Gezi Park and The Lingering Gas

This is not a political blog.

I started this website to share my analogue photographs and write about my travel adventures and my new life as an Istanbul expat. That’s still my focus.

But the Gezi Park protests (which have spread far beyond Gezi Park, now) have affected all of our lives here, in ways large and small. Even an avoider like me.

The violent crackdown on the park in the last few days occurred just as I was processing my film from the days I spent in Gezi Park. The police tear gassed children, tourists, and chapulers in Taksim Square on a Saturday night and declared that anyone who entered the square or the park would be considered a terrorist.

It was a scene vastly removed from the Gezi Park I’d photographed. My first day at the park was the night of June 4^th, when the barricades were in place and the park was devoid of police. The atmosphere was strange and fantastic—it felt like a big nighttime carnival, with vendors selling watermelon and jolly folks sitting around drinking beer, but there was an undercurrent of tenseness that cut through the joy. At the slightest rumor, bags were opened and gas masks, scarves, and smartphones came out as everyone covered their faces and frantically checked Twitter. Before that night, I’d never seen so many gas masks (both primitive and high-quality) in one place.

I went back a few times during daylight and the park was friendly, energized, and still surreal. People of all ages mingled, from old ladies in head scarves to children being led by the hand. There was a community garden, a library, free water, and spontaneous dancing… but just on the outskirts of the park were man-made barricades, reams of graffiti, and destroyed city buses.

Everyone wanted to pose behind the wheel of the bus—I saw this countless times—and it was funny, until you stepped back and realized that they were sitting in a demolished bus that was being used to block the road from riot police. The humor is dark here these days.

Life goes ever on, but normal never quite returns. 9pm consistently brings a chorus of banging pots-and-pans that get louder after every attack, even in my Asian-side neighborhood. Street musicians wear gas masks as they strum their guitars. Regular nightlife routines are a mess; we tried to have a farewell party for my Swedish friend, but the evening was interrupted by that Saturday tear gas attack on Taksim Square. We bailed out early and I walked directly into a cloud of the gas blocks away– it stung like hell and I started to panic but a very nice Turkish man squeezed lemon under my eyes and held my hand as he walked me to the ferry at Karakoy.

Even the avoider can’t avoid it.

The atmosphere is edgy. Everyone tries to go on with their lives but the memory of the gas hangs over our heads. Turkish friends of mine fluctuate wildly between manic hope and despair. I am glad I got to see Gezi Park at its best—a joyful, open, warm celebration—and I don’t know that we will get that back. It’s a surreal time in Istanbul. Now the people stand silently, facing their flag, all over Istanbul, all over Turkey.

Who knows what will happen. I just hope all’s well that ends well.