TASHLIK: ZÜRİCH-TAKSİM

How even Zürich became Taksim, June 8th, 2013.

(Image from my own Camera.)

ENGLISH
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Her Yer Taksim, her yer direniş ("Everywhere Taksim, Everywhere Resistance!" ) goes the best known of the many slogans of tehe Promenade Park (Gezi Parkı) Uprising, now in its second week and going on undaunted in spite of the return of the very interesting Prime Ministe Erdoğan from his very oddly timed North African tour. The good gentleman casually took off even as his country was reverberating with massive protestes against his despotic personal rule backed by his AKP partners in crime. Prime Minister Gül and the AKP big wheels made conciliatory (albeit harly trustworthy) statements in his absence but no sooner had the Beast returned, he was overriding them all, and threatening to allow his fanatical fundamentalist cohorts to mow down the demonstrators- "moderate Islam" indeed; oh you botched it up big time Uncle Sam! Thugs with clubs siding with policemen armed to the teeth against, unarmed demonstrators whom Erdoğan labels "terrorists"! It is his own police who are gassing and clobbering demonstrators and bystanders alike (and the occasional tourist), firing off plastic bullets on people as if shooting at a gallery in a fun fair. People have been wounded, been scarred for life, been killed- and I am including the death of Police Commisar Mustafa Sarı[1]- because a despot at the service of US interests refuses to to surrender a position of power he abuses so callously. But let’s not be superficial- I should really say, because a superpower somewhere has launched an operation to destroy a country in pursuance of an idiotic plan that is supposed to bring peace to the Middle East: Oh, it’s really going well!

Ankara, June 5th, 2013

(Image from the Media.)

Give it up, Uncle Sam, call it a day, and maybe we can be friends again sometime. Cautious friends, to be sure, but friends. If we ever get out of this, we will try to forget that we were supposed to be fast friends when you stabbed us in the back!

A call was made for demonstrations all over Europe on June 8th. As luck would have it, the one in Zurich, Switzerland, was only a train ride away (well, three train rides, but I think trains are fun so there was no problem there!) We were at Zürich’s Marktplatz am Rathaus punctually at 16:00; a precision the Swiss would approve!

Demonstrators in Zurich supporting the Promenade Park (Gezi Parkı) uprising.

(Image from my own camera.)

It’s a strange feeling, demonstrating here; I find the country beautiful and have visited it several times as a tourist, but never would I have imagined that I would one day be waving flags, shouting slogans calling for the Turkish government to step down, in Zürich, of all places- truth is stranger than fiction!