Turkish Spring?

A violent police raid on a sit-in protesting plans to build a mall at Taksim Square in Istanbul on May 31, 2013, became a rallying point for anger over the policies of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

Cengiz Candar, who has covered historic events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, wrote that the protests most remind him of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989.

Reporting from the streets of Istanbul, Candar commented: “What Tiananmen means for Beijing and Tahrir means for Cairo, Taksim means for Istanbul. That's why, although there have been no losses of lives so far, the incidents that erupted with brutal pepper gas attacks by police on a group of people who opposed the cutting of trees at Gezi Park, the incidents quickly lost relevance with the original grievance and shook the Erdogan government to the core like a massive earthquake.”

Yavuz Baydar, also reporting from Istanbul, observed that the protests are directed at the perceived intrusive and polarizing policies of Prime Minister Erdogan, adding that those “who filled the streets were predominantly the young — with a mixture of seculars, socialists, Marxists, Kemalists, anarchists, nationalists, Alevis and Kurds — who manifested high emotions and resolve against what they saw as an insufferably authoritarian way of managing affairs.” 

Erdogan, writes Tulin Daloglu from Ankara, “does not seem to be getting the message. While this protest may now turn ideological, it all started as a small gathering of about 500 people on Monday [May 27]. The reason it got out of control with massive protests in 10 other cities around the country — Adana, Konya, Tunceli, Mersin, Mugla, Marmaris, Izmit, Adana, Izmir, Van and Sivas — is that Erdogan has shown no culture of consensus-building with those who disagree with him.”