Will the Messiah the left awaits come at Taksim?

The list of demands conveyed by the representatives of the Taksim Solidarity Platform, who relayed the Gezi Park protesters' demands to Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, in fact both revealed the real intention underlying all the protests and, once published, changed the whole atmosphere regarding the social resonance of the protests. The statements in which opposition was voiced to the Third Bridge and the Third Airport, along with Canal Istanbul, also handed over the document showing that the Gezi Park protest spokespersons were acting not on their own behalf or on behalf of the environment, but on behalf of domestic and foreign interest circles.

Is this the usual tragedy of environmental movements all over the world? Did it not later come out that those who opposed nuclear power plants in the name of protecting the green had ties to oil lobbies? Of course, we were not going to be that naive, were we? I think nobody is left who believes that this movement still has anything to do with environmental sensitivity.

Even so, it must be seen that the prime minister insistently distinguishes between those who sincerely acted out of environmental sensitivity and joined these protests in that spirit, and those who regard these protests as an operation. In the speeches he has given on every platform for three days, he approaches this distinction in a tone of challenge. In Turkey there is no daredevil who can give Prime Minister Erdoğan a lesson on environmentalism, who can teach him

anything. Indeed, everyone who tries to compete with the prime minister in this field is doomed to lose. His struggle in the past to protect the forests against capital circles that have a complete environmental massacre in their past and that today, with great shamelessness, are at the forefront of support for the Gezi Park protests is among the brightest pages of his political career.

That is why the prime minister is outraged at being portrayed as an enemy of the environment in this incident, and he says: "If there are truly sincere people convinced by these claims, let them come and talk to me; I promise to work together." He says "I would lay down my life for democratic demands, for freedom of expression," but he is also very sure about by whom and how these events are being used, and we can say that the steps he will take from now on will be based on this distinction. At the workshop on the subject at the Strategic Thinking Institute, political scientist Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kudret Bülbül summarized this distinction as "negotiation with Taksim, struggle against violence and the lobbies."

Speaking of Taksim, let us return to the profilings or sociological inferences being made about the participants, which are gradually crystallizing here. First, what is this "new youth" said to be manifesting in this movement, and how original are its features really? Is this the first time the citizen profile in Turkey has appeared in this form of youth? Each of these questions is of a nature to be the subject of a long academic article or thesis. But as I said before, I would not wish to disappoint those who have placed great hope in these protests and try to see them as the herald of a great change, yet all the analyses they have made on this are wishful thinking, that is, analyses of the nature of wishes. That is, from these analyses one can understand not so much the truths about what this protester profile is as the psychology, world of meaning and future designs of those making the analyses. These youths cannot be understood by looking at these analyses. Apparently these youths have wit. For God's sake, when has wit ever been missing where a youth movement is involved? And when you look there, is the first thing you see that much-praised wit, or the leftovers of vandalism hung everywhere, the rude and foul-mouthed slogans and graffiti? One only has to be really very creative to find material for eulogizing the protest amid that cacophonous sight.

Let us pass over all of that: even if you can find such a "savior-messiah youth with new discourses," what makes you conclude that it is almost the entire youth of Turkey? Is that what the sociology you have taught until now says? Of course most of the youth who came to that place are the 90s generation, different from their fathers and from you; fine.

But see this simple truth right now, so that you are not disappointed even more in the future: in your analyses nothing appears other than your own dreams, unrealized in your own youth, that you have loaded onto these youths. God has protected this world from those dreams many times, and will protect it again.

For in Taksim there is a completely different youth that you do not see today, far more numerous than the youth in Taksim and more of a candidate to draw the citizen typology of the future sociologically.