Re: "Clashes Broke Out Across the City"
I'm also not happy with "oppressing the Kurds," because it makes it sound as if this is a simple case of oppressor v. oppressed--and it's really not so simple. There's plenty of blame to go around here. Again, I hate simplifying, but what does any sane government do with a Maoist insurgency whose leaders were funded by the Soviet Union, who trained at the worst of the Middle East's terrorist training camps, and who pioneered the use of suicide bombings in urban areas? What you're looking at now is the result of a terrible civil war that's left both populations scarred and brutalized in ways that are hard to fix.