Music and Gezi Park Protests
When the mayor declared the destruction of the historic park in the heart of Istanbul to build a shopping mall, local people began camping there in order to prevent heavy equipment vehicles from entering. Following the attack of the police, protests spread throughout Turkey, specifically in Ankara and Izmir (Aknur). Although such events have become the routine in recent years, the Gezi Park Protests were not the usual kind. It was the first time that a huge amount of people experienced police violence in a big city. And for the first time people from various ethnic backgrounds, different religious beliefs, and different political views were united as one group in “capuling”—a reference to Prime Minister Erdogan’s belittling characterization of the protestors as “marauders,” a term the protestors happily embraced, just as anti-Clinton crowd in America embraced their characterization as “deplorables” during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. In Turkey, the capuling crowd agreed on one thing: they had to defend their streets to protect their rights. The crowds drew significant support from across the country and the world, as musicians big and small came to support the cause (with MTV even documenting the event). This paper will analyze how music was involved and used during the Gezi Resistance. First, it will summarize the events that led to the protests. Then, it will discuss how musicians like Duman, Bosphorus Jazz Choir, Beduk and other artists both local and international showed their support and responded to the government crackdown. Lastly, it will discuss how the local people used music in their very own “cacerolazo” demonstrations—by using pots and pans to bang out their support of the protest.
The protests in Gezi Park were a long time coming. For years, the people of Turkey had been subjected to the ruling party of Prime Minister Erdogan—the Justice and Development Party, or AKP for short (Aknur). Erdogan did not see the protests as an organic movement by the Turkish people in Istanbul: “The ruling elite perceived these protests as a pre-planned uprising targeting Prime Minister Erdogan that was part of global conspiracy to overthrow his government” (Aknur 296). The government dismissed them with belittling words, the police were sent in to disperse the crowds, using water cannons and tear gas—yet the people continued to show defiance. They were tired of AKP and its...
Works Cited
Aknur, Muge. “The Gezi Park Protests as a Social Movement in Turkey: From Emergence to Coalescence without Bureaucratization.” Studia Ubb. Europaea, 59(1), 295-320.
“Assault on Gezi Park Sparks Furious Protests.” SocialistWorker, 17 June 2013. https://socialistworker.org/2013/06/17/assault-on-gezi-sparks-protests
“Beduk ten Gezi Klibi.” Internet Archive, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20131010151934/http://video.sozcu.com.tr/2013/video/magazin/bedukten-gezi-klibi.html
Kaufman, Gil. “MTV’s ‘Rebel Music’ Returns with Fiery ‘Turkey—Flowers of Gezi Park’.” MTV, 30 Apr. 2015. http://www.mtv.com/news/2146552/rebel-music-season-two-turkey-gezi/
“Member of the Bosphorus Jazz Choir Injured.” Everywhere Taksim, 16 June 2013. http://everywheretaksim.net/bosphorus-jazz-choir-member-injured-from-his-head/
Odag, Ozen; Ulug, Ozden Melis; Solak, Nevin. “Everyday I’m Capulling: Identity and Collective Action through Social Network Sites in the Gezi Park Protests in Turkey.” Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, vol. 28, no. 3, 2016, pp. 148-159.
“Roger Waters Shows Solidarity with Gezi Park Victims.” Daily News, 5 Aug. 2013. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/roger-waters-shows-solidarity-with-gezi-park-victims-in-istanbul-concert--52030
Ulkar, Esra. “Massive Attack Soma ve Gezi’yi unutmadi.” Radikal, 2014. http://www.radikal.com.tr/hayat/massive-attack-soma-ve-geziyi-unutmadi-1196119/
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