Taksim Solidarity Press Release Website | Blog
We have united in the streets; our struggle in the streets will prevail!
We will not let anyone touch our Gezi Park! We will not let anyone exploit our labor, our habitat or nature!
Our struggle, which sparkled five days ago at Taksim Istanbul Gezi Park, has spread out to streets, neighborhoods, town squares in Turkey and abroad, demonstrating the collective will of millions of people. The public has made a decision! We will not let anyone demolish the Gezi Park! From now on Gezi Park represents other atrocities and state terror like Taksim, Reyhanli, Roboski, and May 1st. From now on Gezi Park stands for labor, nature and freedom. The Park is an expression of a collective will to live in a democratic country despite state’s oppression and despite all fascist attacks to restrict freedom. From now on, everyone should know that this Park, the Taksim Square and all the public squares of this city, this country and this world are entrusted to labor, to laborers and to the people. We will not let AKP (Justice and Development Party) or the capitalists get their hands on these public spaces.
For those who have been expanding the struggle and resisting in every street during the last five days in the face of all kinds of oppression, violence, misinformation, manipulation and media censorship, we salute you! For those who are liberating public squares, we salute you! For those who are overcoming the obstacles, crossing the bridges, we salute you! And for those who are opening the doors of their houses and their schools to the resisters, we salute you all!
We declare once again: We are claiming Taksim in the name of our struggle and solidarity.
Our struggle over the last five days showed everyone that the attempt to create a culture of fear is futile. We stand fearless against the brute force, violence, imprisonments and anti-democratic attacks by the government. As we have uttered repeatedly in the squares: this is only the beginning; our struggle will continue!
Our current demands are as follows:
* Gezi Park will remain as a Park. We will not allow the destruction of the Park for the construction of a Topçu K??las? in Taksim! Nor will we let the government plunder nature or our habitat!
* The following parties should take responsibility and resign immediately: authorities who have prevented the people from exercising their democratic rights initially during the protests at the Gezi Park and in the following days throughout the demonstrations across the country; those who ordered the use of violence to oppress people; those who executed those orders, and those who have caused injuries to hundreds of people! The Mayor of Istanbul and the General Director of Turkish National Police should take primary responsibility and be the first to resign!
* Use of tear gas must be prohibited!
* Our friends under custody all over the country for participating in our struggle should be released immediately and no further investigations shall be pursued!
* All bans on demonstrations and meeting in all public spaces, Taksim square in particular, must be lifted.
This is the voice of the streets, the resistance and the people! We expect the government meet these demands without any reservation. We have united in the streets; we have realized the strength of solidarity; you have witnessed our power. We know that our struggle in the streets will prevail!
Taksim Solidarity!
These lectures were the inspiration for the book: A Companion to Marx’s Capital, Volume 2 published by Verso in 2013.
Reading Marx’s Capital Volume II with David Harvey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
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