No Mercy for the Workers, Students or Intellectuals

The government showed no mercy towards the worker and student protests regardless of its ‘democratic’ discourse and the so-called suffering and victimization that the government itself had faced earlier. In Ankara, workers from TEKEL (a public tobacco and alcoholic beverages company) were attacked and severely hurt. The resistance of the TEKEL workers began on 15 December 2009 and lasted for 78 days. These actions were the biggest workers’ actions organized after the fascist coup of 12 September 1980. Workers protested against the new regulations and flexible employment relations appropriate to the neoliberal era, which were introduced with the privatization of this institution.

The workers’ hunger strike was presented as a plot of the Ergenekon terrorist organization (the organization allegedly founded to conduct a coup against the AKP government; see Gündoğan Reference Gündoğan2019, 9–12 and notes 15, 18, 21, 23, 27 and 28 therein). Erdoğan said that it was not the workers but ‘our nation’ that had brought him to power (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 200). ^{Footnote 1} In addition, the government had the assembly pass a law to forbid mass protests from workers in open spaces (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 238). However, students who had been dismissed from universities for ‘any’ reason were granted the right to return to their universities, a measure mainly tailored to students who had been dismissed for wearing religious headscarves.

The date of 12 September 2010 – the same day and month as the 1980 fascist military coup – was set as the referendum date. The referendum was aimed at amending the 26 articles of the constitution and at the same time bringing the constitution into line with EU legislation.

The referendum’s immediate purpose was to gain full control of the higher judiciary. As a trick, the envisaged amendments included the right to individual application to the constitutional court, arrangements for military personnel to be tried in civilian courts, the right to collective bargaining for public servants, and assurances of the trials of the generals involved in the 12 September 1980 military coup. All this was meant to gain the support of both the liberal and the liberalized socialist left and the extreme nationalists who had been fighting the socialists before the 1980 coup. The first group devised the slogan they would assume as a label later on: ‘Not sufficient but yes!’. The Turkish Industry and Business Association (Türk Sanayicileri ve İş İnsanları Derneği, TÜSIAD) declared itself to be neutral. Erdoğan responded, ‘Those that remain neutral will be liquidated’. In the meantime, two significant books were published: Ergün Poyraz’s Takunyalı Führer and Hanefi Avcı’s Haliçte Yaşayan Simonlar-Dün Devlet Bugün Cemaat. The former likened Erdoğan to Hitler, and the latter informed readers about concrete personal connections and implicated certain names, and demonstrated how Fethullah Gülen’s community had seized power in police departments and intelligence units. It was no surprise that Avcı was arrested in the context of the Ergenekon Case (a series of cases initiated in 2007 against members of the Ergenekon organization, see above) after the referendum was passed with a 58% approval rate (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 227). In addition, the ban on religious headscarves in the universities was removed de facto with a decree from the Council of Higher Education (Yükseköğretim Kurulu, YÖK) directed to the rectorates. Anyone who did not allow the affected students to attend university would be brought before a disciplinary committee. In addition to Poyraz, who had been arrested on 27 July 2007, and Avcı, Soner Yalçın – a journalist, TV producer, and owner of ODATV, a widely read electronic newspaper in Turkey – and his two editors were also arrested (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 240–242). ^{Footnote 2}

Upon the passage of the referendum law, an election was held for the members of the Higher Council of Prosecutors and Judges (Hakimler ve Savcılar Yüksek Kurulu, HSYK), with the AKP winning all seats. ^{Footnote 3} In the following days, the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK) decided that political Islam no longer posed a domestic threat to the security of the state.

There were many popular protests against Erdoğan and his cabinet members that were loudly voiced, amongst other places, at sports events. At the same time, on a visit to Kars, Erdoğan called a monumental sculpture by the famous artist Mehmet Aksoy, the ‘ucube,’ a hateful and humiliating word that meant ‘ugly creature’.

Authoritarianism, Kurdish Drive and Foreign Policy

The authoritarian and religious discourse of the government was hardening. The Council of State (Danıştay) allowed headscarved lawyers to participate in the proceedings, which before had been illegal. At the same time, the Contemporary Lawyers’ Association was raided by the police, and the lawyers were arrested for alleged membership in an illegal revolutionary party. In addition, the president of the Istanbul Bar, Ümit Kocasakal, and the Bar’s nine members faced a lawsuit to prevent the judiciary from functioning. The government did not stop here: the police raided the municipalities governed by the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisis, CHP), the main opposition party in Parliament.

One of the non-authoritarian features of the AKP era is its Kurdish policy, which is called ‘Kurdish Drive’. The Kurdish Drive was developed to solve the historic Kurdish Question. The Kurdish Question, with the armed resistance initiated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partie Kerkeran Kurdistan, PKK) in 1984, has been a problem of terrorism. This policy initiative was made public with Prime Minister Erdoğan’s 2005 Diyarbakır speech. However, it really started with the 2009 negotiations between the National Intelligence Organization (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT) and the PKK in Oslo. The sound recordings allegedly belonging to these negotiations were published on the internet on 13 September 2011. From these voice recordings it appeared that Hakan Fidan, undersecretary of MİT, as Erdoğan’s special representative, met with both Öcalan and other PKK members. Prosecutor Sadrettin Sarıkaya summoned Fidan for interrogation. Fidan was accused of signing an illegal treaty with the PKK (see Gündoğan Reference Gündoğan2019, 15).

After the Oslo negotiations, maybe the only democratic progress realized was that legal permission was given to broadcast in Kurdish and to establish an institute and research centre on 16 January 2010. On 26 September 2012, Erdoğan announced that the Oslo negotiations were held to arrive at a solution for the Kurdish problem, but that they had been terminated due to leakage by the PKK to the public. However, he announced on 28 December 2012 that MIT was continuing its negotiations with Öcalan. As the Kurdish Drive continued, Erdoğan addressed the Kurdish public and declared that the AKP government aimed to undermine ‘nationalism’.

