IMF Protests

Police Intervene in IMF Protest
al-Jazeera run down of the IMF protest

here's a news article. I'll post more later today.

I wrote this yesterday after I'd returned home. Just to clarify, according to the article linked above, the police used pepper spray, not tear gas. Still, it sucked. Sorry again for the typos.

[edit]
also, I want to mention that my thoughts at the end of this post seem to be accurate. The actual IMF protest was probably hijacked by extremist groups who just wanted to fight with the police. Also, there was vandalism in the Cihangir area just beyond the cafe. Today there have been some protests, but not in this area. I'm tremendously grateful for that.

There's the possibility that I'll be able to go to Kaan's brother's wedding next weekend. I'd very much like to go, but I'm concerned that I won't have much to eat and that I won't be able to talk to anyone. Most of his family speaks both Turkish and Kurdish, but I'm shy and don't really have much to say to most people. People will look at my hair and be very curious, I'm sure. I don't know if I can handle that level of scrutiny, especially with Kaan not nearby to explain/defend me. It'll come down to this: do I value my personal comfort more than seeing a really neat cultural event and meeting Kaan's family?

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IMF Protests

It seems like a lot of people dislike the IMF/World Bank, at least here in Istanbul. After spending three hours wrapped up in fear of the tear gas aimed at those protesting the IMF, I really dislike them as well, though not for the same reason as the protestors, who may potentially have legitimate concerns about organization. Oh no. I dislike the IMF/World Bank for the protestors it inspired and the three hours it took from my life (to be fair, I really dislike the protestors, too, and have no desire to hear why they dislike IMF/WB).

This morning when I woke up, I noticed an abnormal amount of police helicopters flying around overhead. Generally when there are helicopters flying around in the States, the police are tracking a suspect or news reporters are commenting on the local traffic. In Istanbul, apparently police helicopters means there’s going to be an event. Normally, the events that you see riot police gathering for are really rather tame, and now I know why. All those other tame protests are made up for by the ones that happen on days like today.

It started around 1030 or 1100. Kaan and I noted the police helicopters. His response to their presence was, “Maybe there will be an event.” I chortled, remembering my other protest experiences: a few people marching down the street with a megaphone and a banner, gathering in the middle of the street shouting, and then going home. Shortly after that brief exchange, the protesting started. All I heard was shouting. I tend to not pay attention to protests for the reason mentioned above—they’re usually pretty boring. I was NOT anticipating anything like today.

At some point, Kaan started to pick up that this protest was going to be big; there was a LOT of shouting. I didn’t pay much mind to it until around 1130, maybe. We heard some popping going off up the street. One of the nearby shopkeepers instructed Kaan to start pulling the napkins and such off of the outside tables. He did so with such speed! I, at this point, still had no idea what was going on. After pulling everything inside, he closed the doors of the café—something only done in the winter time and after hours. He shouted at me to go to the back, which I did. And then he started to cry.

After a few minutes of visiting with the fish in the back of the café, I got bored. I came out to sit with Kaan, who was still, remarkably, standing around outside. I started to get a tickle in my nose. Kaan explained that what they use is pepper, apparently. I’m not sure if they pepper spray protestors or tear gas them, but either way, it sucks. For a while, we all sat outside observing the general atmosphere. A few times the breeze would carry the tear gas over to us. It wasn’t anything big; I sneezed a couple times and thought, “Those wimps! This is nothing!”

Then a few canisters of tear gas were shot at the top of the street. Again, Kaan shouted for me to get inside. He came in and held the door shut as a cloud of tear gas floated by. It was completely white, like a blizzard. I couldn’t even see the tables of the café across the single-lane street. This time, my eyes started to sting and water. I could understand more why tear gas was an effective tool at protests, but I still couldn’t fully comprehend the pain of the experience. After a few minutes—ten maybe—everything returned to normal. Again, we sat outside and watched the protesting happen. The action had moved down a little bit, and we were hoping that it was done, that we were safe to go about our days.

But remember, this is Istanbul, where nothing is every easy. We turned on the news to watch some of the captured footage. We watched the police arrest a few protesters. I was beginning to think I’d be able to go to school after all (I had a class at 3, but many of the protests were going on exactly between the café and school). There was still quite a lot of tear gas floating around, and we had a few false alarms. I started to watch for masses of people running down the street; that, I said, is my cue to go inside. At this point, there was one patron in addition to Kaan and myself. He was particularly annoying because he wouldn’t do as Kaan said. If Kaan said to get inside, this gentleman would sip his tea. If Kaan said to go to the back, he would take one or two steps backward. Maybe after living through a few Worker’s Day protests the Turks of Taksim aren’t as fearful of collateral teargas as I am.

