“This is not just about a couple of trees,” a friend in Istanbul wrote to one of us in June 2013, as a local resistance movement against the planned destruction of Gezi Park spiraled into a nationwide uprising against the increasingly authoritarian neoliberalism of Erdogan’s Islamist government: “it’s about democracy.” Just a few weeks later, a surprisingly similar cry resounded from the streets of Athens after conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras – in an attempt to placate Greece’s Troika of foreign lenders – brusquely bypassed his coalition partners to shut down the country’s public broadcaster (ERT), triggering mass protests and leading the station’s employees to occupy its headquarters and continue broadcasting under worker self-management."
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 07:30:05 +0000
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