During the same time period, on 28 February 2013, some records of the İmralı negotiations between the Peace and Democracy Party (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, BDP), the government, and the National Intelligence Organization (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT), were released through the daily Milliyet. In these records, Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, stated that he had kept the AKP in power for ten years, provided a golden tray for it, consciously expected it to mature, and had been patient for years. He also said that the operation (the prosecutor summoning Fidan, undersecretary of MİT, for interrogation, see above) against the MİT and Hakan Fidan was a blow against the AKP government and that he himself had helped Erdoğan by starting the negotiations. More importantly, he argued that upon his imprisonment, Fethullah Gülen was placed in the centre of the counter-guerrilla efforts in the US. In fact, he summarized everything that was happening in the context of the AKP government’s Kurdish policy. In addition, Öcalan suggested that Turkish ‘citizenship’ should have been replaced with ‘Turkey citizenship’ and added that the Kurds would gain the right of self-determination in the future. Öcalan’s statement regarding a presidential system, ^{Footnote 4} which Erdoğan has been wishing to establish for years, revealed the strategic agreement between the AKP, the PKK and the BDP. Öcalan said that they would support and cooperate with Erdoğan to establish a presidential system (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 330). Erdoğan rejected the statement. However, the AKP members in the Parliament tried to amend the Turkish constitution in parallel with the İmralı negotiations and pressed for the establishment of a presidential system (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 331). In these records, Öcalan was also telling the BDP Delegation that if he failed, there would be a much greater people’s war in future.

After the negotiations with the government, Öcalan’s letter was read before a crowded audience in Diyarbakır at the 21 March 2013 Newroz fest. ^{Footnote 5} In the letter, it was declared that the PKK would put an end to armed action in Turkey and withdraw from Turkey. The PKK too declared that it would move in this direction and leave Turkey for Northern Iraq on 25 April 2013.

The letter was addressed to Turks, Kurds and nearly all the peoples of Turkey and its neighbours. Turkey was presented as the partner country of the Turks and Kurds in addition to other people, and the historical roots of the conflict and unity were explained. The government reportedly would make constitutional changes with the withdrawal of the PKK from the country.

However, before such changes, one of the arrangements, aimed to secure public consent and support for the government’s Kurdish initiative, was the establishment of a delegation of 63 ‘Wise Men’, selected from the arts, business, media and trade union circles, who were expected to explain the solution process (the Kurdish Drive) to the public. The establishment of this delegation was announced on 4 April 2013. As Özdil said, it was Öcalan who had first suggested this project. However, the project failed, as many regions, with the exception of the Kurdish population in Southern Anatolia, protested against the wise men (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 334–335). The first legal arrangement would be made on 16 July 2014. In fact, it was just declared that the government would do the necessary work for the solution of the problem.

As agreed in the negotiations with Öcalan, the PKK guerrillas were expected to leave Turkey for Iraq (and also for Syria). The Kurdish Drive produced hopes for democratic change but created only disappointment. Despite this seemingly democratic policy of the government, democracy in Turkey in general did not advance much. For example, the renowned Turkish pianist Fazıl Say was tried for sharing verses from the poet Ömer Hayyam on Twitter, and the famous theatre actors Müjdat Gezen and Levent Kırca faced the same fate for their secular Kemalist opposition. As for the workers, their protests suffered brutal repression by the government. Taksim Square was bloodied during May Day 2013, as it had been before. The police brutally attacked the workers and people trying to enter the square. Two people went into a coma because of tear gas. One of the victims, Dilan Alp, a 17-year-old girl, was described as a terrorist by Avni Mutlu, the governor of Istanbul, without any further relevant information about her being given.

In this period, Turkey’s Syrian policy transformed into a policy of hostility towards this country (see for the period after 2012, Gündoğan Reference Gündoğan2019, 13–15) and began to create domestic security problems as well. On 11 May 2013, in the Reyhanlı district of Hatay Province near the Syrian border, two bomb-laden trucks exploded and killed more than 110 people, according to claims circulating via the internet (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 340). On 22 May 2013, Hacker Redhack released the information that the Al Qaeda-linked El Nusra Front, fighting the Assad regime in Syria, had sent three trucks with bombs from there to Turkey. Hatay was full of Islamic terrorists who went on to fight against the Assad regime during the day. Turkey provided them with weapons and ammunition. The international media circulated this fact (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 341–342).

The Syrian crisis turned into a disaster for the AKP government. However, just when allegations that Syria used chemical weapons emerged, Erdoğan and the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, called for military intervention in Syria. Before going to the US on 14 May 2013, Erdoğan put military intervention back on the agenda. However, he could not gain Obama’s support. During the same visit, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç visited Fethullah Gülen in Pennsylvania and asked if he had any recommendations on behalf of Erdoğan. Arınç said that there was no coldness between the government and Gülen’s community, though there was supposed to be, and that he had said to Gülen that the government would correct any mistake it had made. The strange part of this was that Erdoğan wanted Arınç to ask if Gülen had any orders or suggestions for him (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 343).

Economic Performance

The AKP government came to power in the last phase of the economic crisis that erupted in 1999, and this crisis was one of the main reasons behind the collapse of Ecevit’s government in 2002. Both markets and political power had to be restored with a new government. Indeed, the AKP’s electoral success in 2002 and its one-party government created political stability and focused primarily on construction activities for economic recovery. Turkey began to hear about ‘bidirectional roads’, ‘crazy projects’ and ‘rapid trains’. Erdoğan’s term as mayor in Istanbul, which had been full of concrete and often symbolic construction projects, served as a model for the AKP government. As for the problem of financial resources, the government had to attract foreign capital, which had previously demanded political stability, and then provide cheap loans to domestic capitalists and consumers. The first six to seven years of the government and its economic performance during this time seemed to be good for the general public and appreciated by business circles and were loudly propagated by pro-government journalists and TV personalities. However, the structural problems of the Turkish economy remained unsolved and would become evident again after 2009.

