Why We Don't Need a Female President

For some reason the debate on whether or not our next president should/will be a woman has been springing up all over facebook and pulse for me. I used to think having a female president, or at least a female VP, was an important step for the US. Now I am not so sure that gender matters. Well, of course gender matters. Gender is a huge issue, but it can also be a distraction. That our political system is unrepresentative of half of our population is not fair, but it is just a sliver of unfairness among an entire unfair, broken system.

Women wait eagerly for the day when they can have a role model- someone who has broken through that final, impenetrable door of gender inequality in the US. Women can be doctors and lawyers, senators and businessmen, and even the president of the United States. I get that it is important- to have someone to look up to- proof that we are capable of everything that men are capable of. But people act like it is important to have anyone who isn't a white male in the white house- a black, a hispanic, a woman... in the end it doesn't matter. Feminists say that we need to position the election of a woman president not as a woman's issue, but as a human issue- that a woman would provide perspective in leadership that would challenge and progress the system for everyone, not just women. But let's be real, a woman will not lead the country any differently than a man would. Female CEOs work within the structure of white, male business. They do not change the working world. Female doctors are educated in the realm of male science. They do not change healthcare. All it would prove is that women have learned to play the game of privilege and politics by the same rules and rituals as men. Women work so hard to have equality in an antiquated system that they end up supporting the system. In order to be "as good as men," and, "as free as men," they end up acting like men instead of working to expand the options of how men and women can act.

I was watching a video on Upworthy the other day, and I noticed that at the end (Around 3:15) when H. Clinton finishes, it is announced, "The gentleman's time is up." I poked around, and apparently female members of the house are supposed to be referred to as gentlewomen, but in practice I am not sure how often that happens. If a woman wants to be respected by her fellow politicians she has to become a gentleman. But what bothers me is not so much the gender of the world- gentleman, gentlewoman... they are both very old, class-based words that create an environment of assumption in American politics.

I am beginning to think a female president would do more harm than good, because it would make people feel that we are "progressing." It would be yet another lie that politicians could hold up to justify clinging to an old system that no longer meets the needs of the people. It doesn't mean I wouldn't vote for a woman. I just don't see it as the big deal I once thought it was.

I looked into the eyes of my unborn baby

When he was 6 or 7- 

They were clear, fresh, excited, 

So much like my husband's, so foreign to me. 

His lips parted, breathless, 

And he said-

"Mom! I'm going to be president!" 

Oh, son, what did they teach you in school today? 

If I had known today was the day

They would teach little girls they wanted to be brides, and mothers, and maybe nurses... 

And little boys they wanted to be soldiers, and maybe president... 

I would have kept you home. 

We would have finger-painted and played in the falling leaves. 

You wouldn't have said you wanted to "be" anything. 

"Mom, I am happy!" you would have said. 

But now you look at me and you say you want to be president- 

- To enter into a system broken with corruption, greed, and privilege. 

- To enter a world based on status, lies, and bureaucracy. 

You tell me, and you wait. 

You are still breathless, 

Less from the run home and more from the prospect of possibility. 

As a mother it is my job to nourish your hopes- 

We collect tinder for your dreams when you are young 

So that you can grow up to be passionate. 

- A man on fire. 

I see the way you take the dog for a walk, hug your little sister, give your friends equal slices of the pumpkin pie I baked for you. 

You are fair, and kind, and too responsible for your age. 

I wish you were an anarchist, like me, 

But I hold you close and I whisper- 

"You'll make a great president." 

And I believe it. 

Revolution

The other day I watched this video because it was spreading like wildfire (uncontained wildfire without the a wildland crew in sight) across Facebook. I usually find Russell Brand to be amusing, engaging, intelligent, and sexy in his sarcasm and wit. However, this video left me WANTING something more. It is all well and good to call for revolution and to point out the unfairness of the current system. In fact, I would even say that is important: awareness and enlightenment is the first step. However, I think that we, as a society, have moved beyond that first step, and to keep reiterating the first step (the "call" for revolution without concrete plans for action) can stall the revolution as much as any type of pacification with the current system. by continuing to call for action people feel like they are contributing to something, feel like they are being heard, feel like they are organizing, but nothing is actually being DONE to make changes. This is nothing more than a safety valve that releases the frustration of the general population, rendering them harmless against the current patriarchal capitalist system. I believe that Paxton had every right to ask what Brand suggests we actually do, and I would have loved to have heard a strait answer from Brand. But I didn't. He stated the problems several times: economic inequality, generational systems of hierarchy, the general population not being heard, and the natural environment being destroyed. We KNOW this. This is not new information. What we do not know is how to act in a way that will bring about change to the current global and national systems that are so unfair. Brand's answer seemed to be to not participate in the current system (by not voting) and to just wait until a clear plan comes out from someone smarter than he is. He also pushed the problem back onto the people with the power, saying it is their responsibility to fix things because they have the power, when their having power is a direct result of a broken system. Okay, Brand, I get that you are a comedian and not a social theorist, but you have a strong following and I would like to see you using that to advance a social revolution instead of stirring people up into simple foam and froth, to be blown away with the next interesting call for action. He doesn't have to be the one making the plan, but perhaps he can use his fame and position of celebrity to point people in the direction of others who have valid plans for revolution.

That being said, I thought I should not be a hypocrite and offer up my plan for how we, as a group, could gain power and effect social and economic change in the world. Some of these things I am doing, some I am working towards, and some I know I will never achieve. I also recognize that most of them only work if a large majority of people agreed to act together, and that by doing them as an individual you are exposing yourself to risk of exploitation and poverty.