Anyway, the three of us are sitting outside when a huge wave of teargas hits us. I don’t know if a canister was shot nearby or what. It must’ve been, because I remember seeing another wave go by. Kaan was standing at the door, holding it shut. The patron was about halfway into the main room, and I was near the kitchen. I saw Kaan bent over, holding his hand to his mouth. I decided to go find a shirt for him to put over his face. I went to the back, but when I came out, he had run outside. The patron also left, for some reason. Maybe he saw Kaan run out and was afraid. As I came into the main room, a wave of teargas hit me right in the face. Not knowing what else to do, I grasped the tshirt to my face and looked around. Kaan had left. The patron had left. I was torn between wanting to hold the door shut and wanting to run to the back. Instead, I tried to find Kaan.

Kaan later told me he had left the cafe because he couldn’t breathe. To me, this doesn’t make much sense, but in a moment of panic, there isn’t much time for logic. I opened the door and stepped outside, looking for him. I saw him just to my left, curled up on the ground. ‘Good,’ I thought. ‘This is what I should do too. Kaan knows what to do.’ It never occurred to me that he might be in trouble; all I knew was that I trusted him and saw him on the ground, so I should lie down too. I went back in the café to do just that when I saw the men from across the street rush to Kaan and take him inside. He had fainted.

I felt like I’d lost my mind. I wanted to cry, I wanted to lie down, I wanted to rip my face off. My skin was burning, my eyes were welling up. I panicked; there was no one around, no one to tell me what to do. I wanted to throw the tshirt to the ground because I, too, couldn’t breathe through it. Every time I’d lift the thing away from my mouth, my skin and senses hurt that much more. I was so scared that Kaan wouldn’t be okay and that I’d die in the café all alone. Luckily for me, Kaan came back a few minutes later, grinning through his tears. I could hardly speak; my face was burning. He led me to the kitchen and squeezed a lemon into my hands. Following his orders, I started to rub it onto my skin, which only stung more. He kept giving me lemon juice, and I kept rubbing it onto my face. After what seemed like forever, he let me splash my face with water. All I could think about was how painful my skin was. And then, wonderfully, my next biggest concern was the snot dripping into my mouth.

I was really shaken up. I called my professor in tears, saying I wouldn’t come to school today due to the protests. He said he understood, for which I’m tremendously grateful. I probably could have gone; by the time I would have left, the protesting had died down tremendously. There were rumors of protests near my school, but nothing was on the news. After fifteen minutes or so, my face and sinuses and throat had all returned to normal, but I was so shaken up. I felt so useless! Poor Kaan had fainted, and all I’d done was walk up and down the café wondering what to do. Thank God for those neighbor men who took him inside and saved him.

In my defense, I’ve never been in anything like that in my entire life. The closest I’ve been to a riot was probably when the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in like 1998 and Denver fans went crazy. While this wasn’t exactly a riot, it felt like one. There were police, gun shots, protesters, and tear gas on every corner. Even walking home today, one couldn’t avoid the sting of tear gas floating in the air. I’m so thankful that I was with Kaan at the café. If I had been alone at home (though it may not be pertinent because I don’t think the protests made it over here), at school, or out on the streets, I wouldn’t know what to do. In fact, I would be even more useless than I actually was because not only would I not know what to do, but I wouldn’t have anyone to rely on to help me figure it out.

So that was my tear gas/IMF protest experience. Kaan thinks tomorrow will be bad too. I have classes tomorrow, so I hope nothing will get in the way of that. I’m scared to be apart from Kaan; although it means getting tear gassed too, I’d rather be with him than be worried for him. We’ll just see how tomorrow pans out.

I think it’s so stupid, these protests. It seems to me that all these alternative philosophical groups like anarchists jump on board events like the IMF protest just for the publicity. I suppose an anarchist might oppose the IMF/World Bank, but I think the protest would have been more effective as a peaceful sit-down or something. I wonder if it was more of an opportunity to clash with the police and be rebellious than actually to demonstrate against the IMF. Then again, it could have been an actual protest with the violence initiated by the police. I joked with my mom that although I don’t have a residence permit, the police aren’t looking for illegal aliens; they’re too concerned with squashing dissident voices than looking for those who don’t have their stupid residence permit. How true is that? I don’t know. As an American, I have a rather negative view of the police and tend to side with civilians. In Turkey, the police are one of the most trusted institutions, just after the military. My experience with them has been less than ideal, so maybe I’m prone to bias and stereotypes. But I’d rather be biased and safe at home than be biased and teargassed.

On the plus side, I got my FedEx package today. I got my glasses and residence permit and a pair of socks. Woohoo!

And at least I got a long, interesting blog post out of today. There’s always a silver lining!