In 2013, Korkut Boratav stated that from 2002 until 2013, Turkey under the AKP government, compared with similar economies, grew at a below-average rate and remained the most dependent country, investing at a low rate and having a low national savings ratio (Boratav Reference Boratav2013). ^{Footnote 6} Foreign capital flows supported the policy of ‘high interest with cheap currency’, creating domestic demand and increasing import rates. Public expenditures were concentrated in the construction industry (Ayazoğlu Reference Ayazoğlu2014). ^{Footnote 7} During these years, Turkey witnessed the construction of shopping malls, bridges, highways, fast trains, power plants, and large public and private housing projects. AKP’s last projects were nationwide urban renewal and the construction of a third bridge across the Bosporus. The result was that Turkey became increasingly dependent on foreign capital flows, and as a solution the government became itself involved in the construction industry in order to maintain the current situation. Large cities turned into construction sites, and the environment was destroyed. Capital accumulation was based on the construction industry and the housing sector. However, growth in this way was not stable. Growth shrank by 19% in 2009 and dropped to only 1% in 2012. On the labour side, Turkey witnessed ‘a sharp proletarianization’ process. Between 2003 and 2012, the number of wage earners increased from approximately 10 million to 16 million. If we also count the 2.5 million officially unemployed people and the 1.5 million unofficially counted as unemployed we arrive at an actual number of wage labourers of 20 million. Of these, approximately 1 million were unionized in 2012 (Sönmez Reference Sönmez2013). ^{Footnote 8} Two thirds of consumer debts in Turkey’s ‘debt economy’ belonged to wage earners.

Culmination Point: The Gezi Park

Most of the time, Prime Minister Erdoğan delivered his speeches as if he was a community leader rather than an elected public person. This is still the case today. Before the Gezi Park events erupted, the government was planning to introduce a law restricting the sale of alcoholic beverages. In response to public reactions and debates, Erdoğan argued that ‘our national drink is ayran’ (diluted yogurt), in contradiction to those who know that the national drink of the Turks is ‘raki’ (a strong alcoholic drink). He went further and implied that an alcohol ban was one of the requirements of Islam. Most strikingly, Erdoğan complained that while the laws of ‘the two drunks’ were observed by Turks, the laws the AKP enacted were not followed. The public immediately understood that ‘the two drunks’ referred to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and İsmet İnönü, the founders of the secular and modern Turkish Republic. It was a well-known fact that Atatürk regularly drank raki. Following Erdoğan’s speeches, the government had the assembly pass a law to ban the sale and advertising of alcoholic beverages between 10pm and 6am.

The religious discourse frequently used by Erdoğan and his party members, as these many examples have shown, was not so much conservative as anti-secular, religious, authoritarian, revanchist, fundamentalist, sectarian and discriminatory. Just before the Gezi Park events, Turkey saw a new instance of such discourse. On 29 May 2013, ^{Footnote 9} at the ceremony where the foundation of the third Bosporus Bridge was laid, the President of the Republic, Abdullah Gül, announced that the new bridge would be named after the Ottoman padişah (Sultan or king) Yavuz Sultan Selim (1470–1520). The Alawites of Turkey immediately protested, as Yavuz Sultan Selim is remembered for substantial Alawite massacres during his reign. Erdoğan said that those who opposed the third bridge had attended the Republican Meetings in 2007, which had been organized against the AKP government as well as against a possible election of Erdoğan as president (see Gündoğan Reference Gündoğan2019, 10). He polarized the public and disturbed many people in the country. During the same period the Gezi Park events erupted and began to escalate into a nationwide protest movement against the violence of the police forces, as well as against the AKP government in general and Erdoğan in particular.

Given the discourse, agitation and provocation by Erdoğan and his government, Turkey was already ready to deliver a significant response. The last straw was the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s Taksim Project and the removal of ‘three or four trees’ from Gezi Park.

For Taksim Square, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality prepared a physical development plan that included a pedestrianization project that would shift all traffic underground, in addition to the reconstruction of an old military building, the ‘Topçu Kışlası’, ^{Footnote 10} as a shopping mall. Gezi Park was constructed upon the ruins of this building in the 1940s and was the only green area left in the centre of Istanbul. The removal of the trees in the park began on the night of 28 May. When the municipality began the construction process, information about what was going on was disseminated on social media, and approximately 50 young residents tried to prevent the destruction of the trees. Police heavy-handedly intervened, and the protests began to spread throughout Turkey. The police again attacked the protesters with water cannon, plastic bullets and tear gas, and the protests intensified even further. The first protestors against the brutal attacks of the police in the park began shouting ‘Everywhere Taksim; Everywhere Resistance’. After three days of resistance, on the night of 30 May, ‘some people’ (Ahaber 2013) ^{Footnote 11} set fire to the tents of the resistance group, which led to the uprising (Biamag Cumartesi 2013). ^{Footnote 12}

What was being protested against? At first glance, it was the removal of a park and the reconstruction of an old military building as a shopping mall; looking more deeply, it was the violence of the police. Who were the responsible institutions and people? Again, at first glance, it was the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, the government and the police. However, Erdoğan was seen as the real mayor, as he had talked as though he was since the beginning of the event. Hence, ‘the municipality’ meant Erdoğan. The police were under the control of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, which was also under Erdoğan’s command. As a result, he and his government quickly turned into the targets of the reactions and protests. For this reason, although the uprising was initially started by only a hundred people, within a week it had turned into a nationwide, massive, popular, secular, anti-authoritarian, anti-Erdoğan and anti-government movement. Protests took place in 80 provinces of Turkey. Taksim Square indirectly represented everywhere in Turkey (as implied by the slogan ‘Everywhere Taksim; Everywhere Resistance’). The majority of the protesters seemed to be students at, or graduates of, high schools and universities.

