But proposed changes to
Taksim Square have seen it become the flashpoint for protests that have
swept through Turkey in the past week, leaving thousands injured and
focusing the world's attention on the government of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.
Taksim has been no
stranger to violence. In 1977, at least 34 protesters died during May
Day clashes with police. May 1 rallies in the square were banned in 1980
and were only allowed to legally resume in 2010. On May Day this year,
there were riots after city authorities again refused to grant trade
unions and youth groups permission to demonstrate in Taksim, blaming
construction work being carried out in the square.
Professor Ersin Kalaycioglu,
professor of political science at Istanbul's Sabanci University, said
significantly, Taksim Square was also known as "republic square,"
because it was built by the Republic of Turkey's founding fathers to
commemorate the war of liberation. "Taksim Square is connected to
Istiklal Caddesi -- Independence Avenue -- and Cumhuriyet Caddesi -- the
Avenue of the Republic. So there is a lot of symbolism that has to do
with the Turkish Republic," he said.
The Turkish word "taksim"
translates as "divide" and Kalaycioglu said Taksim Square was so-named
because the area used to be the site of Istanbul's main reservoir, where
the water was divided up.
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In the 20th Century and
earlier, the area was only partially inhabited, he said, housing a
military barracks and military training ground and a cemetery running
down the slopes and a military hospital that still remains.
"In the 1930s the
cemetery was moved to another part of town and the area was opened up
for apartment buildings -- and at one point it was one of the 'poshest'
parts of the city," he said. "Most of the apartment buildings face the
Bosphorus [the strait that connects the Black Sea and the Sea of
Marmara]," he said. "Because of its majestic view, [Taksim] is an
attraction in its own right." It was estimated that millions of people
went through the area to work every day, Kalaycioglu said.
Since the protests,
however, Taksim has been blocked to traffic. This impromptu
pedestrianization inadvertently reflects the authorities' plan to divert
all traffic from the square. Kalaycioglu said plans to take the traffic
underground included a pedestrian curb but after the tunnel was dug it
was discovered that not enough room had been allowed for foot traffic.
That was when the government decided to slice off part of Taksim's Gezi
Park -- one of the last green spaces in Istanbul's center -- "which the
ecologists and architects of the city started to argue against."
"When machines were sent
in to take down the trees, the people who had been protesting there
tried to stop them and a row intervened between the construction company
and the protesters -- and police intervened," Kalaycioglu said.
But in an interview with
CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Mevlut Cavusoglu, the deputy chairman of
Erdogan's AK Party said the project for Taksim Square had enjoyed
cross-party support. "This project was actually supported by all the
political parties in the city council and it was adapted unanimously at
the city council," Cavusoglu said. He added that the number of trees in
the square would be increased by the project -- with plans to replant 10
of those being removed from Gezi Park.
Cavusoglu denied reports
that a mall was part of the project. "The building of a shopping mall
has never been considered here in Taksim Square. What is [being]
considered is the pedestrian way and putting car traffic under the
tunnel and enlarging Taksim Square," he said. "Only old military
barracks is considered to rebuild. "
Turkey's Ottoman past
The barracks being
reconstructed are from the 19th Century, a period when Turkey was still
ruled by Ottoman sultans, who declared themselves the "caliphs" -- or
spiritual leaders -- of the Muslim world. In 1922, first president of
the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, sent the last sultan into
exile and two years later, banned the caliphate and declared Turkey a
secular state -- so the ideals of the Republic of Turkey clash with
those of the country's Ottoman past.
The big issue there is, is of course freedom of expression and to
be treated as stakeholders -- not as cockroaches. More is at stake than
just Taksim Square.
Professor Ersin Kalaycioglu
Professor Ersin Kalaycioglu
The plans to rebuild Ottoman-era barracks had raised two different issues -- the physical change and the idea behind it, said Benjamin Fortna, professor of Middle Eastern history at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London.
