The Price Of Bread!!!

       Nine months ago a 15 year old boy, Berkin Elvan, goes out to buy some bread, there is a demonstration going on, the young boy is hit on the head by a police fired teargas canister. His life is over, he didn't die then, but spent 9 months in a coma and died on Tuesday. The simple action of going to buy bread brought 9 months of hell and torment for his friends and family and a slow death to a youth. Shades of 6 December 2008 when Greek police in Athens, shot 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

      Berkin Elvan's funeral has sparked massive protest across Turkey, and rightly so, teargas, rubber bullets, baton charges, can all kill. The state is well aware of that fact, and is prepare to accept deaths from their actions, in an attempt to intimidate, and crush dissent among the people.

 

 Mourners follow Berkin Elvan's coffin in Istanbul. Photograph: Osman Orsal/Reuters

       Tens of thousands of people have turned out for the funeral of a Turkish boy who died nine months after being hit by a police teargas canister during anti-government protests.
The death on Tuesday of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan after a long coma sparked violent clashes between protesters and riot police across the country.
     Police were bracing for further clashes as thousands converged in Istanbul calling for the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to resign.
     Berkin was hit on the head by a teargas canister after going out to buy bread during the demonstrations last year.

Read the full article HERE:   English.   Spanish.

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The Veneer Has Cracked.

      Across the internet there are lots of reports of what is happening in Turkey, some very graphic, others very emotional. I found this one to be graphic, ringing with both sincerity and feeling. I don't think we can give enough cover to what is happening in Turkey at the moment. It is the perfect example of what is on the face of things, a perfectly functioning capitalist consumer society, but just under the surface lies a plethora of discontent, a rumbling of resentment at inequality and daily injustice, now the veneer has cracked and truth is pouring out. Each country in Europe shines with the same illusion and harbours those same resentments just simmering under the surface. How long will their veneer hold?

 

 Photo taken from Occupy Gezi Facebook page. Also used by Reuters.

This from Insanlik Hali:

To my friends who live outside of Turkey:
      I am writing to let you know what is going on in Istanbul for the last five days. I personally have to write this because at the time of my writing most of the media sources are shut down by the government and the word of mouth and the internet are the only ways left for us to explain ourselves and call for help and support.
     Last week of May 2013 a group of people most of whom did not belong to any specific organization or ideology got together in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Among them there were many of my friends and yoga students. Their reason was simple: To prevent and protest the upcoming demolishing of the park for the sake of building yet another shopping mall at very center of the city. There are numerous shopping malls in Istanbul, at least one in every neighborhood! The tearing down of the trees was supposed to begin early Thursday morning. People went to the park with their blankets, books and children. They put their tents down and spent the night under the trees. Early in the morning when the bulldozers started to pull the hundred-year-old trees out of the ground, they stood up against them to stop the operation.
    They did nothing other than standing in front of the machines. No newspaper, no television channel was there to report the protest. It was a complete media black out. But the police arrived with water cannon vehicles and pepper spray. They chased the crowds out of the park.

Continue reading HERE:

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From Little Acorns, Great Oak Trees Grow.

     From rolling anger to joined-up protests across Europe. Stockholm, Berne, Istanbul, Frankfurt, while all that was going on there were demonstrations in Athens, Madrid and Lisbon. That number of angry people prepare to take to the streets tells you the system is rotten.

Thousands blockade European Central Bank in Frankfurt

  The Daily Sheeple

    Anti-capitalist protestors have taken to the streets the financial heart of Frankfurt a day ahead of Europe-wide gatherings planned for June 1 to protest leaders handling of the three-year euro debt crisis.

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"Resistance Is Everywhere".

     The other week Stockholm was rocked by riots, and before the smoke and tear gas had dispersed, Berne took to the streets to show their anger at a system that tramples people in all countries. Now Istanbul takes up the cry against police brutality and authoritarian government. Whether that babbling brook of bullshit, the media reports it or not, the people of Europe are rising, as the chant in Istanbul proclaims, “Resistance is everywhere”. We are in an era of tremendous potential change, people everywhere are waking up to the fact the the present system is not interested in the well being of the ordinary people. In fact they are beginning to realise that it is set up to screw them and they now have knowledge, imagination and ability to do something about it. There is another way to structure society, a fairer more just way, a society based on mutual aid and freed from the cancer of the profit motive. The murmur of the poor is becoming a roar.

Some of the slogans and info from the streets of Istanbul, from Contra Info: 

 

 A banner hung in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, in support of the Turkish people.

faşizme karşı omuz omuza / stand shoulder-to-shoulder against fascism

hükümet istifa / government, resign

katil Erdoğan / murderer Erdoğan

Taksim bizim, İstanbul bizim / Taksim is ours, Istanbul is ours

direne direne kazanacağız / we will win by resisting

her yer Taksim, her yer direniş / everywhere is Taksim, resistance is everywhere

sık bakalım, sık bakalım, biber gazı sık bakalım, copunu bırak, kaskını çıkar, delikanlı kim bakalım / shoot it, shoot it, fire the tear gas, drop your baton, take your helmet off, then we see who’s the tough guy

fettullahın piçleri hepiniz orospu çocuğusunuz / you’re all son of bitches [to the police]

orospu çocuğu Tayyip Erdoğan / son of a bitch Tayyip Erdoğan
_

There is no official confirmation of the deaths as of yet.

In Istanbul, on 1/6, the cops left the Taksim Gezi Park for a while. Then people gathered to occupy the park again. Soon thereafter, the police stormed the area to remove the protesters.

Recent updates in Turkish : 1, 2, 3

Comrades’ message from the streets of Istanbul at 17:15 (local time): “We did it. Taksim square and Gezi Park occupied. Police pulls back; they’re leaving. People celebrate inside Gezi Park. One police car, with ‘sikik (fucked)’ written on it, was overturned and set on fire…”

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MAY DAY ISTANBUL.

         As I stated in my last post, May Day was celebrated across the globe, and in most cities it was massive. Each city marked it in different ways, like I said Glasgow was a rather low key affair, not so in Istanbul in Turkey. Anger took a more volatile route.

During the day there was also some excellent advice handed out.

A free world with no money.

Your days of wealth are over.

Photos from Contra Info.

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