Hi to all,
I have been following the events for a few days now and wanted to offer my perspective. I am not in Turkey, but I have read many reports and personal stories, so I hope I can shed some light on the situation
The whole issue started with protection of trees in Gezi Park which is the only green place at the city center. At that point, there were 50 protestors who wanted to defend the trees. They were very peaceful and offered pastry to the police just before they were attacked by police. You can see the video here:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=591116750908652
Then people become enraged because of this police brutality, and when I say people, I mean all sorts of people. It is not just young university students or nationalists or leftists. It is everyone who got fed up by the oppressive regime of this government limiting alcohol distribution, telling people how to behave. People said: Enough!
So people from 48 cities out of 81 went to the protests and in the major cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Adana, they met with excessive police force. Some were saying "Oh police do as commanded" but we have seen thay they act with such hatred and rage against the protestors. In some cases, attacking a single woman with 10 policemen.
I can not find all the resources I found past few days to show police brutality, but let me just say Turkish media ignored the protests due to government pressure. While there was news about protests in CNN, its Turkish franchise CNN Turk was showing penguin documentaries!
This lead to an interesting reaction from people. They boycotted all the media outlets and the other companies the TV channel owners have such as banks, restaurants etc. Prime Minister went on air to calm people down, but instead he made things worse saying he will not take orders from a few brigands and we should do as he commands because he knows the best. He took 50% of the votes, so he is entitled to everything. Obviously, this did not help and things get bigger and bigger. Today, Turkish stock market dropped around 10% which should give some pause to the government.
Yet, Prime Minister went on to visit several North African countries without addressing the problem and as he was answering questions on the airport he said: "I have 50% of the population who wants to go out against this protestors, but I stop them." Yeah, lets have a civil war then, over your ego.
As for the independence of the movement, I am certain it started independent, but where it will go is hard to predict. There are already parties and ideologies that wants to take over the movement here and there, but people are warning them that this battle is not theirs alone, there are no parties or ideologies that is leading the movement, but everyone is represented. There is a slogan I really enjoy that says:
We protect our religion without AKP(pro-Islam party), our Ataturk without CHP(pro-Ataturk, pro-secular party), our nation without MHP(nationalist party) and the Kurds without BDP(pro-Kurdish party). We are the people.
Which basically says, we don't want or need any political parties, leave us alone. It is important to note that undercover police are trying to infiltrate, and there are some who want to derail the movement, which was gladly shown by the media to support the government. I followed Occupy movement and how it got destroyed, same thing can happen here, but now people know that they have power over government and nothing will be the same from now on, at least that's what I think.
Another thing that made me tearful is how people are helping each other. I have never seen or heard anything like this where protesters that were attacked by pepperspray were helping each other with medicine, all the home owners in the district took them in, gave them shelter for resting, hiding and medical emergencies. Medical students offered their service at different emergency points, pharmacies delivered solutions against pepperspray for free. Truck and bus drivers block the roads, so police vehicles can't pass through. We have seen all sorts of things and we have seen the true face of everyone when the resistance started. So it was a beautiful weekend for truth.
I put a link that has very nice images, I am sure you will enjoy it:
http://imgur.com/a/JvJD3
Just my two cents, fwiw.