"The idea -- building a
replica of a past building - probably suggests to some people that the
government's trying to link itself to the Ottoman past. But of course
the square does exist from the Ottoman period." Fortna said many people
objected to a "kind of glorification" of the Ottoman era, which the
early republic had tried to "ignore and denigrate."
Kalaycioglu said the
barracks had also been associated with the massacre of Christian army
officers during a major uprising against constitutional rule in 1909.
"In the minds of the people, [the uprising] was the conspiracy of the
sultan who tried to get rid of the officers in 1908 by using religious
provocation," he said. "That left an indelible mark in the minds of the
people that religion could be deployed as a major factor against
modernization."
That concept was "at the
very base" of Erdogan's AK Party, Kalaycioglu said. The plans for
Taksim Square also including the building of a mosque, he said. This
meant "anybody objecting to the project would be objecting to a mosque"
and the AKP was presenting objectors as atheist, secular, communist,
anti-democratic and anti the people, he said. "The masses on their side
will be conservative and Sunni Muslim," he said.
The proposed mosque
would also overshadow the statues of the major figures of the republic
represented on the Monument to the Republic in Taksim Square,
Kalaycioglu said.
Taksim's lack of
religious connotations was "probably one of the reasons that it was
favored by the republic as a modern urban space," Fortna said. The plan
to build a mosque in Taksim was therefore "highly controversial and
something that those with a secular orientation in the city and the
country itself would resist," he said. "The other side would see it as a
natural place to have a mosque."
The term "secular" --
most often understood in the West as referring to the separation of
religion and government -- was often applied to Turkey, Fortna said.
"But in Turkey itself they use the French term 'laïque.' In Turkey you
really have the situation that's related to the founding of the republic
- that the state will kind of control religion," Fortna said. "So, for
example, the Directorate of Religious Affairs is responsible for
deciding the text that Muslim clerics can deliver in their Friday
sermons. "
Kalaycioglu said the
government also planned to demolish the Ataturk Cultural Center. They
[Erdogan's government] want to get rid of anything and everything to do
with Ataturk," he said. Kalaycioglu suggested that another example of
this was the government's proposal to close down Ataturk Airport --
Istanbul's main international hub -- and build a new airport in the
north. He said this would involve excavating a new channel between the
Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. "All this to get rid of the name of
Ataturk. There's a lot of ideological baggage."
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'Contested space'
Fortna said Taksim had
long being a contested space and plans to change it would always be
likely to cause controversy. "Because it's such a central location and
because of its particular make-up and associations -- whatever happens
there will probably be heavily scrutinized and criticized," he said.
"Taksim is a place where
demonstrators habitually gather. There's always a May Day protest for
example. It's a place where people would naturally gravitate -- it's one
of the few places where there's a fairly large open space in the city,"
he said.
The current
demonstrators have demanded Erdogan's resignation, accusing his
government of creeping authoritarianism, while the prime minister has
said the protests are part of an attempt by opponents who lost to his AK
Party to beat it "by other means." "The issue of trees in Gezi Park
thing is just the trigger," he said on Monday.
Kalaycioglu said the
number of protesters had surged after evidence emerged of a brutal
police response to the initial Taksim demonstration. He said the
government had "started to argue that it was just a group of marauders"
but that a huge majority seemed to be ordinary citizens, from all ages
and walks of life and the government had eventually realized this and
pulled the police out of the scene.
In his interview with
Amanpour, Cavusoglu -- Erdogan's deputy -- acknowledged that police had
been heavy-handed and said their actions would be investigated but
insisted that the government represented the Turkish people. "At each
election the people have been increasing their support for our
government and our prime minister," he said. "We are the democratic
government and democratically elected parliament."
But Kalaycioglu said the
protests had spread spontaneously through Turkey, "motivated by the
same theme." The government was "jumping on freedom of expression and
freedom of the press," he said. "The big issue there is, is of course
freedom of expression and to be treated as stakeholders -- not as
cockroaches. More is at stake than just Taksim Square."
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