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By I. Zekeriya Ayman
June 2, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal / Green Left Weekly --
When the humble “Occupy Gezi” (Occupy Promenade Park) protest in Istanbul’s Taksim Square was brutally attacked on May 31 by police and spread like wildfire throughout Istanbul and into other cities, the Turkey’s left was in the thick of it.
In the early days of the protest, Sirri Sureyya Onder (national MP for the umbrella organistion of the Turkish-Kurdish left, the Peoples’ Democratic Congress, the HDK ) lay his body, with the others, in front of bulldozers to stop them destrying the park’s 70-year-old trees. When he spoke to the media he was angry. He asked why the “idiot” alternative mayoral candidates were not there to defend this small green pocket of Taksim. When police attacked in the early hours of May 31, Onder again lay in front of the bulldozers. He was one of the first casualties to be taken to hospital.
Two days earlier the headline in the socialist daily Evrensel highlighted the potential 300 million Turkish lira that multinational companies stood to make from the construction of a new, third bridge accross the Bosphorus between Asia and Europe. On the day, Turkey’s Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan laid the foundation stone at a launch ceremony, Evrensel reported the project would require destruction of 2.5 million trees.