The world is in an uproar, danger zone is everywhere…
— Ray Charles
All weekend, I have been receiving constant Facebook updates by Gokce, one of my Istanbul friends and family from the International Body Music Festival.
As much as he can, Gokce and his partner Ayse have been providing a blow-by-blow account on the state of Istanbul as it undergoes yet another day of mass demonstration, dissent and police brutality, today marking the sixth day of protest across the city. At the center of it is Taksim Square, one of Istanbul’s cultural hearts and a symbol of modern day secular Turkey founded under Ataturk. It is a 15 minute walk from their house.
Events began Monday, May 27, as a peaceful demonstration of resistance — an “Occupy Gezi” movement. The Erdogan government had usurped all legal processes to turn the last of Istanbul’s green spaces — Gezi Park — into a shopping mall.
Seventy protesters gathered to stop the bulldozers from beginning work. On the second day of resistance, demonstrators were met with police brutality far exceeding that of the excesses of police at Zuccotti Park and Oakland’s Oscar Grant Plaza. Over 1,000 protesters have been hospitalized for concussions caused by tear gas canisters and water cannons fired directly at their heads. The death count is still not clear, and the state news media blackout has ceased the flow of information over broader traditional networks. As of this moment, the Turkish people are in a news blackout.
The uproar caused by police brutality against people leading a peaceful demonstration was the last straw for the Turks, and the city has risen in defiance over police tactics under Erdogan. But the deepest underlying cause of this public rage is not just Gezi Park, but the growing authoritarianism and overreach by the government, which is entrenched in protecting Erdogan and his AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) party cronies. They are interested in destabilizing the delicate balance of a secular democracy that has been the trademark of Istanbul. Ironically, the English translation of Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi is “the Justice and Development Party.”
Here, in a beautifully worded synopsis from a Facebook post by Yusuf Bilgehan Arik, is the deeper reason as to why the Turkish people are up in arms:
“If you guys are wondering why Turks are rising against the government and its diving [dividing] policies: You probably know Turkey as a moderate Islamic country but we do not. We were founded secular and grew up in a culture that was tolerant to differences. Our women voted and elected to leadership before yours. Religion was not a tool for politics. Our grandfathers went to mosques to pray but also drank Raki with their friends and never judged others for their lifestyle.
Islam has not been our defining identity until this government. What Europe and US sees is a strong government, a good example of a predominantly Muslim nation as a shining beacon to Middle East and a growing economy. What we see is our journalists being prisoned, our army dispersed and a government who single handedly changes the constitution to serve their purpose with the intention of slowly taking away our freedoms.
We are being pitted against each other based on our heritage, lifestyle or religious beliefs. This is why we are protesting. We want our original founding principals back. We want the whole world to know: The people on the streets are not the TURKS or MUSLIMS or LIBERALS — they are the PUBLIC that claim their uniting identity back. That identity is SECULAR and UNITED as a nation.”
The ideal of Istanbul has been that of a crossroads city, an empire enriched by its diversity of cultures, religions and races intersecting over the centuries. As we know, that ideal has existed peacefully at times, but in other times its reality emerges, and in some of the most brutal ways possible.
I am an artist and part of a global family from the International Body Music Festival, which has grown and broadened over the last five years. As you have read here, I traveled to help at the fifth festival in Istanbul in the fall of last year. Because of this creative involvement I came to love Istanbul, first through its people, and then through the city itself. That infatuation has not faded. But today it is tinged with heartache and anxiousness. I have not been so directly involved with friends and loved ones from a country in turmoil before.
Amazing how the miracle of the Internet has so united us, with the pleasure of the acquaintance and friendship of others outside one’s culture and knowledge and country, and the pain of separation and frustrating inability to be there when they now need help. But we are all still joined at the hip — this festival family of ours — because we united body and soul as family doing our music together. Something beautiful and creative and alive. That’s a bond as rich and deep as love, and it pulls at me by the moment.
In my Facebook chat with Ayse yesterday, I begged her to stay safe, to keep out of danger, and to please, please have a Plan B to leave the country before the situation spirals out of control. She responded in a way that some of us have known in our lifetimes, being engulfed in and taken up with a movement larger than ourselves: it’s hard to leave to try to commence a normal life while your country is in trouble.
