In the days following the brutal recapture of Gezi Park on Saturday 15 June and the hot nights of barricades and mass mobilisation that followed, something unexpected, though not unprecedented, occurred. Beginning in Istanbul, and quickly spreading across Turkey’s major cities local ‘forum’, or neighbourhood assemblies, were established. Precise figures vary, the most recent available sources state at least 40 are meeting in Istanbul, perhaps a dozen in Ankara and others in İzmir, Eskisehir, Antalya, İzmit, Gebze, and elsewhere1. While global media coverage of the unfolding events in Turkey has waned and that which remains has almost entirely concentrated on the continued demonstrations in and around Taksim Square, these assemblies have flourished, solidifying the resistance in the neighbourhoods in which people live and work and providing a living examples of face-to-face direct democracy.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 16:29:45 +0000
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