Erdoğan said that the activists and protestors were nothing but Çapulcu (marauders). The young masses humorously responded to Erdoğan’s statement by asserting that they were indeed Çapulcu. The common characteristic of the protestors was that none of them was pro-government, even if they were not completely anti-government. They were seen as highly creative and modern. Through Twitter and Facebook messages, they created protest literature. Their words encouraging ‘disproportionate intelligence’ against the ‘disproportionate force’ of the police explained the incompatibility between the traditional state behaviour and the new generation. The detention of the ‘standing man’ – a man who stood in Taksim Square without moving for hours – by police showed both this incompatibility and the humorous discourse of the protesters. This action was one of the dramatic stages of the Gezi events and was an example of a new form of protest as well as of peaceful resistance. The action came after police threw protesters off the square and banned meetings. The popular uprising began to gain support from all over the world, from Brazil to the US and Europe, probably due to its discourse, style and doubtless legitimacy.

For communication the protesters largely relied upon dissident and social media. The pro-government and ‘central’ media remained silent during the uprising. CNN-Turk’s news channel broadcast a penguin documentary and NTV food programmes and so on. In contrast, the protests were continuously broadcast live on Halk TV and Ulusal TV, among others that were not national media giants.

The protesters came from all classes – low, middle and upper – and included millions of people. People from the arts, science and entertainment sectors participated in the protests. Their ideological orientations could be inferred from their slogans, electronic messages, behaviour, styles and cultural patterns. They were clearly urban, civil, pluralist, environmentalist and green. The effects and elements of some ideologies and political attitudes such as libertarianism, republicanism, secularism, Kemalism, pluralism, environmentalism, socialism, anarchism and communism as well as socialist Islamism (of anti-capitalist Muslims) could be seen. Such diversity was normal, as this was a spontaneously developing ‘popular uprising’ that reached a national scale, attracted all anti-governmental segments of society, and affected people from different strata, ideologies and parties as well as people of very different levels of awareness.

The protestors also acted communally and often in a socialist way. They established common kitchens and libraries and showed solidarity among themselves. They were open to differences regarding ideologies, parties, lifestyles and religious faiths. Socialist groups helped anti-capitalist Muslims more easily perform their religious rituals. Turkey’s Western friends saw the young protestors as the face of ‘modern’, ‘urban’, ‘contemporary’ and ‘educated’ Turkey. Their intelligence and level of education clearly transpired from the drawings they left on walls, the music they played and listened to, and the Facebook and Twitter messages they sent. However, the evidence on the front of the Atatürk Cultural Centre (AKM) was much more explanatory. Before 8 June, the banners that had hung there celebrated the founder of the Republic, Atatürk, and militant socialist youth leaders of the 1960s and 1970s such as Deniz Gezmiş and İbrahim Kaypakkaya. Now the Communist Party of Turkey (Türkiye Komünist Partisi, TKP), the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (Ezilenlerin Sosyalist Partisi, ESP) and the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (Devrimci İşçi Partisi, DİP), among others, stuck their flags, posters and banners to the wall. The Marxist socialists constituted the most conscious and best-organized groups in the protests and began to come to the forefront.

Because of the wide coverage of this popular movement, Erdoğan, the government, Istanbul’s governor, and the pro-government media resorted to the ‘divide and rule’ principle, attempting to publicly separate the majority of the protestors, whom they called ‘normal’ and ‘innocent’, from the so-called terrorists, radical and marginals. The second group was mainly composed of radical socialists and communists who reacted more ideologically and politically to the police force. However, it also comprised young people who spontaneously reacted to police attacks, including the abundant and random use of tear gas and water cannon. The police and other officials did not recognize basic rights to hold protests, demonstrations and public gatherings and, in fact, forced many demonstrators to act ‘illegally’. It seems that it was the illegal and brutal acts of the police that provoked so-called ‘illegal reactions’. Seven protestors were killed, and thousands of people were injured by the police.

The uprising also involved Kemalist nationalists, ^{Footnote 13} but anti-Kurdish rhetoric was not heard from them. The Turkish flag with Atatürk’s portrait was widely used at the events. The flag was the symbol of the modern secular democratic republic and did not reflect an anti-Kurdish stance of Turkish nationalism, nor did it mean protesting against the ‘Kurdish Drive’ of the AKP government. Therefore, the uprising could not be regarded as going against the ‘Kurdish Drive’. In contrast, there were Kurdish people and politicians among the protestors. For example, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a famous Parliament member of the BDP, was at the forefront of the events from the beginning. In addition, the protests were about to link up with those in the eastern parts of the country, which is densely populated with Kurds. On 28 June 2013, police violence in the Lice district of Diyarbakır (in the centre of South-eastern Anatolia) was protested against in Kadıköy, a middle- and upper middle-class district of Istanbul, in the context of the Gezi uprising. In fact, the Turks of the West and the Kurds of the East were about to come together for the first time in a socialist-democratic alliance. However, Kurdish politicians and the leaders of the BDP hesitated to advance such a nationwide alliance considering the future of the government’s Kurdish Drive. They were probably affected by the AKP’s claim that the Gezi Park uprising was contrary to the Kurdish Drive. In fact, the AKP government again resorted to a ‘divide and rule’ strategy to prevent the Kurds from joining the Gezi protestors and the Turks of the West. A Twitter message from a protestor in Istanbul said, ‘If the police do this to us, who knows what they did to the Kurds in the Eastern parts of Turkey’. A strong empathy was developing among the protestors from Istanbul with the Kurdish people living in the east and southeast territories that had been oppressed since the 1980s. ^{Footnote 14} Actually, a significant proportion of protestors in Istanbul, Ankara, Hatay and Adana, among other cities where protests took place, may have been Kurdish or of Kurdish descent to begin with, as Kurds are very populous in these cities.

The participation of working class organizations was thwarted because the intervention of the police from the very beginning prevented some leftist trade unions from attempting to organize a general strike. ^{Footnote 15}

The Çarşı Group, consisting of leftist fans of the Beşiktaş football club, was one of the most colourful actors of the uprising and showed that football fans were not as politically ignorant as is frequently assumed. Joint protests by football fans that normally fought each other because of team competition served as a reminder that the masses are not always politically docile, silent and passive.

