MmeKastell's Open Salon Blog

A tree fell and woke up Turkey

Sat, 1 Jun 2013 22:06:38 -0400

A wave of great demonstrations in Turkey started in Istanbul now that sudden economic development is rapidly threatening with demolitions and moderizations it's unique historic beauty.

Three stupid ideas aggravated the citizens last week. One -the silliest- was the proposal of creating more regulations for alcohol consumption in a country where despite the Kemalist secularism that saved it from Islamist fundamentalism, it is still impossible (illegal) to order a drink 200 meters from a mosque. And there is a least one mosque in any corner at the historical city centre so all week the running joke was about a great Thank You from my country, Greece the neighboring impoverished Eurozone member which cannot compete with the Turkish Lira.

Second came the celebratory ribbon cutting of the controversial new Bosphorus Bridge with a cost of $3 billion and many trees. 1.3-kilometer in length and 59-meter-wide will be the widest bridge in the world with a railroad on it and, as the Turkish Transport Minister said proudly, 'its 322-meter-high lateral towers will be the highest in the world' as well. But there is a lot of concern that the construction of the third bridge will lead to the destruction of Istanbul’s remaining green areas near the Black Sea coast while creating more traffic problems to the city. "Many ‘crazy’ projects under way" dared to write the Turkish paper Hurriyet describing the ceremony that "ended with collective prayers both to commemorate martyrs and to celebrate the 560th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul". Those "collective prayers" are typical of the road Ertogan has taken and difficult to ignore in a secular state with a long muslim past and neighbors. Combined with his indifference for any enviromental issues, they caused alarm.

And third, more tree felling at the Gezi Park in the centre of the European side of this amazing city, Taksim square where city planners decided to create an immense cement parking lot with a shopping Mall that is not really needed or wanted.

This parking lot with a Mall was a self destructing idea for the Ertogan government. It is in Taksim square, the Beyoglu, Pera aria where westerners used to live since before the conquest. There most Embassies and the foreign prestigious schools are located which, along with the numerous hotels, clubs and sightseeing passers-by, have made it the ideal spot for demonstrations in a country that police brutality is the norm and there is no news coverage of any resentment or anti-government ideas.

So it was as usual on Friday but what started as a peaceful sitting protest in Gezi park in Istanbul's Taksim, escalated when the police used tear gas (from photos of the metal containers it appears to be a dangerous kind forbidden in the EU) and a water cannon on thousands of protesters who were marching from the east to the west side of the city over the Bosphorus river bridge to join the demonstrations.

As the police dropped tear-gas canisters from helicopters overnight "about half past one the entire city started to reverberate. People were banging on pots, pans, blowing whistles" we heard from the BBC World Service. 40.000 people crossed the bridge between Asia and Europe yesterday and the BBC correspondent Louise Greenwood in Istanbul said "police from as far afield as Antalya are being drafted in to help quell the violence". Taksim and bridges remain closed to traffic but in Ankara hundreds gathered at a park defiantly drinking alcohol in public as a protest to the recent government restrictions. Amnesty International* has already condemned the "police's tactics".

But while police forces are being drafted and protesters gathering Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted in a speech that the park project would go ahead. He also said that police would remain in Taksim Square to preserve order.

His arrogance is not surprising but, as it is unususal to find a serious author or journalist (of any persuation) who hasn't been arrested at least once, maybe he should take these massive protests more seriously.

As I write (Sunday 2.00 p.m) in Turkey there has been no news coverage about the unrest. I 've just talked with a Turkish friend who implored me to write that the demonstrations have spread to Ankara, Smyrna, Manisa, and other areas. It is not about a small park anymore but it is an eruption of the rage the people have been suppressing over the authoritarian policies, the religious interventions and the political repression to which they have been subjected for too long along with the suspicions (and long experience) of corruption.

It took me some hours to write this. Meanwhile a Turkish friend posted this in his Facebook Page:

PLEASE SHARE IT IF U LOVE TURKEY, IF U LOVE ISTANBUL...... EVEN IF U DON'T LIKE ME ...Extreme police violence is everywhere in Turkey right now. Especially in Istanbul. The government is waging a chemical war on people. Thousands of civilians are heavily injured. People are on the streets everywhere, but it's not enough. Please spread this message and raise awareness about the police brutality in Turkey. The government must step back immediately.____________

___________________________From Amnesty International:

*More than a hundred protesters are reported to have been injured during police interventions. Some suffered head injuries and at least two people had to receive emergency surgery.

Amnesty International activists who were observing the protest were also hit with truncheons and tear gassed.

“The use of violence by police on this scale appears designed to deny the right to peaceful protest altogether and to discourage others from taking part” said John Dalhuisen, Director of Europe and Central Asia Program at Amnesty International.

“The use of tear gas against peaceful protestors and in confined spaces where it may constitute a serious danger to health is unacceptable, breaches international human rights standards and must be stopped immediately.”

____________________________

Into the Fire - The Hidden Victims of Austerity in Greece

Thu, 9 May 2013 09:05:38 -0400

Tough Times for Journalism - Kostas Vaxevanis

Sat, 6 Apr 2013 11:04:56 -0400

Kostas Vaxevanis, the editor of Hot Doc, the Greek magazine which published the 'Lagarde list' of alleged Greek tax avoiders, faces trials on a charge of breaching private data. We know in Greece that the local journalism has been compromised by its corrupt owners who have got too close to the politicians it should be exposing. Even after exposures the politicians chose the supposedly high road of pressing charges so that they will legally avoid to give answers publicly. Trials take years, journalists are prosecuted or blackmailed.