1. Buy local. I don't mean just use a mom and pop store that imports its goods from who-knows-where. I mean buy honestly local as much as possible. Buy food from local farms. Buy textiles made in your state. Learn what the natural resources are near to you and learn to live your life utilizing them. If you can't buy local, then buy second hand. If you need to buy globally then establish a personal relationship with your supplier and understand their economic ethics. 
2. Don't buy. Seriously. Begin a minimalist lifestyle. Assess what you really NEED in your life as opposed to what commodities serve to pacify you. Buy less. Do we really need the latest computer, tablet and phone? Do we need to update these every year? Do we need new clothes every season? The latest baby gear? Honestly, no. We are taught to shop to keep the economy running, but the current economy serves the interest of a select few, so go ahead and bring that economy to a grinding halt. Grow your own garden. Knit and sew your own clothes. Trade with your friends, not department stores. Ride a bike instead of driving a car. 
3. Take the money you save by not buying things and reduce your hours at work. Does a family actually need two full-time incomes to flourish? Do you actually need to work 45 hours a week? Current American consumer trends say, yes, working that much is necessary to buy all of the things we "need." I say we don't actually need most of those things. Cut your hours back to at MOST 40. Cut your family incomes down to at MOST 1.5. Cut more if you can. Try to get down to living off of 20 hours of work a week. The world would still function if we all worked just 20 hours a week. Of course, I realize that is not a reality for most people as 40 hours are necessary for health care and other work-related benefits. Petition your employer to change their policies to accommodate part-time work more readily. Change your employer if they refuse to work with you. 
4. Take the time you save by not working and work on building your community. Spend time with your neighbors. Move out of the city. Host parties. Say hello to everyone you live near. Trade with your neighbors. Teach each other skills. Go on vacations that do not concentrate on spending money. Chaperone a field trip. Lead a scout troop. Volunteer your time and attention to others, and let others volunteer to help you. Start a community garden, an adult skills-trade. Engage and get to know each other on a personal, economic, and political level. 
5. Engage in grass-roots democracy. Perhaps you realize that our global and national level of representation sucks, and you want to change that. No matter who gets elected at those levels that system will not change UNLESS there is pressure on the candidates from people organized at the local level. Organize a neighborhood council, and participate. Use the weight of your neighborhood council to pressure your city council to actually represent your wants and needs. Let that force trickle up to the state and national levels. 

So, yeah, that is the life that I am trying to live right now: one that does not worship commodities and values relationships with people over a sense of security and the latest techno-gadget. What are YOU doing to participate in the revolution? 

Romancing Resistance: the takeover

How long does it take before a motion of resistance is hijacked? Two, three days? Maybe it can live for a week. I am more skeptical than that though. I think that on the moment of action, the motion becomes more than its intention. Because, the truth is, that for most of our actions we actually lack any intention whatsoever. Those actions- the yelling in the streets, the camping out, the throwing of stones, had very little intention, and in some ways they were quite pure. But then groups started coming in, trying to make sense of things. The communists, the anarchists, the i-am-not-sure-who-but-they-definitely-have-a-flags. I guess that is the problem with a platform- everyone wants to stand on it.

Last night Nikola and I were walking home from dinner when we were hit by a particularly strong sensation in the air. I described it as if someone was cutting onions directly in front of me. He was a bit more accurate, saying that it felt like hot peppers. For about a minute we were genuinely confused, and I was looking around for some sort of barbecue. I saw two boys pass by in the guy fawkes masks that have become standard street gear, and a small girl about to be sick. It was then that we realized the wind was blowing down from Taksim, and what we were experiencing was a very mild form of the dissipating tear gas. I just re-measured the map and realize that as the crow flies we are only 4km away from Taksim (The 7km that I originally stated involves streets and bridges- I had never stopped to think about how freely air moves within such a constrained grid), but 4km still seems rather removed from the heart of the activity to me. I never expected to be hit with tear gas so far away. Within five minutes the irritation, which came in light waves, was getting to be unbearable. I can't imagine how thick and painful it was in Taksim. So I went online to see what had happened. I had thought the protests in Istanbul were peaceful and the police were out of the square.

Apparently this week two things happened:

1. The prime minister agreed to meet with the organizers of the protests. 
2. The prime minister claimed that the protests would be over by the weekend, called the protesters vandals and swore that the square would be open to, "the people." 

Now, I consider both of these things to be tragedies as far as resistance is concerned. First of all, meeting with the organizers of the protests is problematic as the protests are very organic. He can meet with the organizers of the original Gezi park protests, but it is obvious this has gone well beyond the construction of a shopping complex, and if he hears only those complaints he is missing a LOT of the public grievance. Similarly, any already formed group that steps forward to claim this protest is going to cause the exclusion of some protesters. Figuring this out through the leadership of the protests requires some sort of coalition to be formed and sorted out- a large gathering of ideas and possibilities, and a continuation of the open forum that the park floor has become. By allowing the prime minister to choose the group he wishes to work with in formal discussions much of the general, organic process of this protest is lost. Maybe this coalition leadership has already been formed, although I am very interested to see how these discussions play out, and who will be there. 

The second point is just offensive. The prime minister is basically claiming that everyone at the protests is destructive and a public nuisance. It is true that there have been many acts of vandalism, some in response to police brutality and some from the sheer glee of chaos. Some people believe that the more violent protesters have been placed by the government to incite riots and to legitimize the use of force. I am not sure about that. I know there are plenty of people who have a lot of pent up anger and are probably destroying public property of their own volition. But the fact is that the majority of the protesters remain peaceful. The park fills with students, children, parents etc. These people are sitting and talking. They are singing. They are dancing. They are drinking and eating. They are living there, in a public space, peacefully. What is particularly offensive is that the PM claims the space will be open to the people by the weekend. The space IS open to the people, now. The PEOPLE are there!!! What people could he possibly be talking about? Tourists? Only the people who elected him? They are all welcome to go down there. I was there several evenings and did not feel threatened or uncomfortable. It was exhilarating. The space was open to the people, and by denying that he basically is denying that those people, occupying the park, are actually Turkish citizens, thus confirming that he only works for his own constituents, and is not representative of the whole country. Add to that the force used to empty the park last night? It was supposedly unexpected, and if it came so strongly all the way here all that I can think it must have been like there is the fumigation of rats. Tragic, bad move on the part of the Turkish government. 

Romancing Resistance: Reflections on Istanbul Protests in 2013

One of two buses destroyed at the entrance to Gezi Park, Istanbul. 

On Saturday night every street leading up to Taksim square was barricaded by protesters to prevent the entrance of riot-trucks armed with water cannons. Barricades were made of the fences that had once surrounded the restoration project in Gezi Park, cars, and bricks from the sidewalks. 