For two months, people waved Turkish flags and banged pots and pans together on balconies and in the streets to protest against the government. Erdoğan claimed that these actions were criminal. He also accused the Koç Group’s Divan Hotel in Taksim of committing a crime. The hotel, located next to Gezi Park, had accommodated wounded people during the police attacks in Gezi Park. The Koç Group is the biggest business holding in Turkey and the Koç family is the country’s richest family.

As the uprising began to wane towards September 2013, Erdoğan said that the police had acted heroically, and he handed out bonuses to the policemen. His party organized rallies called ‘Respect for National Will’. He pointed to the elections, saying that ballots were the sole arbiter of the ‘national will’. Erdoğan also tried to manipulate the public by denigrating the protestors and targeting some of them as drunks that had entered a mosque with their shoes on and that, in Istanbul, had attacked a woman wearing a headscarf (these claims have not been proven to date). However, his most dangerous statement was that they tried to forcefully keep 50% of people he referred to as ‘his voters’ at home during the protests.

Erdoğan’s AKP faced serious criticism from the world. The Gezi Park protests attracted the attention of the global community. Obama called on Erdoğan to respect democratic peaceful protests, and the European Commission and the European Parliament warned against the police’s ‘disproportionate use of force’. The UN and NATO also criticized the way the crisis was managed. In the end, Erdoğan was forced to put the project aside for a while, and then the administrative court annulled ‘The Development Plan of the Taksim Project’.

The Ghost of the Gezi Uprising: The Corruption Cases of 17 and 25 December 2013

The first corruption case brought against government circles was the case of Deniz Feneri (a charity organization operating in Germany), which was filed by the German courts for the first time in 2007. The case involved this pro-government charity transferring donations to profitable initiatives. The German court claimed that the Turkish government was trying to prevent the judicial procedure on the Turkish side of the case. ^{Footnote 16} Özdil (Reference Özdil2013, 152) pointed out that the scandal was on the first page of the Hürriyet newspaper (one of the major non-pro-government newspapers with large circulation in Turkey) of the Aydın Doğan media group. Erdoğan demanded that the media group’s newspapers be boycotted, and the pro-government media claimed that Aydın Doğan did not pay its taxes. In the following months, Doğan Media was punished by the Ministry of Finance with a huge tax burden (Özdil Reference Özdil2013, 168).Finally, the media giant was sold to the pro-government Demirören Group in March 2018.

After the Deniz Feneri affair, the government did not face additional similar claims, and the public did not hear of more such scandalous incidents except for some local corruption cases. However, a new scandal would explode like a bomb.

On 17 December 2013 a devastating event for the AKP government and Erdoğan himself occurred. Prosecutors launched an investigation into four of Erdoğan’s ministers, along with their sons, Reza Sarraf, a Turkish citizen of Iranian origin, and several public officials on allegations of illegal money smuggling, fraud and bribery. The ministers (of Interior Affairs, of Industry, of EU Affairs and of the Environment and Urbanism), together with their sons and the general director of the Halk Bank, were investigated. Sarraf, who was involved in the bribery scandal, was also accused by the US of violating the US embargo on Iran. A few days later, Erdoğan’s government retaliated and intervened in the judiciary and the police force, replacing hundreds of their staff. The AKP also tried to stop the judicial review by changing the regulation of judicial policing by not recognizing the separation of powers principle. The government amended the regulation on 21 December. With this change, the police began to provide information to government officials about judicial investigations.

The next stage of the 17 December operation took place on 25 December 2013. In this new operation, 96 people were accused of founding and leading organizations to commit crimes and bribes. Prime Minister Erdoğan’s son Bilal Erdoğan was among the suspects. However, he could not be interrogated by the prosecutor thanks to the 21 December Regulation. Indeed, this new regulation was prepared to prevent further arrests after 17 December. Furthermore, during that time the police did not obey the prosecutors’ instructions.

The Bar Association applied to the Danıştay, and filed a lawsuit for the suspension and cancellation of the regulation. The HSYK supported it, and the Danıştay decided to stop the implementation of the 21 December Regulation on 27 December, 2013. But it was too late. The government survived the operation on 25 December.

Erdoğan and his ministers argued that the judiciary was out of control and was part of a conspiracy against the government. The corruption cases and judicial investigations were alleged to be the start of a coup against the AKP as a continuation of the Gezi Park events. It was claimed that the current coup was organized by the Gülen community and a number of international agents against the political stability and economic miracles of the AKP period. The judiciary and the police force were said to be filled with Gülen community agents.

On 4 January 2014, Erdoğan invited representatives of some pro-government civil and social organizations as well as the media to a meeting at the Dolmabahçe Palace. Erdoğan reiterated that 17 December constituted a new coup attempt against the AKP government. The guests repeated the same argument in front of the television cameras after the meeting ended. It was also argued that the coup was a move against the Kurdish Drive. Some of the Wise Men mentioned above, such as Can Paker, had already associated the Gezi Park events with the Kurdish Drive (Güngör Reference Güngör2013) ^{Footnote 17} . Erdoğan made the same connection after the 17 December corruption affair. After the Dolmabahçe meeting, Paker repeated the same argument.

Meanwhile, students at the Middle East Technical University (Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, ODTÜ) protested against Erdoğan during his visit to the university. This event was also seen as a continuation of the Gezi Park uprising. In the eyes of Erdoğan and his government, all opposition, all public criticism, and all protests formed the next stages of the coup against them. For example, on 2 January 2014, a truck crossing the Syrian border was stopped by the police at the prosecutor’s request. The event was cited by the government as an intervention by the police and the prosecutor as part of the coup. However, the truck carried some materials that were within the scope of MİT’s activities, and, in terms of both national and international laws, the truck had to be inspected by the authorities. The UN’s Deputy Secretary-General made it clear that such trucks should be searched by the customs authorities at the border. Erdoğan said MİT ran a secret operation and that the material carried by the truck was state secret. He also reiterated the term ‘judicial coup’, through which, he claimed, the ‘parallel state’ and some ‘international’ circles were trying to organize against his party and government. Thus, Erdoğan and the AKP’s survival strategy were concerned with the elimination of these coups, circles and ‘parallel’ agents within the state they already ruled.

