In her weekly article, Gülseren Onanç reflects on the mobilization of the “Keep Göktürk Green” initiative, for which she is also the co-spokesperson. The social movement aims to halt the destruction of the green space located in Göktürk, Istanbul.
Gülseren Onanç
With our own hands, we have been growing the grass we have planted for 30 years.
Our neighbourhood Kemerköy is under complete occupation. Just like the whole of Turkey is.
This story is linked to the transformation of media in Turkey. The story, as I will describe in this commentary, started four years ago when Demirören Holding purchased Doğan Media. We, who live in Kemerköy, have been fighting against lawlessness and corruption within the framework of the law for the last four years. Turkey has long ceased to be a state of law, but our case to keep our neighbourhood green is so justified that the lawsuits filed by more than five hundred property owners continue. We have won some, and others are still ongoing.
They are targeting our green space!
The story of our just cause is the story of Turkey. The most valuable green areas are opened for construction; with the support of public banks, the profit is to be transferred to certain construction companies. The state-sponsored profit gang, the judiciary, continues to drain the state, whose institutions have collapsed. They are destroying its most valuable assets.
Our story is also the story of Turkey. It goes on like this: Ziraat Bank gave Demirören Holding a 750 million dollar loan to buy Doğan Medya, in order to silence the independent media. Demirören at the time was known for already owning two pro-government dailies. The guarantee of the loan however was the land of the residents of Kemerköy, whose zoning permit is a green area. Ziraat Bank did not communicate at the time that this green land had no financial value. (It is important to note here that, Ziraat Bank is a bank that has guaranteed that it will protect green spaces in the syndication loan it has received from abroad.) In other words, Ziraat Bank is deceiving not only the public but also international credit institutions.)
However, Ziraat Bank issued a zoning plan from the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization for the green land in its possession. With the lawsuits filed by Kemerköy residents, the zoning plan was cancelled. Instead of collecting the debt from Demirören through other assets, Ziraat Bank introduced another plan this time. The green area in Kemerköy, which is in the post-earthquake gathering area of the people of Göktürk was opened for construction with the decision of the Presidency. Ziraat Bank, which should give loans to farmers, students and tradesmen, gave 200 million dollars to Özyazıcı and Cevahir construction companies to build on a 358,000 square meter beautiful green area that has been maintained for 30 years. Then the representatives of the companies informed the Kemerköy site management about the request to break the doors to enter the green areas in the Kemerköy site. Since construction companies are impatient to collect their pre-election profits, they do not have to worry about obtaining a construction permit and wait for the results of the ongoing lawsuits.
The power of organizing
The story of the Keep Göktürk Green (GYKG) began at this point. We set out because it is right to resist where there is unlawfulness. We have created a civil initiative to safeguard the green areas for the future generation and prevent their takeover by the rentiers.
After the GYKG was established, we started to observe that the gang in front of us accelerated the process. We mobilized under the mentality that there is no passage to those who are trying to take our green space! We tried to organize the slogan in a one-week period. We set up our website, opened our social media accounts, and started holding our meetings. We prepared guard points for the entrance points of Kemerköy against the raids that may come at any time and made plans to be vigilant.
We soon realized that every step we took was being followed. As our organization grew, their rush increased. The attempt to defend the rights of the patriotic, animal-loving and nature-loving active citizens of Kemerköy broke the routines of the gang in front of us. Our civic initiative was perceived as a serious threat by the gang, which does not recognize the law. Apparently, they did not expect such an organization from us. They must have thought that we would succumb to unlawfulness and that we would not be able to resist those that had taken over the judiciary and security. On the afternoon of Friday, October 28, they announced that they would enter the construction site on the morning of October 31, with the notification of the District Governor’s Office.
We understood that they would take their police force with them.
We organized our civil resistance to defend the law of our country, to protect the green and to defend our rightful cause.
We decided to resist!
We decided to resist. We decided to meet as the volunteers of our initiative (we did not exceed fifty) at 7.30 am on October 31st. At 6 o’clock on the morning of 31 October, 650 riot police blockaded Kemerköy.
We resisted with banners in our hands, “don’t touch my green”, and the slogan “Rights, Law and Justice”. The police used violence against Kemerköy residents, with the shields of the riot police.
We resisted.
Özyazıcı and Cevahir construction companies occupied our green areas, ponds, and water channels with police clad with shields, without a report, without even any license.
We resisted.
They demolished the common entrance door of our site and occupied the green area belonging to İSKİ. Our earthquake gathering areas were plundered.
We resisted.
They filled our ponds with excavation soil and cut our water, killed our frogs, kidnapped our birds and damaged the Cendere Stream.
We resisted.
We started living with a police army in Kemerköy.
We continue to resist.
We are thousands
Today we are on the 19th day of the resistance. We continue our vigils and put pressure on local governments in order to not let those who want to take over our green space. We explain our case to a limited number of independent media representatives and announce the invasion to Turkey and the world through social media.
We experience the pride and the hope of organized resistance against the gang targeting our just cause.
In the first days of the initiative, our number reached tens of thousands. We received messages of support from all over the country.
Let’s raise the voice of truth, law and justice together. Let’s keep our green space. Let’s stand together against gangs.
We will win by resisting.