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TAKSIM SQUARE

Taksim Square has become a space of visibility, rupture and conflict for the three prevailing climates of thought in existence in Turkey for the past 200 years. Professor Mete Tunçay classifies these strands as Islamism, Positivist-Westernism, and Socialism. If we are to define Taksim Square as an arena of contest between the different political currents leaving their mark on Turkey’s history, we must include within this framework one of the main actors of Turkish politics – namely, the “deep state”. After all, the incidents ranging from the Atatürk Cultural Center fire to the massacre of 1st of May 1977, taking place in Taksim Square, in which the deep state played the main protagonist are not at all few in number.

The Square may be considered a symbol, among others, of attempts by these currents to determine the center and push out all others. As this book is being written, it is clear that the remodeling of Taksim Square undertaken in the wake of the Gezi events is not about a mere change of scenery. While on the one side of the square we see the Atatürk Cultural Center, built as of the 29th of October 1946, being toppled down day by day, rising in parallel right across it is the Taksim Mosque, still under construction but coming to dominate the entire space. The mosque also overshadows the Taksim Monument – which is the Republic’s very first. It must, furthermore, not be forgotten that the Gezi events began with a decision to reconstruct the Artillery Barracks – part of which was destroyed by cannon fire when insurgents took refuge here during what is considered the “first reactionary uprising” in these lands, i.e. the 31 March Incident – upon the lands of Gezi Park, the Republic’s first park and a “protected cultural asset” – as well as that, of course, both the Artillery Barracks and later Gezi Park themselves were built on top of an Armenian Cemetery that used to be located here…

On the 13th of April 1909 (or 31st of March 1325 according to the Rumi calendar), an uprising by the name of the 31 March Incident (31 Mart Vakası) was sparked by the declaration of the 2nd Constitutional Era, as the very first revolt against “Westernization”. This lasted 13 days and was put down by means of the Hareket Ordusu (“Army of Action”) brought from Salonica by the Committee of Union and Progress. Insurgents taking refuge in the Artillery Barracks during the rebellion were captured after the barracks were bombed. These are the very same Artillery Barracks that were then completely demolished in 1940 and now wish to be rebuilt. The plan to open it as a shopping mall in fitting with the zeitgeist of the time is, of course, a whole other story!

This cycle is perhaps rooted in the fact that the accounts between Islamist and Westernist currents are simply never fully settled; and Taksim Square thus continues witnessing the history of the Republic of Turkey on the one hand, and that of coups, clashes and reconciliations between the three afore-mentioned political movements on the other.