Meanwhile, Erdoğan’s high advisor, Yalçın Akdoğan, made a historic statement. He said that Fethullah Gülen had plotted against the ‘national army’, the ‘national intelligence’, the ‘national bank’ and the ‘civil authority’ (Akdoğan Reference Akdoğan2013). Akdoğan referred to the anti-military conspiracy and the connection between cases such as those of Ergenekon, Balyoz, and the Gülen community. In Akdoğan’s testimony, the Ergenekon case (see above), which began on 12 July 2007, almost lost its political and legal meaning and function, and the AKP began to accuse the Fethulahists of organizing all relevant cases. There was no longer a terrorist organization called Ergenekon, allegedly trying to overthrow the AKP government, and those accused of being members of the organization would be acquitted on 1 July 2019. With the end of the Ergenekon lawsuits, which were designed to liquidate a significant part of the anti-AKP opposition before, a period in Turkish politics would close.

Since the Gezi Uprising

While the Gezi uprising continued, in Egypt, after a popular uprising and the subsequent military coup of 3 July 2013, Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were forced to leave power. Erdoğan saw Morsi’s fall as a personal matter and declared his support for Morsi’s ‘regime’ during the ‘Respect for National Will’ rallies against the Gezi uprising. However, even Saudi Arabia and Qatar supported the coup against Morsi. The fall of Morsi, whom the AKP ideologically supported and the survival of Assad in Syria, whom the AKP tried to overthrow, were the two major foreign policy troubles for Erdoğan’s AKP since its involvement in the Greater Middle East Project (see Gündoğan Reference Gündoğan2019, 8 and note 10 there) and the Arab Revolts (the so-called ‘Arab Spring’, mass anti-government protests that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and spread to almost all Middle Eastern countries) (see Gündoğan Reference Gündoğan2019, 12–13).

The Greater Middle East Project aimed to establish a pro-American Middle East and thus tried to change the existing regimes and their borders along the lines of ethnic and religious divisions. The first product of the project was the establishment of a semi-independent Kurdish regional authority in Iraq and thus the de facto division of this country after the Gulf War (2 August 1990–28 February 1991). The Arab Spring is associated with ‘the Greater Middle East Project’ and even can be seen as an extension of it. Considering this connection, just two examples were meaningful: that Morsi came to power in the name of the Muslim Brotherhood (a religious political and social organization founded in Egypt in 1928) in Egypt and that the Assad’s modernist, nationalist and secular power in Syria had to be overthrown.

The Arab Spring gave birth to extremely negative consequences for Turkey. Within the framework of its neo-Ottomanist policies, the AKP government saw this process as a tool for the prospects of regional hegemony. However, even in 2016 Turkey’s expectations were already in vain. Turkey severed its relations with many countries in the region and ended its dreams of regional leadership (Schanzer and Tahiroglu Reference Schanzer and Tahiroglu2016).

Since 2011 Turkey’s neighbour Syria has been entangled in a civil war and there are no direct diplomatic relations any more between the two countries. Since Morsi’s overthrow, an authoritarian regime governs Egypt. There exist no diplomatic relations between Egypt and Turkey any more either (Schanzer and Tahiroglu Reference Schanzer and Tahiroglu2016).

The AKP’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood in the region and its cooperation with Qatar, which sponsors these Islamic groups, have also disturbed the Gulf Arab countries, whose monarchies arm themselves against the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, Turkey’s support for the Islamists in all these internal conflicts has led to criticism by a number of European countries. These same countries, together with the United States, have also criticized Turkey for not adequately protecting its Syrian border against Islamist terrorists (Schanzer and Tahiroglu Reference Schanzer and Tahiroglu2016).

The Syrian civil war has strained Turkey’s relations with Iran as well. The two countries support different sides of the Syrian civil war, and blame each other for sectarianism (Schanzer and Tahiroglu Reference Schanzer and Tahiroglu2016). This is a new version of the historical Shiite–Sunni conflict between the two countries.

Another problem caused by the AKP’s Syrian policy is the further regionalization of the historic Kurdish issue. Since the start of the Syrian civil war, local and international Islamic terrorists (related and affiliated with The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also known as the Islamic State (IS)) have worked to weaken the Syrian state. They effectively controlled the larger part of Syria for a long time. With the central authority in Syria weakened, and ISIS attacking all local people in the country, the Kurdish militias (The People’s Protection Units, YPG under the control of the PYD, the Democratic Union Party, Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, the extension of the PKK in Syria) have become an important force in the north-east of Syria. At the time of writing, the PYD (as the leading force of the Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF) controls almost the entire border of Syria with Turkey, and is an ally of the US in Syria. It also negotiates regional autonomy with the Syrian government. This means that the Kurdish movement in Syria has also strengthened. Due to its Syrian policy, the AKP has further regionalized Turkey’s own Kurdish problem.

Finally, the Syrian Civil War has led to tremendous regular and irregular migration movements from this country to Turkey (and other European countries) and has turned into a major refugee crisis for Turkey more than for any other country. According to official data, Turkey hosted around 3.5 million Syrians in 2019.

Even though, after the Gezi uprising, the AKP was confronted with many devastating developments, this was not enough to destroy its government. The corruption cases of 17 and 25 December 2013 were recorded and published by the Fethullahist groups operating in the state. However, it was claimed by AKP officials that the speeches overheard through secret eavesdropping were rearranged by the Fethullahists and did not reflect the truth.

