Turkey's "Marginal Groups"

"We will open the square when everything normalizes in the area, and our security forces completely control the area. Our children who stay at Gezi Park are at risk, because we will clean the area of the marginal groups. We won't allow our government to be seen as weak."
Huseyin Avni Mutlu, Governor, Istanbul

Back in 2010 when a handful of Syrian Sunni protesters called upon the Alawite Baathist President Bashar al Assad to extend the same courtesies of full citizenship rights to them as the privileged Shia minority population, President Assad informed international leaders that the protests represented a minor occurrence that would shortly peter out. And it might have, had the military not taken steps to arrest a handful of Sunni schoolboys who had scrawled impertinent texts criticizing the regime on their school walls.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fairly early on was appalled and disgusted at the reaction of the Syrian regime and his erstwhile chum Bashar al-Assad's reaction to the Syrian people's just search for democracy and fairness. He was openly critical of President al-Assad's swift and brutal reaction in attempting to swiftly quell the protests that he felt were getting out of hand, and were most certainly inconvenient. Particularly since he had assured interlocutors on U.S. networks that his people loved him and would never revolt.

Since then the enmity between the two leaders has deepened, with Prime Minister Erdogan voicing his disdain for the violence that had overtaken Syria, and President al-Assad threatening his neighbour if he continued to shelter and support the Syrian Opposition. When the two-week-old protests began in Turkey against the government's decision to raze a park in Istanbul and build a replica of an Ottoman-era barracks, alongside a mosque and a shopping centre, President al-Assad chided President Erdogan for his uncompromising stance, delighted he could return the compliment.

There was, in fact, little difference in the reaction of the two when civil unrest rose in their respective countries; Prime Minister Erdogan characterized his critics as criminals, where al-Assad had characterized the Syrian protesters as terrorists.


A protester throws a petrol bomb towards riot policemen during clashes in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, Tuesday, June 11, 2013. Kostas Tsironis  / AP Photo

There is an eerie similarity to the two uprisings; both began as peaceful demonstrations, with protesters simply asking for reconsideration of prevailing situations felt to be inimical to their well-being. In both instances the official responses were harsh and violent, leading to the protests themselves becoming more demanding. The government of Prime Minister Erdogan has responded with tear gas, water bombers, rubber bullets, endearing themselves to the public to a huge degree.


A police vehicle fires a water cannon to extinguish a fire of another vehicle after protesters threw a petrol bomb during a police operation to evacuate Taksim Square in Istanbul Tuesday, June 11, 2013. Thanassis Stavrakis / AP Photo

Four people have died, and thousands have been wounded. The Gezi Park redevelopment scheme protests are testing Erdogan's authoritarianism. His kind of democracy of which he is so proud, is one where protests are not permitted. The outraged reaction to his insistence that construction will proceed as scheduled, to transform the rare green space in the city centre to a commercial establishment has served to grow the original peaceful protest into a heavily supported mass call for the Prime Minister to retract his decision.

Protesters in their thousands camp out at the park and at Taksim Square, determined not to leave until their protests have been heard, digested and acted upon. The countervailing action remains rounds of tear gas, running battles with protesters who hurl fireworks, bottles, rocks and firebombs. When police do manage to clear the square it is quickly re-occupied. The protest has no intention of dissolving itself. The "marginal groups" in fact represent a wide spectrum of Turkish society, including many of its lawyers.

The protest has spread and has support in over 70 Turkish cities. Prime Minister Erdogan rails against the misfits who are contesting his rule, blaming them for spoiling the vision the world has of Turkey as a serene, well-managed, economically-fit democracy. But of course it is not the protesters who have besmirched Turkey's reputation on the international scene, but rather the decisions that the Prime Minister has made, in violently confronting the protesters who are, after all, only demonstrating their democratic rights of assembly and speech and protest.

Condemnation has been directed against this once-respected leader of a now-disrupted country, from its one-time allies; the United States, Canada, the European Union and elsewhere. The situation has got out of hand, and is deteriorating rapidly. Prime Minister Erdogan's true character is not one that many other democratic leaders admire. Where formerly they closed their eyes to the government's arrest of journalists, they have opened their eyes to the indelible vision of a country whose democratic underpinning has gone amok.


Police launch tear gas during an operation to evacuate the Taksim Square in Istanbul Tuesday, June 11, 2013. Thanassis Stavrakis / AP Photo

Under an Islamist government that has incrementally overturned all the social, political and religious conventions that the country has lived with since Kemal Ataturk separated Mosque and State.