It should feel differently.

As I walked down Istiklal Street, crowded for a Wednesday evening, the words floated into my head, more of a concept than a thought of my own. At that moment I had a small epiphany- a moment of understanding regarding the three months of resistance and social movements that I had been studying. Resistance shouldn't FEEL any different. In fact, it shouldn't feel at all. Resistance simply is. The torn up streets are not excited. The graffiti on the buildings does not move. It is people who must make a constant effort to feel. It is not the excitement of resistance which breathes life into people, but the emotions of people which laces resistance with excitement.

Everyone that I talked to, on Friday, on Saturday, even on Monday, was excited about the protests spreading from Istanbul to the furthest reaches of Turkey. Not one of them thought that anything in Turkey would actually change, but they were excited to be part of something, and to express themselves (many for the first time) in the political arena. But after a week of protesting things began to change. The police violence stopped- Taksim square had been taken- and with the uneasy peace that settled in Istanbul people began to lose the excitement that they had expressed the week before. The resistance had taken on the feel of a festival. Music, speeches, workshops. My friends wanted to act. As one put it, "I need to be there. Nothing will change, but I need to yell and scream and throw things." Another told me that things had changed, and now it was just a festival, with people drinking and no more resistance. When that excitement is taken away, when the rolling wave of indignation is taken away, when the physical form of police officers is extracted and you have nothing left to push against, then how can you continue to resist? I wondered how long the protests would continue, certain that people would trickle off, back to their jobs and their homes, and the moment of resistance would be forgotten.

For most of my adult life I have valued social movement over acts of resistance. I thought I was quite logical, asking what the point was in constantly acting to deconstruct something without building something to take its place. Before I even knew who Gramsci was, I was a solid supporter of counter-hegemony as the only viable path towards revolution or, as my peaceful mind liked to put it, "change." When the protests began in Istanbul, grew, and turned into forceful physical conflict, I was skeptical more than impressed. What's the point in destroying a city? It was easy, as an outsider, for me to dismiss the people participating in the protests as a bunch of boys who just wanted to be a part of something, anything, violent and had very little political motivation. Seeing the destruction in Taksim- graffiti as high as the hands could reach, sidewalks torn up, buses and cars overturned and burnt out, I was not impressed. As I walked by the two buses blocking the entrance to Gezi Park and watched two young teenage boys, masked with the face of Guy Fawkes, climb victoriously on top for pictures my first reaction was awe, but my first thought was that the very people who destroyed these buses would be the same ones grumbling about the lack of adequate public transit in Istanbul during rush hour within the next month. I watched countless people approach the men selling aspiration masks and swim goggles for 5tl a piece, and wondered if they expected it to turn violent again, or if they were just purchasing souvenirs- a fashion statement to say that they were there. I couldn't help but be sadly amused at the irony of defacing one of the seats of consumerism in Istanbul, while protesting the turning of a public space into a capitalistic private space, and at the same time participating in a replacement capitalism without a second thought.

What changed my mind didn't take place in Taksim of Besiktas. It wasn't at ground zero. It had happened on Saturday evening, in my neighborhood seven kilometers away from the protests. Friday and Saturday my husband and I kept a close watch on twitter and facebook, overloading google-translate in the hopes of understanding the protests. We kept our windows open to hear and see signs of the protests, most shocked by the number of planes lined up to land at Ataturk airport with, what we rightly assumed, was police support from Ankara. Around eleven on Saturday evening the banging of pots and pans began. It echoed up and down my neighborhood, over and through, then back again. I poked my head out the window of my fourth floor apartment and for the first time I saw my neighbor, a young woman about my age, also looking out with curiosity. Until that moment I had not even realized that I had a neighbor living in the room that shared a wall with mine. Her apartment entrance was on a different street, and I had never seen her. We looked at each other, smiled shyly, and then quickly darted our heads back in. Throughout the evening we saw each other peeking out several more times. At one point the rumbling of pots and pans grew louder. I looked down and saw about 25 women walking up my street. In a neighborhood where there were no protests and no police these women had joined together, going from nowhere and to nowhere, simply to express themselves. It was the one moment during the night that I could not hold my composure, and a few tears slipped out in support of these women, some with bare heads, and some wrapped in scarves.

So when my friends lament the festival atmosphere in Gezi Park and fear that they have missed the revolution, I have to say that it's unfortunate, because this is the moment of resistance that excites me. Now that the park has been 'secured' by the protesters there exists a platform. That platform hosts academic workshops, political speeches, and cultural performances. At the moment intellectuals are trying to create some sense of coherency in the park, and they may succeed or they may fail, but what is important is that people are out of their houses, connecting with one another. The benefit of the platform is not only in its potential to create cohesion, but in its ability to accommodate expression. It is that expression that has finally made me appreciate resistance in and of itself, apart from creation, movement, and change. Sometimes people really do need to be part of something. I can't help but thinking that it is no fault of the streets or collection of workshops at the park if nothing changes. The change starts with a very simple inward realization, not 'it,' but:

We should feel differently. 

An Interpretation of Istanbul’s Gezi Park Protests: Four Modern Social Theorists

What I have posted here is a paper for my modern theory course. I definitely see some areas where the paper is lacking and could be expanded, but there are some points that are beginning to flesh out there. I figure since this is currently going on I would post the un-revised version in order to continue the thought and consideration regarding the current state of Turkey. As always, comments, corrections, and intelligent conversation is welcomed. 

An Interpretation of Istanbul’s Gezi Park Protests: Four Modern Social Theorists 

After a year of living in Istanbul the most that I can offer regarding the current civil unrest is an external perspective. For the past week social media has been filled with pictures and videos of downtown Istanbul and the current protests taking place there. During the days the protests at Taksim square take on the feeling of a festival, with music, dance, joyful encounters, and excited youth sharing discourse. Thousands of people cover Gezi Park, where the protests started on May 28, 2013. The protests, which began against the deconstruction of the park to re-build a military barracks which would ultimately be used as private housing and either a mall or museum, have grown so large in both numbers and geography that a single objective can no longer be neatly given to them. The protests have spread through Istanbul and to other major cities in Turkey, and have grown into general political unrest. I cannot make any claims of intimate knowledge of these activities, but I can draw some conclusions that require physical observation, and hopefully offer some perspectives as to the progression of these protests. This paper utilizes the work of four prominent modern social theorists: Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Walter Benjamin, in order to explore the Gezi Park protests more in depth and begin to offer social discourse regarding the movement which has become known as, “Occupy Gezi.”