The AKP won 60% of the vote for metropolitan municipalities in the first elections held for local governments on 31 March 2014. ^{Footnote 18} The main opposition party, CHP, received only 20%, while the Kurdish opposition party on the left, BDP, received only 6.67%. In addition, in the first round of presidential elections held on 10 August 2014, Erdoğan won 51.79% of the vote; CHP and MHP’s joint candidate, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, won 38.44%. Selahattin Demirtaş, co-chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP), ^{Footnote 19} which was supported by left-wing parties and groups and the Kurdish opposition, won 9.76% of the vote. A second round was unnecessary. Later, based on this election success, Erdoğan and the AKP would intensify their propaganda for the idea of a presidential system (see footnote Footnote 4). The idea would emerge more fully in the next period.

After the corruption affairs in 2013, the weakness of the AKP’s election performance first surfaced in the 7 June 2015 national elections. The AKP won 40.87% of the vote and gained 258 seats in the Parliament. The CHP took 132 seats with 24.95%, the MHP took 80 seats with 16.29%, and HDP took 80 seats with 13.12%. The decline of the AKP was clear. More importantly, the HDP became a key player in the Parliament and in Turkish politics. The HDP gained the same number of seats as the extreme right MHP. A more striking fact was that for the first time the AKP lost its capacity to form a one-party government. The co-chair of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş, turned into a political star. However, a coalition government, either with or without the AKP, proved impossible. The AKP and its actual partner, the MHP, pressed for a new election.

A new election was held on 1 November 2015 to remedy the unfavourable results of the 7 June 2015 elections for the AKP. The AKP aimed again to be able to form a one-party government. Such a change would only be possible if the HDP and its voting base were somehow weakened. The elections were held under extraordinary and undemocratic conditions. The Kurdish-populated eastern and south-eastern regions were the arena of protests and armed conflicts. Many soldiers and policemen were killed due to ISIS and PKK terrorist attacks. On 20 July 2015, 31 people were killed and 104 injured in the Suruç bombing. On 10 October 2015, a peace rally was bombed in Ankara, and 102 people were killed. At the beginning of the election campaign, Erdoğan, commenting on the Dolmabahçe Agreement, which had been declared by the representatives of the AKP government and the HDP on 28 February 2015, stated that there had been no such an agreement (Cumhuriyet 2018). Previously, Erdoğan had appreciated this agreement as a call for disarmament (of the PKK) and as the beginning of a democratic drive for national unity and brotherhood (Sözcü 2016). However, the Kurdish Drive was already over. The HDP’s votes decreased by 3%, dropping to 10.79 percent and 59 seats, while the AKP rose to 49.50% and won 317 seats. The CHP rose slightly to 25.32% and gained more members in the parliament. However, the MHP dropped even further, reaching only 40 seats with 11.9%. Actually, the result was a shift of votes from the HDP and MHP to the AKP. The AKP could again govern alone.

A new and more devastating development took place eight months after the 1 November 2015 national elections. On 15 July 2016 a military coup was launched against the government. Officially, the coup was organized by the Fethullah Gülen community and military officers who had links with the US. After the coup attempt, the Gülen movement was officially defined as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (Fethullahçı Terör Örgütü, FETÖ). After 20 July 2016 the government took many extraordinary counter measures (see below), and Turkey was governed with a sort of martial law until 18 July 2018. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the chair of CHP, the opposition party, claimed that the 15 July coup was a ‘controlled coup attempt’ and was used as an excuse for the 20 July AKP coup (Çamlıbel Reference Çamlıbel2016).

During the two-year period between 20 July 2016 and 18 July 2018, dozens of statutory decrees were issued to restore governmental power and liquidate FETÖ members from the army, civil bureaucracy, judiciary, business, media, and civil society. The joint political power that the AKP and the Fethullahists (now FETÖ) had established in the past was completely disintegrated. However, with these decrees many dissidents not related to FETÖ were also liquidated. In addition, the Parliament’s legislative authority was bypassed. Although as Head of the Republic (for the use of this title, see footnote Footnote 4) Erdoğan, faced only by a weak Parliament, already controlled all executive power, his party, the judiciary and most of the media ^{Footnote 20} (Yeniçağ 2019) he also wanted an executive presidential system and the possibility in office to maintain official ties with his political party. Turkey was ruled by a single person, so to speak. What was wanted was to make this de facto situation de jure.

In this extraordinary state of affairs, Turkey entered a new election period. The AKP and MHP agreed on the new constitutional regime, and with the 16 April 2017 referendum the constitution was amended to replace the parliamentary system with an executive presidential system. The office of the prime minister was abolished. Another important novelty was that the cabinet members should not be deputies. The president (Head of the Republic), namely Erdoğan, could from then on officially also act as the chair of the AKP.

Without the initiative and support of the MHP’s chair, Devlet Bahçeli, such a radical change in the constitutional system would have been impossible. The relations between the two parties have continued to intensify and have turned into a unity of destiny. From early February 2018 on the two parties began to cooperate, forming the People’s Alliance (Cumhur İttifakı). On the other hand, in May 2018 an electoral alliance was formed against them under the name of the Nation Alliance (Millet İttifakı). Millet İttifakı consists mainly of the CHP and the Good Party (İyi Party, İP). The latter was founded by those who left the MHP in October 2017 and is more liberal and secularist than the MHP.

According to the new constitutional system, presidential and national elections should have been held on 3 November 2019. However, Erdoğan and Bahçeli moved the elections up. Both elections were instead held on 24 June 2018. The signs of a major economic crisis had begun to emerge, and this could be seen as the main reason for the decision to move the elections forward. Erdoğan was elected president with a vote of 52.6%, probably due to the early date of the election. The AKP won 295 seats with 42.60%. CHP candidate Muharrem İnce received 30.6%, and his party received 22.60% of the vote and won 146 seats in the parliament. The İyi Parti won 43 seats with 10%, while Selahattin Demirtaş (who has been in custody since November 2016) gained 8.4% of the vote, and the HDP won 67 seats with 11.70% of the vote. Meral Akşener received 7.3% of the vote, which was less than expected. The MHP achieved more than expected: 49 seats and 11.10%. The total vote for the People’s Alliance was 53.70%, and that for the Nation Alliance was 33.90%. The CHP and the İyi Party’s electoral strategy was based on the second round in which Muharem İnce could defeat Erdoğan. However, this strategy did not work because the İyi Party received fewer votes than expected, and the MHP received more. The People’s Alliance parties claimed that the new constitutional system would end the coalition era in Turkey and would ensure political stability. However, even in these elections, coalitions and hence divisions emerged throughout the country. The election results also showed that Erdoğan could no longer maintain his power alone and needed Bahçeli and the MHP to prop him up.