It is a dangerous situation for a country when the people have to read the foreign press for information. We have old experience of this kind of thing. We dd it under the German Occupation, during the civil war and under the various dictatorships of the past century. We know exactly what it says for our media, our government and our citizens' rights, and, it is very scary for our future.

Greek investigative journalist Kostas Vaxevanis was awarded the 2012 Index on Censorship Journalism award, sponsored by the Guardian.

Here is an extract from his acceptance speech:

'Journalism is often either invested with magic powers or blamed for all that is wrong in the world. Both positions are wrong. Journalism is the way, lonely most of the times, of truth. Often colleagues discuss journalistic objectivity as a mausoleum where we kneel down. There is no objectivity. What matters is the decency of our subjectivity: how decent, honest and professional we stay in a world where everything is relative. How determined we are to fight against set-ups in this world of overloaded information.

It is often said: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want to print. Everything else is public relations." This has to be done with respect for human rights and people's dignity. Nevertheless it has to be done.

For the past few years, journalism in Greece has had nothing to do with the truth. A corrupted elite rules the country. At its centre lie businessmen who are unaccountable. They act as they please and usually make deals with the government. The politicians then legislate as if they were common mobsters, in order to serve and many times legitimise those businessmen. In the end, the journalists reveal nothing.

There are countless examples. My arrest is one of them. For two years the government stubbornly refused to use the Lagarde list of possible tax dodgers. When I published it, I was arrested by the special branch and led to court. I was acquitted but the district attorney's office cancelled the court's decision as it was probably expecting a different one. Around the same time, the Guardian disclosed the fact that the Greek police had tortured individuals. The Greek media did not mention anything. The Greek minister came to sue the newspaper on account of telling the truth.

A few days earlier, Hot Doc, the magazine I publish, had revealed the fact that the director of New Democracy, the political party that is led by the Greek prime minister, had been an affiliate of the Greek junta. The government refused to answer. The Greek media made no reference to this fact. Yet the Greek constitution demands respect to the press.

The Greek Republic has become a crossbred republic. You have the right to vote every four years, but those who govern pass provocative laws, for which the public will hear nothing from the media. The ministers themselves are in a constant state of impunity because of a phenomenal law that grants them immunity.

Media barons work in close partnership with the political system. They define what is legal and what should become known to the public. Recently, Reuters had a very harsh experience after trying to conduct a research on the state of the Greek media. An attack was launched against Reuters to make it appear as if wanted to destroy Greece.

It is often said in Greece that there is no muzzling of the press since Vaxevanis can write whatever he wants. But freedom of the press is not defined by a snapshot of the greater narrative but by the environment in which journalism can operate.

We launched Hot Doc exactly one year ago. Apart from the legal adventures we have faced so far, they've also tried to make us appear as journalists of a specific political shade, unreliable and collaborating with the secret services. Five people attacked me in my home and the Greek police made it look like an attempted burglary. They try to intimidate and eliminate any independent voice. Even though Greeks are eating from the garbage bins, the Greek National Council for Radio and Television prohibited TV from showing pictures of poverty.

We live in a European Union of stark contrasts. Europe cannot overlook its culture or its tradition of freedom. I'm proud I was born in a country that gave birth to democracy and civilisation. But democracy is like bicycle: if you don't move forward, you will fall. Journalism today is not about recording the facts. It ought to be a battle against barbarity and obscurity. On this continent we must rediscover the universal ideas and of course the role of journalism.

On 6 June I will stand trial again for the disclosure of the Lagarde list. I don't know what the outcome of the trial will be. I want to state that if I am going to be convicted I will not appeal but I will ask to be put in jail. I want to be a journalist in a country that is not afraid of the truth. I care for the truth of the people not that of a caste of corrupted politicians and businessmen. I do not want the people of my country to read foreign newspapers to learn what happened in their own country, as it was happening during the junta. I don't want myself or any other journalist to in danger, because of what I reveal. I don't want to be in danger of being presented as a "suspicious" journalist, just for stating self-evident facts, by the very propagandists of the power structure that brought my country on the edge. I want to be able to say what I think without the risk of my physical or psychological damage.

They want a journalism that is muzzled, we want a socially sensitive and truthful journalism. '

___________

speech from: The Guardian

Hands Off Cyprus

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:03:55 -0400

Lets make #HandsOffCyprus a worldwide trend! Show #Solidarity to #Europe for people not Balance Sheets and the Banksters.

We are not going to pay for the excesses of the banks. We don't owe, we won't pay.

Goldmines in Greece? Really?

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 08:02:36 -0500

I started this blog when my country started getting bad press, even from our Prime Minister who (and that's a world first) instead of staying here to find solutions, started traveling all over the world on army or private jets to explain to the whole world that the Greeks who voted for him are lazy little zorbas, thieves and crooks.

I started this blog because I wanted to give our perspective, to describe the injustice, the poverty, the degradation of our lives and dignity.

But we were helpless. The country has already been sold to foreign companies. The ancient mountains were burned and then sold cheaply to hotel chains. The unbearable taxes force us to sell, not for profit, only to avoid the tax.

I do not have the heart to describe the pain anymore. I do it through my poetry and my everyday stance but it gets painfuly complicated to describe it to you, to ask you to imagine our fear and anxiety, our helplessness and distrust.

I wish I had the time and heart to tell you more. I cannot, it pains me. So I let others speak, I give you videos.

We have been promised Gold. Yes, Gold. Mines, at one of the most beautiful ancient forests of Europe. The local people do not want them. We know how miners live and who gets the riches. We know (as is heard by a local woman in this video) that gold is sold, land is forever. How long will we stand? Is there a chance of winning this new war?