Gezi and Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci’s theory concentrates on the production of power through consent rather than force, and the ways in which superstructure is maintained in civil society through the production of hegemony.  Gramsci claims that with modern hegemony revolutions based on violence and force, such as the October Revolution of 1917, will no longer be successful. Because of this view Gramsci theory can best be applied to three areas of the Gezi Protests. First, the way in which the government responds to the protests can be argued as potentially blurring the line between rule by force and rule through consent, which demands closer examination about the production of hegemony and level of consent of Turkish citizens. Secondly, Gramsci would be concerned about whether the protests are based on force, or have an adequate foundation of counter-hegemony to effect social change. Lastly, and related to the establishment of counter-hegemony, Gramsci would examine the traces of consciousness, and how they can be found both at the protest site, and through social media.

The concept of hegemony involves the basis of power being created through consent, wherein the dominate group defines the world for the oppressed group so much so that they can no longer even recognize their own will. Their will is dominated through cultural indoctrination and they willingly, or at least without struggle, give their consent to the rulers. In a decadent hegemony, which includes both Turkey and the global hegemony of capitalism, this consent is centered around allocation of resources. On May 28 the protests regarding Gezi Park mostly concerned the allocation of a well-known public space. People feared that the public space, which was slated to become a reconstruction of the Taksim military barracks, would ultimately be turned into a shopping mall. This takes a resource which is precious in a city as crowded as Istanbul, space, and allocates it to the private, capitalist sphere, away from public use. Gezi park, which is iconic to Istanbul, was an allocation that could be said to be beyond the umbrella of the dominant hegemony. When the protests began the government responded with force, removing protesters through the use of pepper-gas. At the same time the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tried to maintain that his political position was achieved through consent, and that the reallocation of the park would continue despite the protests. This creates a dissonance between the experience of the protestors, and the government’s claims to legitimacy. In this case the use of force served to escalate the protests, drawing in a wider group of support, and potentially creating a platform to examine and deconstruct the dominant hegemony. However, the deconstruction of the dominant hegemony is impossible to imagine unless it is accompanied by the construction of a counter-hegemony.   

Although the use of police force is important to understanding the depth of the attack on the Turkish government, the use of force on the part of the protesters is important to understanding the potential for achieving social change. Gramsci advocates against a war of manoeuvre, which seeks to physically remove the people in power, and instead insists that a war of position, and the establishment of a counter-hegemony, is the only way to bring about change. Although the protests started as a challenge to the allocation of resources, they have since grown in numbers so quickly that their complexity, and various reasons for participation, is indisputable. This creates a critical point, when a counter-hegemony can be constructed, and needs to be constructed in order for the protests to turn into a social movement. The establishment of counter-hegemony has been attempted through various university professors, and NGOs hosting discussion groups at the protest site. However, whether these attempts will be successful depend on the motivation of the protestors, and whether they are prepared to engage in constructive discourse, or simply continue to protest in force as an unorganized display of general frustration. The success of establishing a counter-hegemony also depends on the methods that the budding social leaders of this resistance implement.

Gramsci believes that the production of a counter-hegemony is reliant on the materiality of subalterns, as well as traces of consciousness found in folk wisdom, song, stories and memory. Intellectuals are charged with basing counter-hegemony on the already existing fragments within society in order to create an integrated form of resistance. I would argue that the contemporary place to look for these traces of consciousness is social media. The pictures that people are posting on facebook, and the 140-character tweets being posted on twitter supply a rich source of anxiety, hopes, and desire that could be formulated into the beginnings of a counter-hegemony. However, to leave these fragments in their raw form, or even to collect them on the internet is not enough. Counter-hegemony would be formed by processing these fragments, and reflecting them on the people who have created them, using them as a point of discussion to form a construction of society with the people who are currently gathered, potentially ready to listen and create.

Gezi and Foucault

Michel Foucault was a materialist, interested in the ultimate destinations of power rather than the intention and decisions of individuals. He was not interested in the source or descent of power, nor was he interested in ideology. He was against the concept of social evolution and interested in the production of expertise, to the point that for Foucault the problem of modernity was not economics, but the ways in which truth was produced. Foucault would most likely be interested in the materiality of the Gezi protests, the production of power in the moment of resistance, and how knowledge regarding the protests is produced and spread.

The protests in Istanbul have left a strong physical mark on the city. The main shopping street, Istiklal, has been covered in graffiti, and Taksim square has been barricaded using bricks torn out of sidewalks, fences, and incinerated vehicles. These material traces show a breakdown in the discipline created by society. Foucault argues that in a state of discipline subjects are always seen, and constantly placed in a way that they may be observed. (Discipline and Punish, 187) Everyday life in Istanbul involves a certain level of discipline, created by the constant observation of fellow citizens, as well as a limited presence of official authority. However, as protesters have pushed police out of Taksim square that level of discipline has been lost. People within the borders of the barricades can be thought to be loyal to the protests, and not supportive of government rules and punishment. For this reason people feel safe to flout certain laws. This can especially be seen in the act of graffiti, an act commonly restrained due to discipline. During the protests young men can be seen tagging the streets and buildings in the middle of the day. They spray paint slogans and symbols slowly and without masks, obviously not concerned with being caught. However, the material evidence also shows that the graffiti has been covered over at least one time with a layer of plain, grey paint. This layering of paint and graffiti shows a constant struggle to maintain a state of discipline, which the government has been unable to achieve in Gezi.