As I finished the paragraph above, Ayse re-opened her Facebook chat window with me to report that they are all safe and at home, and to please call to re-assure her mother, who is a guest professor here in California. Erdogan has declared today was the last day of demonstrations and his forces will be coming down with brute strength onto the protests if they are continued. Taksim Square, the center of the storm, is still safe; from what I can tell by her chat, it is still ‘occupied’. It seems that Istanbul is more or less settled down — for now.
But protests and police brutality in response continue throughout cities and towns across the country. They are the worst in Ankara, where demonstrators have been arrested en masse, and we hear they are being tortured without questioning in malls in that city.
The most maddening and shameful thing about the situation in Turkey, for those of us anxious to gather news on the event, is that the U.S. news blackout on their struggle is almost as tight here as it is in Turkey. Sympathetic demonstrations took place over the weekend in Zuccotti Park and San Francisco to draw attention to the events. But as of now on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC — nothing.
While we Americans are confronting the terrible effects of destructive tornadoes in the Midwest and full-blown dimwits in Congress, the world itself is turning faster on a speeding axis, propelled by the spirit of revolt fitting to these times. Danger zones are everywhere. But that shared danger of countries in transition, of governments making stupid decisions and lethal mistakes, of special interests threatening to turn this world into everyone else’s public hell for their profit and amusement is something uniting us all.
During these days of the square between Uranus and Pluto the danger zone is happening in Turkey and around the world. Reaching across to Gokce and Ayse and all my friends in Istanbul, we are reassured that we do have each other. Turkey’s revolution is personal for me, because it involves people I care about. I feel this more intensely today than ever — that we are a large body of spirits moving as one across this big blue planet. The time has come to stand up, and to help those who need it as they stand up. And regardless what happens, to never forget that we are everywhere.
Thanks for the Snopes, Fe.
I posted Fulford because some of his information is good. Some is disinformation.
Frankly, I don’t care where Obama is born. I am concerned about his moving the corporate agenda forward and taking away our civil liberties.
As I know you are, too.
Mia
From Snopes about the birth certificate:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/birthcertificate.asp
Here is the Democracy Now! coverage of what is happening in Turkey:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/3/a_turkish_spring_over_1_000
Amy Goodman interviews two Turkish professors who are excited by what is happening and speak of being empowered. A week or so ago, protests turned violent in Sweden. Citizens are waking up all over the globe and refusing to go along with government control. There was bound to be push-back to all that has been happening.
Photo coverage from the Uk’s The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-protests-in-pictures-antigovernment-protests-held-in-istanbul-and-several-other-turkish-cities-8642144.html
As Len said, “my heart is with you and your friends in the Turkish public as they brave their own danger zone”. Thank you for this piece, Fe, that’s informative and deeply personal at the same time, telling it so much better than most newspaper accounts would.
Click on this link from our friend Defne. The people at Taksim Square are peaceably occupying the park, cleaning it as it needs and loving and supporting each other in all their differences and variety.
https://www.facebook.com/defne.erdur/posts/10151368681831511
Thank you, Fe. I am grateful for your update and eloquence.
Fe: Thank you so very much. It is both a fortification and a comfort to have the privilege of reading your eloquent advocacy on Planet Waves again. You teach, we learn – gratefully. Feeling every word viscerally, following every line of reasoning with appreciation. If you will have it, my heart is with you and your friends in the Turkish public as they brave their own danger zone.
Former Forbes Magazine bureau chief in Asia, Benjamin Fulford, writes a weekly update. Here he covers the Middle East and what is happening in Turkey. Among other things he correctly predicted the resignation of the pope.
Ben Fulford (June 4, 2013) ~ Financial War Escalates With Riots In Turkey, A Blockade Of European Central Bank, Assassinations And Arrests Amid Clouds Of Disinformation
Benjamin Fulford
Last week multiple high level sources all confirmed an intensifying battle for control of the global financial system and thus the future of humanity. In the public sphere this is appearing in the form of riots in Turkey, blockades of the European Central Bank and massive global protests against Monsanto among other things. Under the surface there has been a rash of intrigues, arrests, threats and counter-threats. New alliances have also been reached between previously opposing forces, according to multiple high level sources.