In the local elections held on 31 March 2019 there was a sign of real decline in the AKP’s power. The People’s Alliance, consisting of the AKP and the MHP, lost the most developed and populated municipalities to its rival, the Nation Alliance, mainly to the CHP. The most important change took place in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. The CHP candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was elected by a margin of approximately 13,000 votes over the People’s Alliance’s candidate, Binali Yıldırım, who had been the head of the Parliament before his nomination and was also the last prime minister before the new presidential regime came into effect. However, it was not Yıldırım but Erdoğan who had been the main actor of the election campaign and who had made of the elections a nationwide struggle for his position of power against his rivals. During the campaign, Erdoğan and his MHP partner accused their opponents of cooperating with or being supported by terrorists (meaning PKK) and presented the HDP as an extension of the PKK. Erdoğan and the MHP presented the elections as a question of the survival of the state. The HDP, on the other hand, declared its election strategy as being the opposition to the AKP and MHP. This strategy indirectly meant supporting the Nation Alliance against the People’s Alliance.

Erdoğan and Bahçeli, contrary to democratic principles, did not accept the election results in Istanbul. Following legal objections by the AKP, it was decided that only the metropolitan municipal mayor-ship outside the districts where the AKP won the majority would be renewed in order to control the Istanbul Municipal Assembly and hence prevent İmamoğlu from working efficiently. However, in the new elections held on 23 June 2019, the People’s Alliance was greatly disappointed. İmamoğlu raised the previous margin of 10,000 to approximately 806,000 and was re-elected. Istanbul’s votes were divided 45% to nearly 54% in favour of the Nation Alliance. İmamoğlu became the new political star of the country. The AKP and Erdoğan (and its People’s Alliance with the MHP) suffered a historic defeat. This may be considered the most important stage in their expected further decline.

Concluding Remarks

A substantial number of common analyses of the Gezi uprising are based on the distinction between old and new Turkey. In the latter, new, better-educated and democratic youth demand a liberal, participatory and pluralist state and society. Our article does not see this approach as wrong but finds it incomplete. The AKP faced unique problems and produced new problems. Its survival strategy and discourse related to its Islamist political past created the conditions for the uprising: the AKP’s intervention in private life, authoritarian and exclusionary discourse, frequent and indiscriminate use of police force, frequent violation of the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers, Islamist and neo-Ottomanist foreign policies, economic growth policies based on the construction industry and rentier projects, and dependence on foreign capital flows and debts, along with efforts to maintain effective domestic demand, formed the background of the June 2013 uprising. In its long term in power, the AKP government produced a number of problems in different spheres as well as a significant opposition. The rebellion process that started with Gezi Park was an eruption of these problems in a specific place (Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, and its most important square, Taksim) and time. What happened was similar to the explosion of gases that have accumulated in a mine, and so resembled nothing so much as a firedamp explosion.

The Gezi uprising spontaneously and suddenly emerged and swept across the country, picking up support from almost all segments of society, with the exception of supporters and partisans of the ruling AKP. Two issues were brought together in the eyes of the people: the authoritarian discourse on central political power and the urban question. The second incorporated the symbolic value (and use value) of Taksim Square and Gezi Park. Therefore, it is necessary to be careful when using the terms of urban theorists such as Manuel Castells and David Harvey (also Henri Lefebvre). Although serious and sustained protests took place in the urban area and about a related issue, this uprising was not an urban social movement (in the terms of Castells Reference Castells1979). However, the uprising was about an urbanized consciousness of capital (following Harvey Reference Harvey1985a, Reference Harvey1985b). Turkey is an urban society, and Turkish capitalism is an urbanized capitalism. In addition, to use classical Marxist terms, what was happening was also a popular uprising and the class movement of the popular classes. Each explanation refers to one aspect of the reality and must therefore be combined and synthesized in a new theoretical framework. The uprising was popular because it affected and involved different segments of society. It was urban because it was concerned with the use and control of ‘urban space’. It was a class movement because it criticized the logic of the capitalist production of urban space and the government that explicitly embraced bourgeois interests. Taksim Square, Gezi Park and Topçu Kışlası brought together the problems of daily life, the use and control of urban space, and the problems of political power. In summary, with June 2013 a special synthesis of urban social movements and class movements, indistinguishable from the popular uprising, emerged. However, the dominant nature of the events was that defined by the large protests against the AKP government and Erdoğan, which are difficult to distinguish.

During the long period of its government, the AKP has consistently faced serious opposition and, until recently, it has succeeded in eliminating its opponents. However, in recent elections the AKP has begun to lose its electoral power in the most populated and developed urban areas. Now, the AKP has the support of only the nationalist right-wing MHP and some smaller parties. The AKP has long lacked the support of liberals, left-wing democrats and, more importantly, the leftist and democratic Kurdish movement. It is unclear whether the MHP within the People’s Alliance will continue its support to the AKP.

In June 2019, the Gezi case opened in court (BBC 2019). The defendants are accused of organizing and financing protests, and the rebellion that began with the Gezi protests is alleged to be a coup attempt. Erdoğan and members of his cabinet are among the complainants of the case.

One of the arguments of this two-part article is that the AKP has always faced the problem of staying in power and has perceived the opposition from this perspective. The opposition can be a political party, a bureaucratic stratum, a public or civil organization, a newspaper, an artist, an ordinary citizen, a tweet, or a spontaneously emerging mass protest. For those who are interested in political science, the question is how democracy can manage non-democratic acts and processes. The Turkey of the AKP period provides a good case study for answering this question.