If the usual standard of social discipline is not currently in effect that does not mean that no discipline exists. Power is constantly produced by people, and that includes the protesters currently in Gezi Park. Foucault highlights the notion of exercise, stating that it is a graduation of tasks that are performed by the body, used to create discipline. (Discipline and Punish, 161) The protests can be seen as a jump in physical tasks, not adhering to acceptable amounts of graduation, and completely unexpected. This has the potential to create a space that lacks discipline, but only for a moment before people begin to create new forms of exercises that will create a new regime of discipline. This can be seen in the schedules slowly beginning to develop around the protests. People protest in shifts, either at the park during the day or at night, and a schedule of speakers and workshops is beginning to emerge, slowly producing a system of power and discipline within the society of protesters.

The final area of the Gezi Protests that would concern Foucault, and perhaps the most strongly related to his theories, is the production of knowledge regarding the events. According to Foucault power and knowledge directly imply each other, and power produces knowledge. (Discipline and Punish, 27) This speaks to the reification of expertise, and how only people specifically trained within the realm of science can participate in the production of knowledge. Subjugated knowledges are those which have been disqualified as inadequate or insufficiently elaborated. (Power/Knowledge, 82) The production of knowledge regarding the Gezi protests is occurring on three fronts: the official perspective produced by the Turkish government through Turkish media, the unofficial perspective produced by protesters through social media, and the tentative perspective produced by international media without firsthand experience of the events. The Turkish media has covered very little of the protests, and the government, while not denying the protests, has downplayed their extensiveness and legitimacy. This has aggravated protesters, and countless people have posted about the protests on twitter, facebook, and on personal blogs. The majority of protester-produced content involves pictures, short videos, and tweets, and focuses on the use of police force against the protesters. The internet has made it possible for individuals to share experiences, but the question is whether those experiences are capable of being turned into knowledge. Perhaps recognizing this, protesters have made calls for assistance through various forms of social media, asking for international news to recognize the protests. This call for international recognition shows that media expertise is still valid in the production of social knowledge. Protesters fear that if the only official representation of the protests is controlled by the government and Turkish media, then the events will be both weakened and eventually forgotten. International media, and the expertise given to external, supposedly unbiased reporters trumps the expertise claimed by local reporters, having the potential to produce a knowledge that could eventually be sympathetic to the protesters. Most interesting is that the internet has created a platform that has the potential to be used in the creation of knowledge, but it is still controlled and limited by the social preconceptions of expertise and traditional forms of knowledge production.

Gezi and Agamben

Giorgio Agamben focused on the origins of bio-power, claiming that power turns life into an object and therefore creates politics. His general themes included the exploration of bare life as opposed to good life, thresholds as spaces of intersection, the creation of homo sacer and sovereignty, and legal violence. Agamben’s work may be best used to explain the use of police force in the Gezi Park protests.

In order to understand how police force against the Gezi protesters can be legitimized by the Turkish government it is important to understand Agamben’s concepts of sovereign and homo sacer. According to Agamben these two concepts are mirror images of each other. The sovereign sphere is the sphere in which it is permitted to kill without committing homicide and without celebrating sacrifice (Agamben, 83) and the homo sacer is the person who is set outside of human jurisdiction without being placed beneath the protection of divine law. (82) The sovereign acts by legally placing himself outside of the law while simultaneously declaring that nothing is outside of the law. (15) This allows the sovereign to encite bans, which does not only place someone outside of law, but leaves them exposed and threatened. (28) In contemporary society violence is considered illegal, and also socially unacceptable. However, police are given the right to use force without it being considered violence due to being imbued with power from sovereignty. Prime Minister Erdogan is able to decree that protesters are acting outside of the law, turning them into homo sacer, which justifies the use of police violence. Similarly, police are given the individual power to declare people as acting illegally and use force against them. At the same time protesters are restricted from using violence because they lack the power of the sovereign to declare their actions as legal. Agamben claims that the ban as the original political relation calls into question the theories of a contractual origin of state power based on citizens belonging to a popular, national, religious, or other identity group. (181) Because the sovereign is able to ban any action, by any person, every person is turned into a partial homo sacer and left exposed and vulnerable to violence. However, what was seen at Gezi park did not follow this model. Although Erdogan did try to declare the actions of the protesters illegal, and issue a ban on them, people refused the ban. Protesters declared their actions, and use of force legitimate, while calling international attention to the use of police force, and were able to turn the “legal force” into a state of unacceptable violence. This does not point to a dissolution of sovereign power, but instead points to the power of Erdogan no longer being recognized by Turkish people, and the formation of an international state of sovereignty.

Gezi and Benjamin

Like Foucault, Walter Benjamin was a materialist. He worked to critique social theory by an intense, close examination of everyday objects, and viewed criticism as the cutting of history in order to create space for newness to emerge. He rejected the idea that history is progressive and argued that modern history is actually a natural cycle of catastrophes, and real history cannot begin until a messianic judgment redeems society by naming things by their proper names. The location of the Gezi protests in the heart of Istanbul provides two places that would lend themselves to a Benjamin-inspired examination: Istiklal Street and Gezi Park.

Istiklal Street is a phantasmagoria which can easily be compared to the Paris Arcades in the Arcades Project by Benjamin. As the main shopping street in Istanbul Istiklal is lush with the practice of commodity fetishism. There, labor and violence are removed from public view and fetish objects, such as the latest clothing and technology, promise people anything that they desire, from happiness to freedom. During the protests Istiklal Street was covered with graffiti, from one end to the other, as high as people could reach, whereas other streets received much less physical destruction. Upon initial consideration this can be thought to show a rejection of commodity fetishism, however, when looking at the continuing festival nature of the protests the cycle of history becomes evident. Although the stores on the street are rejected it took only days for men to set up boxes of respiratory masks, swim goggles, and Guy Fawkes masks. These can be seen as replacement fetish objects, fetishizing the concepts of freedom and resistance while continuing the history of commodification.

At the end of Istiklal Street is Gezi Park, the park where these protests began. Protests began against the re-construction of a military barracks which had been torn down in the 1940s. The destruction of the park and continual updating of Istanbul can be seen as a type of deification of progress. Deconstruction is deemed to be necessary to continually modernize the city. The question of why it was important to reconstruct the military barracks brings up the concept of Benjamin’s wish image, an object that sits at the cross between an ur-past and the mythic stage, imbued with the dreams of the past which were never brought to light, while still being an object of the progressive narrative. At the same time the park, a green space, was in the process of being sanitized into something more modern and progressive. In this light the protests at Gezi park can be seen as a protest against the deification of progress and a desire to keep unsanitized, wild space.