In Asia, China, South Korea, Japan and the United States have all agreed on forcing regime change in North Korea, according to a senior Chinese government agent. This was confirmed by a gnostic Illuminati grandmaster and Russian FSB agent who said that Kim Jong-un would have to be removed. The North Koreans, now run by an elderly general, want peace. In the Middle East, meanwhile, apart from the riots in Turkey and Russian troops in Syria, there were separate assassination attempts in Iran against President Mahmoud Ahmajidenad and his ally Saeed Jalili, according to the Mossad linked site Debka.
There are also 11 members of the One People’s Public Trust, the people behind the so-called galactics pushing for their version of a new financial system on the run from both hitmen and law enforcement agents in Ethiopia, according to a CIA source. A senior Italian P2 Lodge member says the people in Ethiopia are there in an effort to find the “original Ark of the Covenant.” At least both sides agree that there is some form of high level intrigue going on in Ethiopia of all places. We will try to find out more next week.
Meanwhile, a member of the Dragon family came forth this week to provide some background. The man who goes by the name Count Albert but insists he is not the fraudulent “Count Albert Zvonko Berdik” sent by the Federal Reserve Board to Hong Kong a while ago. According to him, the Dragon family goes back 3400 years and is headed by a single individual going by the code name M1. He says the Dragon family has now formed an alliance with the Five Star Trust run by the non-Bush part of the CIA.
He also says that China has already started to use new energy technology to turn the desert regions of China green.
In any case, what Count Albert says fits in with claims by Chinese, Russian and British Agents about high level anti-cabal moves around the world.
In the Anglo Saxon world, for example, there is a push to remove politicians believed to be Sabbatean agents. In particular Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is under criminal investigation,
◾http://theredandtheblue.org/2013/04/23/awu-the-question-of-whether-julia-gillard-is-under-criminal-investigation/
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is charged with stealing his last election
◾http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/05/25/305314/confirmed-canada-2011-polls-fraudulent/
and British Prime Minister David Cameron is under attack for involvement in war crimes among other things.
◾http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333649/Cameron-Blair-grubby-deal-censor-Iraq-inquiry-Key-evidence-held-return-ex-PMs-neutrality-election-claims-foreign-secretary.html
There is also a still festering sex scandal in the UK that has embroiled 81 BBC staffers but has yet to reel in any politicians.
◾http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333723/Sex-abuse-claims-81-BBC-staff-reported-wake-Savile-scandal–half-work-corporation.html
However, it is just a matter of time before politicians start coming down like dominoes, the MI5 source says.
There is also a renewed push to remove Rockefeller front man Obama from the US presidency, according to multiple US agency and military sources. At the recent national conference of Sheriffs, for example, it was proven that the only birth document Obama has ever publicly presented is a fraud.
Here is a summary of the evidence as sent to me a while back by Dr. Michael Van de Meer in what turned out to be his last e-mail to me before he was killed:
Now, I couldn’t care less about the President’s Birth Certificate, which was a story first dredged up by Hillary Clinton during their bitter Presidential campaign. However, since the White House has made such a ridiculous display of claiming to produce it, please read this over and tell me what you think. If you honestly think this is just plain stupid, then point out why these 4 questions shouldn’t matter. I’ll wait….
1. Back in 1961 people of color were called ‘Negroes.’ So how can the Obama ‘birth certificate’ state he is ‘African-American’ when the term wasn’t even used at that time? The correct term would be “Malado” one black parent, one white parent.
2. The birth certificate that the White House released lists Obama’s birth …as August 4, 1961 It lists Barack Hussein Obama as his father. No big deal, right? At the time of Obama’s birth, it also shows that his father is aged 25 years old, and that Obama’s father was born in “Kenya, East Africa”. This wouldn’t seem like anything of concern, except the fact that Kenya did not even exist until 1963, two whole years after Obama’s birth, and 27 years after his father’s birth.
How could Obama’s father have been born in a country that did not yet exist? Up and until Kenya was formed in 1963, it was known as the “British East Africa Protectorate”.
3. On the birth certificate released by the White House, the listed place of birth is “Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital”.
This cannot be, because the hospital(s) in question in 1961 were called “KauiKeolani Children’s Hospital” and “Kapi’olani Maternity Home”, respectively. The name did not change to Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital until 1978, when these two hospitals merged. How can this particular name of the hospital be on a birth certificate dated 1961 if this name had not yet been applied to it until 1978?
