REVISTA ORGANISMO PARQUE AUGUSTA #2 _bienal-sp 25.11.2014 ENGLISH TXTS 2 (R)EXISTS PARQUE AUGUSTA WITHOUT BUILDINGS *OPA 4 THE PARQUE AUGUSTA AND THE DEMOLITION OF THE BIRDS *AMER MOUSSA 6 ABOUT THE STRUGGLES IN THE CITY: A PROPOSAL FOR A DIRECT ACTION FOR THE PARQUE AUGUSTA. *ACACIO AUGUSTO 9 THE URBAN ROOTS OF GEZI, ISTANBUL *YASAR ADANALI 10 RECLAIMING, RETHINKING, RE-PRODUCING SPACE AND DEMOCRACY *YASAR ADANALI 12 ABOUT THE AUTHORS 16 BURLE MARX COPACABANA 1
(R)EXISTS PARQUE AUGUSTA WITHOUT BUILDINGS The Parque Augusta is a diverse, nonpartisan, horizontal movement of citizens fighting for the preservation of the last green, permeable and free spaces in the city of São Paulo. The movement struggling for the park also want their management made by the people because in this way we see the possibility of other forms of organization, management and awareness of the city by its citizens and for them: emancipation, appropriation and direct democracy. We know the historical moment in which we are and understand our struggle as a result of a number of factors, but primarily as a reaction to the action state and economic complicity that transformed the city into a commodity along the recent decades, culminating with the urban crisis that reaches its limits. We know that our struggle is global, and we are already networked. About PARQUE AUGUSTA The last free green area in the city center of São Paulo, which has a grove with remaining trees of the Atlantic Forest, better known as Parque Augusta, hosts a popular mobilization that lasts more than 40 years and hinders the implementation of projects in this this terrain.After being sanctioned the Law for the creation of the Municipal Park called Parque Augusta in its entire area in December 2013, the access to the area was closed illegally by the owners of the land and so it is today. This closure of this access is illegal because at the registration of this land the guarantee of public access was signed through Terms of Commitment to the City decades ago. In the first phase of the new Master Plan 2014 the Parque Augusta is already a park to be deployed. Now in the second phase of the plan the goal is to assure it as “ZEPAM” (Zone of Special Environmental Protection) in the Law of Use and Occupancy of the land. There have been several attempts of projects for the area: a hotel, a supermarket, a nursery, a museum and more recently developments of housing projects with offices and shops of high standard. None of these projects has been approved and this happens mainly due to the pressure from residents and visitors of the park, and because it is not possible to approve a new development on this place. The demolition in 1974 of the old building of the College des Oiseaux built on this park was never regularized, which prevents the approval of new projects according to the rules prevailing today at City Hall of São 2
Paulo - is a classic example of “a white elephant” of city. The single project today in the approval process at City Hall in São Paulo, different from what has been reported in the media by the developers, is a venture with three towers that occupy 60% of the park area and the other remaining 40% will become a private garden at this project, and there is no indication of public access to the green atlantic forest area. This project includes five underground levels, contradicting the proposed area of intensification of density at the axes of mobility foreseen in the new master plan of the city that encourages the use of public transport and restricts the amount of parking spaces. For this venture be enabled, the removal of several trees is necessary, including some centenary ones. There are no studies on Urban and Environmental Impacts of this enterprise at the infrastructure of the region and the local environment. The logic of the market can not override the laws of the city and the desire of the population. If the current goals of the city encourage densification in certain areas with the objective of optimizing the existing infrastructure, it is necessary ensuring the immediate guarantee of empty areas that are still free, the remaining green areas and the ones with potential for regeneration. The parks are essential and priority throughout the territory of São Paulo. It is also necessary to put more careful criteria for this density, to prevent the demolition of historic buildings to not decharacterizes the identity and the landscape of the various regions of the city and not run the risk of gentrification with the removal of existing residents for the arrival of people from higher classes. PARQUE AUGUSTA AND DIALOGUE WITH PUBLIC POWER There have been several attempts at dialogue with the municipal authorities on the environmental importance and the popular desire on the Parque Augusta. The movement participated in conversations with councilors and public hearings, with Parliamentary Front for Sustainability, which has pledged to take the agenda of the Parque Augusta to the mayor. Strong pressure on the CONPRESP (City Council for preservation of historic, cultural and environmental Heritage of the City of São Paulo)to not allow changing the law which preserves the area as it was the desire of the developers. Currently the Mayor elected as a public mediator of Parque Augusta movement , the Department of Culture, which for months has been delaying our requests of dialog and now finally begins to be willing to officially start this dialogue. Recently there was another attempt to talk with the mayor Haddad. After numerous requests for scheduling this meeting, it has not yet occurred. The only feedback so far from the Government is that the city has no money for the expropriation of Augusta Park and it is not a priority for the city. The people defending the Parque Augusta is against the expropriation of the area having as para-