One more concept of Benjamin’s that is applicable to the protests involves his concept of catastrophe and shock. Benjamin believes that in modernity we are unable to feel any deep sense of tragedy and to grieve. Instead all that we have are brief states of shock and a continued state of melancholy. I believe that these protests are a prime example of that. People all over the world are curious about the protests, and express shock at the police violence that has happened, but there is very little room, or time, given to actual grieving for the violence and injuries being sustained. For this reason it is very likely that these protests will be written into the myth of progression as necessary defeat (depending on the outcome), and not serve in the preparation for the day of public judgement.

Conclusion

The four perspectives that I have used in this paper to help begin discussion regarding the Gezi Park protests are at times complementary, and at times contradictory. One of the main conclusions which may be drawn from all four theorists is that the protests have created a possibility for action, and for creation. Whether that creation takes the form of constructing a counter-hegemony, creating new forms of power through discipline, examining a global scheme of power, or taking time to examine tragedy and feel grief, I believe that if anything lasting is to come of these protests, the possibility must be acted on soon. Currently in the protests there are various organizations and individuals leading discussions, and acting for these changes, and the coming weeks will show if any actual lasting changes are possible, and will be achieved by the people of Turkey.

References

Antonio Gramsci. “The art and science of politics,” and “Philosophy, common sense, language and folklore,” in David Forgas (ed.) An Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935. Schocken Books. (1988).

Giorgio Agamben translated by Daniel Heller-Rosen. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics). Werner Hamacher and Devid E. Wellbery (eds). Stanford University Press. (1998).

Joseph Fernia. “The Concept of Hegemony,” in Gramsci’s Political Thought. Clarendon Press. (1981).

Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books.(1990).

Michel Foucault. History of Sexuality. Vintage Books. (1990).

Michel Foucault. “Two Lectures” and “Truth and Power” in Power and Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writingsw, 1972-1977. Pantheon Books.

Michael Lowy. Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin’s “On the Concept of History”. Verso. (2006).

Susan Buck-Morss. The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought). MIT Press. (1991).

Alternative Ways of Being

I think that I have spent most of my life unsatisfied with society. This dissatisfaction has been a driving force in me. It caused me to do things that many people would never dream of- from moving to Guam on a whim, to working in a conservation corps, summers at summer camp until the age of 24, joining the Peace Corps, moving to Turkey, getting married within six months of meeting my husband- everything except the last little bit is not even strange to me, and it is the fact that I got married at all rather than getting married so quickly that surprises me. The people that I tend to surround myself with also live similar lifestyles- fast, hard, and a little quirky. I move around, and I keep trying new things because deep down I am terrified that the things I hate about life will never change. Now, I am not exactly frozen with pessimism over this. I realize that the only way a change can come about is if people act out the change they want to see, and voice their discontentment with the status quo, often and loudly. For change there need to be people who take risks, and go against the grain. People who may even do illegal activities, and try to build an alternative rather than just destroy what is already in place. I realize this and so I do my part, as best as I can. I am not particularly social. I am not a charismatic leader. But in many ways I am a revolutionary. In my refusal to submit to the social pressures to behave, and my constant questioning I am not only seeking a solution, but I am protesting, quietly, the things that I cannot stand. Now, I know that this sentiment will be accepted by most of my friends, and sometimes it is even supported. But it is a scary thing to vocalize and post on the internet. It is scary because once it is posted there is no going back.

There is a certain safety on being an invisible rebel. A weekend warrior for change. It is an important safety. It keeps you employed. It keeps you out of jail. It keeps you safe from the retaliation from the state. No, not just the state, but the conservative standards that people constantly adopt. People say that they don't want to live in a 1984 society, and that capitalism protects us from that. Well, no, it didn't do its job because your neighbors and friends are still willing to rat you out, right down to your room 101, rather than risk association with a deviant.

Ohhhh... that is what this is all really about. Deviance. Standard acceptable deviation. I am a deviator. The thing is that I KNOW many other people are deviators. In fact, I think that if everyone was honest about their feelings and desires for just a year or so, there could be huge changes in this world. Until that day, while we live in fear of self-exposure, nothing will happen.

I am taking a class on social change. It is depressing. We are studying a different form of protest and change every week. Last week it was co-operatives and surplus. This week it is primitivism. I am not sure what the answer is, and I know that nothing will ever be perfect, but I am sure that it is just going to get worse until people start talking, start acting, how they want the world to actually be. Otherwise, living, just wont cut it.

Lies I was Never Told- The Making of an Expat Part III

I suppose that a good reason for studying abroad is the dissolution of your current ideas about the world. It wasn't my reason though. I do happen to enjoy my dissolution and so I tend to be open to it, but my placement in Istanbul was more about staying in the East than pursuing any type of deeper understanding. It was a moment of retrenchment. I needed a breath and a bit of recollection before deciding where to go with my life after my time in Bulgaria, and a return to University sounded deceptively relaxing. I was not prepared for some of my courses, which are taught very differently than my curriculum in the United States. I thought that I would spend a year in a state of pure static reflection, and in the end be able to return to the US with a sense of completion and a bit of direction. Instead I have been constantly challenged.

One of my courses this semester questions the concepts of 'state,' and, 'nation.' It is taught by an amazing man. He is from Iranian Kurdistan, and is Kurdish. His knowledge of the topic of the middle east is expansive to say the least. He is quite passionate. Sometimes I catch him correcting little mistakes in his delivery. 'The Germans,' is corrected to, 'the German government,' and today a, 'we,' had to be corrected to, 'they.' The personal perspective is amazing, and that he is willing to separate it out in his lectures is even more impressive. When he starts to speak I melt into story mode. He crafts with his words, and he feels a lot like the desert that I miss: dry, warm, and filled with hidden beauty.