4. Why hasn’t this been discussed in the major media?
Perhaps a clue comes from Obama’s book on his father. He states how proud he is of his father fighting in WW II. I’m not a math genius, so I may need some help from you. Barack Obama’s “birth certificate” says his father was 25 years old in 1961 when he was born. That should have put his father’s date of birth approximately 1936. Now we need a non-revised history book—one that hasn’t been altered to satisfy the author’s goals—to verify that WW II was basically between 1939 and 1945.
Just how many 3 year olds fight in wars? Even in the latest stages of WW II his father wouldn’t have been more than 9. Does that mean that Mr. Obama is a liar, or simply chooses to alter the facts to satisfy his imagination or political purposes (still qualifies as a “liar”).
There can be no doubt the United States political system has been destroyed and the only hope for that country lies with the law enforcement agencies and the pentagon. Please, kick the bums out.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is scheduled to meet Obama later this week in California. No doubt the cabal will offer everything that China wishes in an effort to get the Chinese to continue propping up the bankrupt corporate D.C. government. Several sources claim the cabal will once again offer world rule to the Chinese communist government.
No doubt the Bilderbergers meeting in England just before this summit have put high hopes on a Chinese/Sabbatean cabal alliance to rule the world.
However, the Russians, Indians and Japanese, who all share borders with China, have already formed military alliances and are making is very clear they are not going to go along with cabal plans to offer world control to China. The Chinese also are smart enough to know the cabal will only lift them up until they get a chance to betray them.
The situation in the Middle East is also quickly spinning out of cabal control. The riots in Turkey were about Turkish government support for Bush faction Al CIAda terrorists in Syria using chemical weapons like Sarin gas and not about some shopping mall. Russian troops are on the ground in Syria to prevent the Nazi/Muslim brotherhood takeover and to ensure that Israel does not set off any more nuclear bombs.
Overall, what we are witnessing is chaos as the old cabal power structures continue to unravel. It will be a confusing time. In any case, expect more turbulence in the coming weeks as battles continue between agents on the ground, armies on the march and protesters on the streets.
As usual there is a lot we cannot report but you will notice more and more senior cabal members vanishing from public view over the coming weeks. There is nowhere either on or off this planet for them to hide and surrender is their only option.
The good guys are winning but we need to push hard on all fronts until it is truly over.
Also, beware of June 11, there is likely to be something very nasty planned by the cabal for 611 and we need to make sure it does not happen.
ShareThis
http://www.veteranstoday.com
Veterans Today Senior Editor Gordon Duff’s current article, “1st Super-Govermental World War Begins” covers the breakdown of current sides, in his opinion. Putin let Obama know he would not stand for US intervention in Syria so now Russia and the US are on the same side. Here is an excerpt from Duff’s article:
Battle lines are being drawn
Lines have been drawn, a war is now officially afoot, but a war like no other. The “allies” are led by Russia under Vladimir Putin. Today’s world struggle brings Russia to the forefront for the first time, openly at odds with her own Zionist oligarchs.
◾- With Putin, and read carefully, are the following groups:
◾- President Obama, the Defense Department, State Department and Pentagon
◾- The Islamic Republic of Iran
◾- Syria
◾- Iraq
◾- Hezbollah
The “Central” or “Axis” powers make up the following:
◾- Germany
◾- Turkey (and Iraqi Kurdistan)
◾- Israel
◾- Saudi Arabia and Qatar
◾- Britain and France
◾- Senator John McCain and Al Qaeda
◾- The AIPAC/Israel Lobby in Congress
◾- The world’s corporate press as spokesman for world organized crime
The war has begun, fighting, not only in Syria but as terrorist attacks inside the United States supported by a carefully orchestrated press campaign to spread fear and lies, setting the stage for continual escalating acts of false flag terrorism, most recently Boston and Woolrich.
Duff has an intelligence background, an international security business and has been prescient on many occasions.
Mia
stormi:
thanks for the imgur link. They have been incredible in documenting the visual stories coming from the events on the ground. Yet it does makes my heart ache to see them, because I’ve seen how much Turkish people really do support one another — its already hard to live there, but each one makes it easier for the other. Which is another reason why I think they will win.
from James Dorsey earlier today — http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2013/06/tahrirs-lesson-for-taksim-police.html
My heart goes out to you and my prayers for the safety of your friends, Fe.
