Reportage from Istanbul

The arrest of the Mayor of Constantinople on March 19th lowered hundreds of thousands of people on the streets, mainly young people who were confronted with police violence. Following the arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, Rlick Ozgur President Ozel took over the management of the situation and set up his “headquarters” at the City Hall, inviting everyone to publicly protest the arrest of the mayor.

In a short time, the Town Hall Square in Sarachun was reminiscent of Taksim Square eleven years ago. At that time, the reason was the decision of the authorities to cut the few trees of Gezi Park in Taksim Square. Cause, the suffocating pressure of an Islamic power that prevented freedom of expression and the way of life of part of society. An ecological issue evolved into a social explosion that spread throughout the country but ended after three months, after violent repression and human victims. Now the mayor’s unfair arrest has activated similar reflexes with a huge response, though without losing lives.

Both symbolic squares, Taksim and Sarachchane, had one thing in common: the young. To arrest Imoglou, the young people were first raised in front of their universities, who filled the streets, who were injured and tortured by the police imprisoned.

Students born after 2000

Analysts tell us that the majority of young people who took to the streets on March 19 were mainly students born after 2000. It is the pessimistic youth of the metropolitan cities, which is not satisfied with the operation of democracy in their country. The percentage of satisfied is only 1.4%. And only 3% expect to improve living conditions in five years. “The rest see themselves without a future and without perspective.

No one expected that such a large number of young people would go down the streets to intervene so strongly in their country’s policy. And even more unusual was that the reaction to lawlessness and injustice to Imamoglou developed so massively, so spontaneously and so visible. For many analysts this has been the most important social event in Turkey for the last eleven years.

So who are these young people in today’s Turkish cities that reminded us of the young people of Guez, I asked Asli Tundz, a professor of communication at Bilgi University in Istanbul. “Many academics like me,” responds to DW, had described the generation of Apolitical and distant from Turkey’s political reality. But recent developments have shown that we were wrong. From an ideological point of view, this generation is a very special group that comes from different cultural backgrounds. Young people are basically demanding justice. Most have financial difficulties, their scholarships have been cut, their student clubs are closing and university events are canceled. As young people they do not enjoy the simplest joys of life, ”says Asli Tundz.

Gezi’s children grew up with Erdogan

These twenty -year -old Turks have not experienced any other political power than that of the AKP and do not know another leader from Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But they are well aware of communication technology. With the outbreak of the crisis, they created whatsapp groups and pioneered the demonstrations.

For many, these were the first rallies of protest in their lives. As children they had heard Guez’s stories, and they tried to follow the steps of those young people. Interestingly, the humor and the artistic creativity we have distinguished in slogans and placards were very reminiscent of the days of the Gez.

The yellow “Pikatsu” who had fun with his running through the tear gas was only a young man, Hassan Taskan, from Antalya, who was dressed so to smile at his protesters without ever having much interest in politics.

“Erdogan give up”

Those young people who were not afraid of the police were afraid of the cancellation of Ekrem Imamoglu’s university degree. “What is the point of being a university graduate if one day they could cancel your degree,” they told their teachers. Among the slogans of young people on the streets of Constantinople were “Tayyip” and “Diplomasız Erdoğan” (Erdogan without a degree), as everyone knows the ambiguity behind the University’s University diploma.

However, the youth that has risen on the streets is not a monolithic entity. They may have risen for Imamoglou, but they are not necessarily followers or followers of his party. There were even children of Erdogan’s voters who took to the streets to protest the conservatism of political Islam that intervenes in their way of life.

Many of the new religious families have now turned to “Discus”. That is, they believe in the existence of a god but indifferent to the world he created. It is a reaction to political Islam that has been removed from its pure form.

In this colorful mosaic there is also the youth of the RKK, who admires Kemal Ataturk and his ideas about cosmos that he considers modern. These young people no longer want to leave their homeland, despite the problems they face. They represent a new kind of patriotism that attracts Turkey’s twenty -two, who, along with many others, for the first time in their lives, went to a demonstration this year and slept in a prison cell.