Is it the beginning of a Turkish Spring?

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Interview on i>Télé with Aslan Evrim, professor of French at Galatasaray University in Istanbul on June 2nd 2013. I first met Aslan and his brother around 1996, when we were all high school students in Strasbourg, France, Aslan and Kemal at the Lycée International des Pontonniers and I at the Lycée Jean Monnet. We bonded over our love of comic books and music. Aslan then went on to study English at the Université Marc Bloch (now part of the larger Université de Strasbourg), Kemal to become a photographer, and I to study medicine at the Université Louis Pasteur (now also part of the Université de Strasbourg). Although I later moved to the United States, those two are among some of my dearest friends with whom I have maintained contact over the years.

Male Host: So we have Aslan Evrim, who is talking with us live via videoconference from Istanbul. You have taken part in those demonstrations. First, will you return to the streets today?

Aslan Evrim: Well, very good question. I’m going to wait to see how events unfold. I know there are already a lot of people who want to go back, but the great violence and the turn events took yesterday force me to wait before I make my mind.

Female Host: Are there actually calls to return to the street, on social networks? Are the youth using Facebook, Twitter to call for more protests?

Aslan Evrim: Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s also the primary methods to call for a rally. Primarily the youth. Primarily social networks, which are used to organize ourselves, in the end, to go out. We give dates, times for gathering. This is the primary method used, yes.

Male Host: So it is the case, today, that we can expect new gatherings. We’ll obviously see the magnitude that these new demonstrations will take, but first, we’d like to try to get more clarity from you. We have actually seen that everything started with a protest against an urban development project. This has gone completely beyond this initial protest. For what reasons have you, as an individual, protested?

Aslan Evrim: Well, at the very beginning, there was this demonstration regarding the transformation of this very tiny park located on Taksim Square to turn it into this great urban project, which, like all great projects from the government, tend to be very hazy in their substance, that is to say, people are rarely consulted, people are rarely informed about what is exactly going on, which leaves free rein many kinds of rumors. But it was a demonstration, among others, a demonstration that was largely more peaceful than others. At first, the first day, there were very very simple demonstrations, so for my part, I wasn’t particularly involved around that time. It was when I saw the excessive repression by the police against this peaceful demonstration, all things considered, that I was touched in the end. So already Thursday evening, we went to have a look over there, nothing important was happening. Then we learned that at night, the police had attacked the demonstrators. They had burnt their tents, and so on. So there, this pushed us to go into the streets and to show that these demonstrators were not alone and we supported them in their protest.

Female Host: Aslan Evrim, we have seen on the images we have received here youth demonstrating yesterday with beer bottles in hand, visibly to protest a new law from the regime. Would you confirm this information that the authoritarian regime of Turkey is also being challenged?

Aslan Evrim: Yes. So, absolutely, it’s, let’s say, there isn’t a single cause for those demonstrations. It’s the accumulation of grievances, all those grievances that have been accumulating for the past ten years and I think the list is long and that it differs from person to person. Alcohol, the law on alcohol that recently passed, was another straw that helped break the camel’s back and it’s true that many protesters had beer bottles in hand, that they rose those bottles to the health of the Prime Minister. So this was part of the peaceful provocations in the demonstration, before events got out of hand yesterday night.

Male Host: So, Aslan Evrim, in two words, can we speak of a new “Turkish Spring,” like we have seen in other countries? Do you believe it or not at all?

Aslan Evrim:  Well, what we mean by the phrase “Spring” must from now on be well defined, because what happened with the Arab Springs was really very different, in the sense where, here, the people, hasn’t really been matched when it comes to attacks by the police. Here, we’ve been mostly subjected to tear gas. Many protesters have been repressed. There were indeed resistance yesterday, barricades, some clashes of course, conflict, but I don’t know if this will take the magnitude of the pitched battles that occurred during the Arab Springs. But then, will this be another form of Spring, with a Turkish twist? It’s a good question. Will this keep building up, this movement, we all wonder. It’s possible, but I don’t think it is exactly the same.

Male Host: At any rate, thank you very much, Aslan Evrim, for answering out questions this morning, live from Istanbul.

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