Calling out from Taksim to Harbiye

People's participation in the administration of the cities they live in is the most basic level of democracy. That is why democracy is, essentially, a process that begins at the local level and can prove itself at the local level. At the local level, what people are first expected to be concerned with is the organization of the city they live in and the planning of its future. Yet when the relationship between democracy and city planning is established in favor of democracy, it becomes one of the hardest things to manage. Because unless principled positions are taken on the public's participation in the process, it is hardly possible to carry out any planning in the city. That is why Ibn Khaldun writes pages upon pages of analysis, with examples from history, on the importance of a strong and governing state will in the planning of the city.

The biggest handicap of Turkey's local politics is also, in fact, that it is too cozy with the citizen and can make concessions all too easily against the principled decisions taken at the outset in the face of the citizen's demands. People who put up shantytowns find ways, through the channels they find within the democratic process, if not immediately then within a short time, to make lawful the de facto situation they have imposed on the city. Not only those whose economic level is that of shantytown dwellers, but also the owners of capital set up their relations with politics as a way of easily penetrating the planning of the city and determining it in line with their own wishes. That is why the balance between democracy and city planning is a tense field from the outset. Populism can easily appear before you disguised as a democratic attitude.

Let whoever wishes believe the myths about how strong local governments are in European and American cities. There, not a nail is allowed to be driven contrary to the extremely strict rules established and decisions made within city planning. These extremely rigid decisions are perhaps ultimately completed with a consensus that everyone believes in and trusts to be for everyone's benefit, but let no one suppose that democratic procedures were followed when they were first put in place or implemented. After the fall of the Wall, Berlin was redesigned from scratch. A lot of trees were cut down, a lot of buildings were demolished. Those who visit Berlin today, especially in the city center, find no trace of the Berlin of twenty years ago. The new buildings erected in place of the old Berlin city center are also subject to intense criticism from postmodern architectural discourses. Moreover, part of the criticism lies in the fact that Berlin's residents were reduced to mere spectators as the city they live in was turned upside down, and were given no say in the process. Only Berlin? All of Europe's cities develop in a way that somewhat confirms Ibn Khaldun's analysis. Even so, the city's both looking after the "common good" of all its residents and carrying this out with those residents in a maximum of "governance," as Mümtazer Türköne has pointed out, is the most important expression of the new level of democracy.

In this regard, it is a great injustice to overlook that, whether in the multiplication of green spaces and afforestation or in the restoration of historic places and bringing them back to life in ways that lend the city an identity, AK Parti municipal management has become a brand within the scope of urban transformation. Today all of Anatolia's cities, Istanbul first of all, are experiencing a genuine urbanism revolution. I remember writing a lot of articles on this before. Today Konya, Gaziantep, Malatya, Kayseri, Ankara, Tokat, Niğde, Van, Çorum, Trabzon, Sivas, Erzurum, Eskişehir (Odunpazarı) and many more cities I cannot list are extremely successful examples in which history, modernity and green space have returned in all their splendor to the fabric of the city. Does it not have sides that are criticized or can be criticized? Of course it does; indeed the real, large and decisive effect of these criticisms shows itself immediately in the next local elections.

On the matter of Gezi Park in Taksim, the Taksim square project, which passed by a Council decision of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and which the AK Parti shared with the public in the last elections, is not an unknown project. When this project is completed, the trees uprooted in Taksim will merely have changed places, and it also appears in the project's contents that it will include more trees. Despite this, the matter, it must be acknowledged, was launched, extremely successfully but in a most unjust way, as "cutting down trees and erecting a shopping mall." Given the project, about which we now have clearer information, this way of launching it is a complete slander and distortion.

Even so, this is not something that requires putting everyone who was convinced by the clamor that was raised and ran to Taksim under suspicion. One should even feel great joy that there is a sensitivity in society against cutting down trees and erecting shopping malls. Rest assured, no harm will come to this country from this sensitivity in society about protecting green space and standing up for the city one lives in. This sensitivity is an important sign of the vitality of society and deserves nothing but respect, even if these masses were deceived by someone through a successful propaganda operation.

What to do against this propaganda was actually simple. A logical, strong but necessarily cool-headed publicity effort, far more effective than this barker-style propaganda, should have been put into action urgently. When we look at the Taksim area project, we can see that it is not a project that cannot be defended. Indeed, there is an arrangement that ranks high in terms of modern urban values such as pedestrianization, an architecture in which the historical and cultural fabric of the city will be treated far better, and an arrangement in which there will be more green when it is finished. It is not a project that needs to be hidden, and it is not hidden, but it is not explained enough. More precisely, now that the matter has been opened, it is being told through the police's harsh intervention and pepper gas. This way of telling has never been seen to be persuasive anywhere, and it is not surprising that it was not here either, and that it had exactly the opposite effect.

There are of course many lessons to be drawn from this incident.

I have run out of space, but let me not pass without saying this. With this incident it was seen very clearly how, once the demand for negotiation in politics is scratched a little, it exposes the enmities underneath. It is very clear that the attitudes of many journalists and artists who look democratic, neutral and fair, who were fanning the flames and provoking the incident even in the later hours, have nothing to do with sensitivity about trees or with the government's authoritarianism. On the occasion of this incident, they were looking for a road from Taksim to Tahrir. Yet from Taksim, this march goes not to Tahrir but to Harbiye, and that road is now closed.