In an issue of Ord&Bild<\/em> exploring Istanbul\u2019s urban heritage, \u00dclk\u00fc Holago revisits Gezi Park \u2013 one of the last green areas in the city. In the early 2000s, as part of Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u2019s urban renewal project, the park was to be remodelled as a shopping mall with a highway underneath, adjusting Istanbul \u2018to the dynamics of the global system and the EU process\u2019.<\/p>\n In June 2022, Erdo\u011fan referred to the millions of people who took part in the Gezi protests as \u2018rotten\u2019 and \u2018sluts\u2019: \u2018They drank beer and soiled themselves in the Dolmabah\u00e7 Mosque, because that\u2019s what they are.\u2019<\/p>\n What started as attempts to preserve Gezi by architects, urban planners, lawyers and cultural workers evolved into Turkey\u2019s biggest ever anti-regime protest. Holago writes about a sprawling movement, an Istanbul resistance gathering the two main opposition parties: the pro-Kurdish leftwing Peace and Democracy Party and the Republican People\u2019s Party.<\/p>\n Opinions surrounding the Gezi protests vary. But they can be seen as a milestone on the country\u2019s path to authoritarianism. Resentment towards Erdo\u011fan is still alive in Istanbul and might be proven by the local elections in the spring of 2024. \u2018And amidst all the turbulence and polarisation, it still stands. Gezi Park. Afterall.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an agency in Galatasaray where the phone never stops ringing. Helin Sahin has taken a seat in the waiting room. She has been invited to meet a lawyer who has dedicated her life to helping women unprotected by the state.<\/p>\n A young woman walks in who is referred to by the others waiting as \u2018the girl with the initials\u2019. She has been subject to group rape by military and police officers, men in power. The agency is her last hope: \u2018The whole agency was waiting for the lawyer who would help them. She had to, there was no other way. She always found a solution.\u2019<\/p>\n Helin Sahin leaves the office building, goes for a walk and continues telling stories of oppressors and the oppressed, who are sometimes one and the same. She writes of her political hopes and expectations as she recalls a city and country constantly in conflict.<\/p>\n In the Galatasaray Square, a group of women gather, all recognisable from the waiting room at the agency. They are called the \u2018Saturday mothers\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018In search of their missing relatives \u2026 they demand that the state return their relatives, alive or dead. One brother was tortured to death in prison. A sibling holds her mother\u2019s arm as she sits in protest with her son\u2019s picture in her hand. Sometimes the Saturday Mothers get their relatives\u2019 remains back. In a plastic bag, the state delivers what\u2019s left of what was once a person with memories.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Sweden and Turkey. Our stories have long been intertwined\u2019. Simon Sorgenfrei is crossing the Galata Bridge, interviewing Kerim Arhan who has just moved to Istanbul.<\/p>\n Kerim\u2019s family, the Arhans, was the first Turkish family in Sweden. Arriving in Malm\u00f6 in 1928, Kerim\u2019s father Mustafa and his brothers were treated correctly by the Swedish authorities. Maybe it was easier to be a Turk in Sweden in the \u201930s or \u201940s, Sorgenfrei asks. \u2018The Orient had, and perhaps still has for some, a shimmer of spirituality and mysticism around it that a food trader from Istanbul could play on to attract customers.\u2019<\/p>\n The Arhans were an important family for the Turks that followed them: \u2018The brothers\u2019 carpet shops functioned as Turkish mini-consulates, in addition to the real consulate in the capital, and sometimes as places of prayer for Muslim immigrants in Sweden. Kemal Atat\u00fcrk oversaw the operations from framed photographs on the walls.\u2019<\/p>\n Kerim was brought up in the \u201880s and had a different experience. He recalls the racist graffiti drawn on their house after his father had been photographed in the newspaper. In school, he was simply called \u2018the Turk\u2019. His Turkish heritage had always been there, even if it had been difficult to grasp. Kerim had a Turkish father and a Swedish mother. His identity holds a certain different-ness: he is different to Swedes as well as different to Turks.<\/p>\n Now, Kerim is walking along the streets of Istanbul, working to establish a culture house near the Swedish consulate. He writes to Sorgenfrei: \u2018If there\u2019s one thing I love from my ancestors, it\u2019s sitting in a carpet house and hearing the rustling and smelling the carpets and just being there \u2026 So it was only natural to sell some carpets. I will sell carpets ten minutes from where my grandfather brought his first carpets to Sweden.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/ordobild2-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA country in constant conflict<\/h2>\n
Diaspora and back<\/h2>\n