We are pawns in this current nightmare as our politicians continue their violence as a means to get rich. I don’t know if you read an article I posted several weeks ago on one of Len’s blogs but the wounded Syrians are being taken to Turkey where their organs are being harvested to be sold. The dead bodies are then return to Syria for burial. 15,000 Syrians have been harvested since the beginning of their war. What have we come to????
Mia
one of my bestest friends is over there now visiting family, just sent this link to Photos of the Turkish Summer (and the beauty of resistance)
imgur.com/a/JvJD3
mia:
Thanks for the article.
Erdogan is pulling out “The Usual Suspects” card in trying to frame the news. That he is so behind in the game is either telling of how out of touch he is or that he upped the ante using this brutal suppression as a means to distract the populace’s already large antipathy to growing war with Syria. Either way, my friends are caught in the crossfire and I am not sleeping right.
And here is a story in today’s New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/world/europe/turkey-protests.html?hpw&_r=0
Countless alternative media sources are covering what is happening in Istanbul.
Here is an article from Truth-out.org:
“On May 31, police in Istanbul attacked a group of peaceful protestors in Taksim Square. The Turkish state controlled media said only a few people were injured. However, protestors said that at least three people, if not more, are dead. Sean David Hobbs, a journalist who lives in Istanbul, recorded the scene.
Yesterday morning at 1 pm, college kids from Bogazici University (Turkey’s equivalent of the University of California Berkeley) got angry. They learned that at least three peaceful protesters in Istanbul’s Gezi Park had been killed on May 31st by Turkish police. A spontaneous protest march began from Bogazici Campus. Within an hour a few hundred students had turned into over 5,000 residents.
The crowd’s goal was to march to heart of Istanbul, Taksim Square, where protesters had lost their lives the day before. But the police were waiting.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Parti tried to spin to the world media that this morning’s protesters were just a bunch of drunk college kids looking to impress their boyfriends or girlfriends during Finals time. Erdogan even boasted that if protestors could bring 100,000 people to Taksim Square he could bring 1,000,000.
But the fact is that nothing like this has ever happened in Turkey since perhaps the 1970s. Maybe not even then.
The crowd was massive and consisted of different political ideologies. It also happened suddenly. All at once. Young and old were arm and arm against the neo-liberal policies of Erdogan’s led government. While there were many young people involved in the fighting with the police, there were also a large number of middle aged and older Istanbulites in attendance.
The fact that Turks are protesting ought to make government leaders such as Obama and Egypt’s Morsi shiver. The “Turkish model,” as it is euphemistically called in the Middle East, is supposed to be working. The AK Parti appealed to the Turkish public through a combination of Islamism and privatizing capitalism. Capitalism loved Erdogan because he was giving the world a brand of “Protestant Ethic” Islamism; i.e. money making Muslims. Who could ask for anything more? And what’s the result?
Mass numbers of Turkish citizens on the streets fighting with the police.”
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Fe, you are so right. What is happening in Syria is intimately tied to what is going on in Turkey. Israel is intimately involved as well. Senior Editor of Veterans Today Gordon Duff has been reporting that Israel released a nuke on Syria when they supposedly targeted weapons being delivered to Hezbollah. The ultimate target in all of this is Iran. Russia has their ships in the area to let Obama know they will not stand for intervention. We are on the verge of war. And what the hell was John McCain doing in Syria?
Mia
be:
The significance of Turkey cannot be overlooked. They are one of our few Western allies in the region, and as such we prop them up with aid, weaponry, and what now looks to me as a news media blackout. The ongoing conflict with Syria cannot be dismissed as part of the overall picture for the US and Erdogan. Another tyrant we created? It swims like a duck and looks like a duck…
Fe,
I’m so glad we have you to keep us posted re: Turkey’s revolution. As you say, I’ve seen nothing about it on any of the general news networks. Perhaps the BBC is reporting on it. . I will check there this evening. It takes a great deal of courage to do what your friends in Turkey are doing, but it is also impossible to walk away from when your soul is called to stand up and be counted. I wish them all well.
be