Over this past week, most of the world has followed a wave of protests across major cities in Turkey, sparked by what had initially been a small activist movement to protect Istanbul's Gezi Park that has since led into widespread series of political demonstrations across the country. As these have continued — they remain ongoing, despite recent governmental apologies— Turkish artists have spoken out from abroad, and, in New York, one in particular has helped to start a solidarity movement.
The OccupyGeziNYC protests, which began last Saturday in downtown Zuccotti Park (of Occupy Wall Street fame) and have since grown into demonstrations outside the Turkish consul and in Union Square, were launched last week in part by Ankara-born, NYC-based artist Hakan Topal, of the former international art collective Xurban. Topal is also on the faculty at SVA and a professor at SUNY-Purchase. He spoke with ARTINFO about the motivations behind the solidarity movement, which will be holding a larger demonstration this Saturday.
How did the protests here get started?
I woke up early last Friday, and I saw the news and what was going on with the protests, and I realized I should do something. I established a Facebook page and set up an event at Zuccotti Park on Saturday at noon, and then a community began to join. Because of the police brutality, we felt the obligation to support the Turkish protesters.
Suddenly that became a big deal, and we [Topal and an initial group of organizers] realized there are some other groups, Turkish-American groups, who would want to do something, and contacted them. A friend of mine who works in the New School Sociology department, who also belongs to the AKNY-Greek Solidarity Movement, also contacted me [after the initial Saturday event] and that organization gave their support and joined us. There’s a longtime cliché of Greek-Turkish arch-enemies, so we wanted to overcome that.
I thought that it would be good to be associated with the Occupy movement, because the initial protest in Istanbul, at Gezi Park, was about knocking down a park to create a shopping mall. So we got in touch with that movement and began coordinating with it as well. Since then, it has become much bigger than I had imagined.
How did that initial day lead to it being an ongoing protest?
The day of the event, many people showed up. The majority were Turkish-American, but also many people from here, of all ages, some of them students and others who are older. We decided to continue the protest and met again on Sunday, and have kept it going every day from there. We have been bringing the protest to the Turkish consulate and plan to do that through Friday. We have also been organizing panels and lectures, and we have a group of people who have joined our Facebook page — volunteer journalists — covering the events. On Saturday we are holding a much, much larger event, which everyone will be there for, and which is what we are focusing on now.
We are making a point to do things democratically. People don't necessarily agree with each other politically, but we are there because we have a shared goal, which is democracy.
Have you been in touch with friends in the protest movement in Turkey?
Totally. We are 24/7 following the events over there. The Turkish media has not been covering the event. [On June 2], CNN-Turk was showing a penguin documentary — really! There were thousands of protesters out in the streets, and other media, Russian Television, and BBC, were covering it, but they were showing a documentary about penguins. And so we have been following it also on Facebook and Twitter, which have become news outlets.
What is your understanding of the main issues behind the protests in Turkey?
The protests are all about civil liberties, and about the government taking away these liberties and restricting freedom of expression. From the outside, if you look at the numbers, at GDP growth, it looks like Turkey is doing well. But if freedom of expression doesn't exist, it doesn't matter if the economy is good or bad. [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is delusional. He’s calling Twitter a “social menace.” [Ed. Note: Following this interview, Twitter users have also been detained in Turkey, although some have reportedly been released.] Ahmadenijad, Mubarak — they say things like this. Erdogan is not a dictator, he is a prime minister. That is the horrifying part, this delusion of power. Ruling the majority does not give you the right to rule over minority rights, and opposition rights.
Abortion is also an issue — Turkish women’s rights for an abortion are being threatened. The alcohol ban is an issue. I grew up in Turkey drinking on the street with friends, not because we were alcoholic, but we had no money to go to bars. And now you can’t do that, you can't drink beyond 10 at night.
What also began happening ten years ago with the Islamist government [the AKP] is that all of the outlets for expression — museums, arts centers, media outlets — were, one by one, privatized. And therefore, tactically they were cut out from the intellectual and artistic communities. The university system also became kind of a corporate structure, reporting to the AKP government. Not only are public funds restricted, but the avenues of expression are limited. The Turkish media not covering the protests is an example of that. The government tells us that we’re free to say anything, but we don't have freedom in where, and how, we say it.
As an artist, this is something that would also be particularly important to you, and much of your work has been politically oriented. Did any of this go into your decision to initiate the solidarity protest?
[Helping to organize the protests] is in line with what I had been doing as an artist. But also as an artist, I feel that this is my duty, because it is our core mission, in a way, to express ourselves. Some of the artists and curators in the Venice Biennale have also organized an event in Venice, in the Turkish pavilion in San Marco. As artists, we have platforms to communicate, and it is important to use these when we can. And it is something that I think that all people in art communities should pay attention to. Not just what is happening in Turkey, but in all places around the world where people are fighting for expression.
But this is also about bringing a community together. I think that by doing this, we send a strong message to Turkey that they are not alone, and that there are ways for a community to do things together.
To see images of the OccupyGeziNY protests, click on the slideshow.