Now, this particular class is about the middle east: Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Israel. A class like that has to include the influence and power of the United States in that area, and coming from the perspective of anyone who is not American (and some Americans) a bit of sourness is to be expected. I am shocked to learn little tidbits of American participation, or lack thereof, in the political situation over there. What things were influenced by wealth, and what by religion? The Jewish question. The Kurdish question. The Shiite question. These are all things I never even knew to ask. For instance, in the war between Iraq and Iran, when pretty much everyone was supporting Iraq, the final blow was that Iraq was blowing up oil tankers that were funding Iranian munitions, and Iran could not retaliate because Kuwaiti, and Saudi Arabian (Iraqi as well?) oil tankers had been given permission to use American flags for protection. Now, I understand nothing about this, but I feel like it is somewhat important to know and understand. To question. The thing that really gets me in that class though is not the US being put in a non-patriotic perspective. It is how little I know about the US.

Often times my professor will make a comment about US political stances, or military movements and either pose it as a question to me, or glance at me to confirm a detail, such as the name of Operation Desert Shield. Most often I just have to shrug in embarrassment, because I have almost no knowledge of the middle east. I can name the countries and some of the leaders, but I cannot name which religions are situated where, and which countries were against whom, when. I cannot even name which side the US was on in any given year because I do not know what the sides were. Of course, as the daughter of someone in the military this is a tragedy, but even without that connection, I feel like as a US citizen I am failing, or was failed.

I was never taught about the middle east in school. It was never stated that we, as a nation, are currently participating in wars. I learned about the revolutionary war, and the world wars. I even learned a bit about the Vietnam war and Korean conflict. But after that international events just stopped, or became focused on peaceful European interactions. Suddenly everything was about what was going on domestically and, in my education, the US lacked any sort of international presence. I realize that I dislike politics and so I never sought out this type of information, but one would think that these would be things that would be important for our future leaders to know about, and that it would be required knowledge.

I know that it is not just me. I am guessing that the average American would not be able to explain any of the US participation in the middle east. Of course, here is where all of my politically engaged friends jump in and say that they know everything that is going on. But really, where did they get that information? They had to seek it out. Research. University. Even then information is fragmented and biased. It isn't that we are told lies about the global situation, it is more often that we don't talk about the details- just broad sweeping concepts of supporting troops, greed, and human rights. But the average person should KNOW if their country is engaged in conflict. They should be able to articulate what individuals are dying for, what their country is or is not supporting. Somewhere along the line there is a gross lack of transparency. Whether that is the government hiding things, or the schools not adjusting their curriculum to changing times, or families not caring, or wishing to shelter their children I am not sure. What I am sure of is that something is not adding up and it makes me sad and frustrated to realize it.

I guess the logical thing to feel after the horror and disgust would be a sense of relief that I am out of that murky mess, free to gain whichever perspective I can travel towards. However, this is one of the issues that makes the question of ex-patriotism infinitely more complex, because this is one of the few things that makes me want to return to the United States. I feel a great sense of responsibility in this matter. I see a problem, and I have the ability to contribute to fixing it. If I returned to the US, permanently, I think that I would have to take on the role of a revolutionary. I would have to be one of those people who demand change, and then, instead of just demanding it, they get out and make change. I would have to be loud. It would be very difficult, but in some ways it would be truly rewarding, because I would be contributing to a better world, something that I have the power to do much more easily on "home soil" than I do in any other country. It is this loyalty and sense of care and belonging that force me to question whether I would be a successful expat, and whether that is something that I really want. 

The Essay--- The Making of an Expat Part I

Discovering that you're an expat is a little how I imagine "discovering" you are gay might be. For the first portion of your life it doesn't really have any context to come up in. Sure, there might be passing remarks about gender-norms whispered with feigned concern to your mother at company picnics, but overall you are just a kid. You don't know anything about nationalism and your patriotism extends about as far as the repetition of the pledge of allegiance before school, half of which you mumble through because you never bothered to learn it. There are some kids ahead of their age bracket, "dating" or discussing "politics," but really your life revolves around climbing trees, playing with toys, and decided who and what a best friend actually is. Maybe you are an expat, but it doesn't really matter and no one knows yet, least of all you. Then, as you get a bit older nationalism becomes more central to your life. You start taking U.S. history in school, your homeroom teacher asks you to bring in clippings of current events, and you begin to actually hear the long talks about war and oil that the grown ups have been having forever. You don't understand it yet, but you are definitely aware that it is an issue salient to your life, and that some day it is going to want some sort of defining affirmation from you. Until the choice has to be made you peek in and out of the realm of politics. You try different things like fourth of July parades, dressed in red, white and blue, and you make some declarations of your patriotism, just to see if it feels true. Sometimes it does, but most of the time (and you would never tell anyone) it doesn't. Deep down, as soon as you knew what a patriot was you knew that you weren't one.

Well, maybe that isn't how it was for you. Maybe things continued on the course that they are 'supposed' to, and you felt all of the right emotions of pride and belonging, and you can sing the national anthem and hot dogs taste like freedom to you. But that is how it was for me, a slight gnawing of something not being right, followed by years of testing different things, a bit of denial, and finally the realization that I am an expatriate. Well, since I have never been a huge fan of labeling and I don't particularly like the word I am more of a never-was-patriate. 

The day that I had emerged onto the political stage and actually noticed that something wasn't quite right happened in seventh grade. We were living in New York and I had just returned to my middle school of choice after a year of homeschooling in protest of the constant redistricting of military children. I hadn't won the battle, as the entire military base had shut down and my parents just happened to move down the street from the school that I wanted to attend. It wasn't the first time that my family had lived off of base housing, but it was the first time that it was considered permanent. For the first time in my life there were no fences keeping an eclectic mix of children together, giving me a consistant source of drama and playmates. There was just a two story, rather odd-shaped home with a slanted roof and a backyard that stretched on further than I ever cared to go. 

I had always been a somewhat aloof child, and the move away from base housing mixed with a return to a school where I didn't actually know anyone emphasized the aloofness. I was not unhappy. In fact, I was perhaps the happiest that I had been in my entire life. There is something great about being twelve, and coming into your own. But I did spend a large majority of that year up in my  odd-shaped room, reading smuggled copies of Stephan King novels, and writing in my first journal. 

My writing had always been encouraged by my teachers. In first grade I was sent to the principal's office once, not because I had gotten in trouble, but to read him the story that I had written in our writing class. My passion for writing continued, and it is true that at times in my life it was the only definition that I held onto amidst the amorphous turmoil of becoming. In seventh grade I had a lovely English teacher who continued to encourage my writing and suggested that I enter the district-wide essay contest that year. I decided that I would, and went home assigned the uncontroversial topic, "What America Means to Me." 

I didn't tell my parents about the contest. I wrote a few drafts of the essay, and took a near-final version to our family friend's apartment. Pam was like a big sister to me. She took me shopping, bought me my first journal and several books, and listened when I spoke. She set me up at her computer (which we did not have at our house yet) to type my essay, and helped me to edit it. After nearly twenty years I cannot remember what I actually wrote in the essay. I suppose that I could find it in the boxes of writing that my mother kept, but the content is not really that important. What is important is that I distinctly remember crafting that essay. The prompt was, "What America Means to Me," and I wrote an essay that could have been entitled, "What You Think America Should Mean to a Twelve Year Old Girl." I added just enough angst and discontent for it to sound like it could be real, and everything that I wrote was true, but I didn't actually believe any two consecutive sentences. I was quite proud of the finished product, typed and printed, edited by an adult, and my first piece of planned, constructed writing. 

I turned the essay in to my homeroom teacher and more or less forgot about it for the next month. The writing of the essay was unproblematic. My ethical issue came when they announced the finalists for the competition and I learned that I would be asked to read my essay before a panelist of judges. No part of me wanted to read that essay out loud. My parents and teachers thought that my refusal was due to my shyness, and a projected fear of public speaking (I had never spoken in public before, and couldn't know whether or not I feared it). They encouraged me to read the essay, and I couldn't even recognize the real reason I didn't want to read the essay, even if I had wanted to explain it to them. I ended up reading the essay, the entire time my face was flushed and I tried to mumble out the words, fearful that I would be discovered, that they would all know that the essay was a complete lie. America did not mean any of those nice things that I said it meant. America meant nothing to me.

It wasn't my first lie. It wasn't the first time that I went along with what society wanted me to say and do, but it was the most public and prepared lie that I had ever committed. I was ashamed. I was even more ashamed when they sent me home with a medal. My mother insisted that I hang the essay on my wall, along with the fairy tales and pieces of fiction that I had been most proud of from my English class. She was quite proud of the whole ordeal and I didn't have the heart to deny her, but every time that I saw that piece of paper staring down at me my stomach knotted. I had won. I knew exactly what America was supposed to mean, only I had never bothered to ask myself what it really meant to me. I felt that I had committed a huge betrayal, but I could not figure out who the betrayal was against. 

Eventually we moved, and the essay came down. It got tucked away where I no longer had to think about it, but the damage had already been done. A dissonance had been discovered within me. I had emerged onto the political stage and I had declared my loyalties, but I also had learned that deep down something didn't sit quite right when I called myself a patriot. It was just the beginning, and rather insignificant in the whole scheme of life, but it set me on a path of constant questioning, and an internal confusion towards nationalism and patriotic pride. 

Resistance

One of my courses this semester is on social change. Our first set of readings and class discussion consisted of building a vocabulary, from an ethnographic perspective, to discuss the topic of resistance and change. I found the class very enlightening, even though it was not really in my field of passion. One of the most important aspects that seem fundamentally clear and overly simple to me is the difference between resistance and revolution. The concept seemed so basic that I would not even voice it in a senior level course. However, with time I realized that the concept is not inherently accepted by my peers. Consistently the term, "Real resistance" was brought up to qualify the difference between covert and overt resistance- overt resistance with the goal of change being 'real,' while covert resistance is considered something else, something soft. Suddenly, in that class, I understood the need for the works of Scott and Gutman that we were reading. People do privilege revolution as the only form of resistance because of its tangible, romantic outcomes. I have no doubt about the qualities of the students taking this course. They are advocates, politically active. They have a stance and they express it. They are revolutionaries. You can tell in their dress, in the dreads and shaved heads, and in the constant reference to anarchist and feminist ideas that I have somehow skipped in university. Of course I am obviously making judgements here. Put me in a line-up with these kiddos and I would not stand out. At least I would not stand out in my true direction. I would look like a leader of the group with my shaved head, purple hair, pierced nose and unconventional clothing choices. But I digress into petty thoughts of belonging and the politics of academia which are worthwhile but have very little to do with my current topic: resistance and revolution.

If resistance is so often equated with revolution it is important to ask why, to recognize the potential harms of the association, and to clearly give it a separate definition in order to progress with the concept. I believe that in sociology resistance is often confused with revolution because resistance is a more personal concept while revolution has a much more easily recognized societal field. That is not to say that resistance is not social, but revolution is entirely a social concept while resistance has some social effects and some personal effects. In many ways resistance falls under the category of psychology as it is often an internal struggle, very personal and individual and revolution is thought to be the social culmination of those internal struggles. What Scott brings to light is that revolution is not the only possible outcome of resistance. Instead, resistance is practiced socially and has measurable, visible social impacts in and of itself. The harm in lumping resistance together with revolution is that we fail to examine a significant social phenomena that leads to and supports revolution, and we fetishize revolution as inevitable and desirable at all times within the current reality. By equating resistance to revolution, or privileging revolution over resistance we greatly restrict our sociological and political imaginations.

If resistance is not revolution then what is it?
The difference between revolution and resistance is held in the goals of the two. In very goal-oriented times it is no wonder that we value revolution, because revolution is a very goal oriented phenomena. Revolution has the end-goal of change. People want to change others, to change themselves, to change the system that they live in, to change perceptions, to change the allocation of resources etc. Resistance on the other hand has to deal with a goal of un-change. Resistance is about survival, about keeping something, and protecting an individual or a culture. Often the desire to change the dominant structure (REVOLUTION) coincides with the desire/need to sustain the minority culture (resistance) and so the two are often lumped together and measured by the much easier to see and feel changes that are brought on by revolutionaries. However, it is important to begin to recognize and measure resistance separately because it IS a separate, autonomous social function that becomes more and more popular in the modern world. Sociologists need to keep in mind that the end goal of resistance is not revolution, but sustaining.