meter the payment of the amount set by speculative international financial market that burdens the budget of the Municipality. Unlike what has been exposed by the media, the current ownership of the land is not by the developers Setin-Cyrela, but by European developers Albratoz and Flamingo Investments (respectively Portuguese and Spanish companies). The exploration of our city nowadays occurs through alliances among the elite of power internationally. As has been reported by the movement for the Parque Augusta: there are other forms of expropriation of the area: the transfer of the constructive potential, settlement of the area by the public debt of the city or also through the compensation for the city of accomplices banks of the deviations of public funds in previous administrations. And here lies the question: how can we measure the value of a park in the metropolis São Paulo? How much is a centennial tree or the oxygen it produces for whom lives in this city? How to enforces the social function of property and the right to the city when it proves that the governments complicity in the international capital that destroys our city and our lives? PARQUE AUGUSTA AS A SYMBOL OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL DISREGARD Parque Augusta is essential to the environmental balance of the metropolis as a whole. The urbanization of the city is absolutely exploratory and destructive. Rivers were buried, there is little permeable areas in the city center, we suffer with constant floods, the green areas are scarce and mostly located in medium and high class neighborhoods. The buildings dominate the landscape without any rigor or limitation, many of them even find the groundwater to its foundations and basements and end draining the water and throwing it in the sewer, as now occurs daily on Rua Augusta during the greatest water crisis. We are at a historic backlog over administrations, in care of the city and the environment. It is unacceptable to continue this logic if we want water and oxygen, and mental and physical health for the citizens! Today we are witnessing the greatest water crisis in the city. Never before we had to use the dead volume of the reservoirs for water supply in São Paulo. It is worth remembering that trees and green areas are responsible for both production of rainfall as by its absorption, and the maintenance of oxygen in the atmosphere.
Parque Augusta or in any other remaining green area in the city, simply because we have reached a minimum threshold of free spaces to the proliferation of public spaces with trees and plants. And at this exact moment, all approved or in approval projects on these areas should be immediately paralyzed, starting by them with illegal or irregular designs, as in the case of Parque Augusta. Does the priority of the city is not what it is IRREVERSIBLE, ESSENTIAL and COMMON for all? Trees, fields, green, rain, water, oxygen are also not priority? We understand the Parque Augusta as a symbol! For being the last area of Atlantic Forest in the city center of São Paulo, because we are in the midst of the water crisis, we’re at the limit of exploitation of the land, the city and the nature by the collusion between government and international capital. We want a public park, 100% green, self-managed and we want it to be the turning point to a new way to live in the city: conscious and democratic! This is the agenda of Parque Augusta and other Parks and Green Areas Threatened in this city: Parque dos Parque Búfalos, Parque Águas Espraiadas, Parque da Brasilândia, Parque Burle Marx, Parque Chácara do Jockey, Parque M’boi Imirim, Parque Manancial, Parque Paiol, Parque da Mooca, Parque Chácara da Fonte no Morro do Querosene, Praça da Nascente, Praça da Paixão, Parque do Panamby, Parque do Peruche, Parque Pinheiros, Parque Primaveira, Parque São Miguel Paulista, Parque da Vila Emma.....
PARQUE AUGUSTA AND ALL ENDANGERED GREEN AREAS OF SÃO PAULO Lately the Augusta Park is connecting to other parks, endangered green areas and other movements of the city. Earlier this year the New Parks SP Network (Rede Novos Parques SP) platform was created with the objective of mapping the endangered green areas, systematizing and reverberating environmental, legal and urban information aiming to strengthen the arguments that guarantee the social function of these areas and link them towards a common agenda expressing the importance of these areas for the present and the future of our city. There must be no construction of buildings in the 3
THE PARQUE AUGUSTA AND THE DEMOLITION OF THE BIRDS Follow the chapters of the Parque Augusta novel. This time the dispute is between the real estate companies Setin and Cyrela developers, the city council and the heritage department called Conpresp. The real estate companies applied for permission to build towers in the area envelopment the woods, whose resolution of the heritage department stipulates a maximum height. Originally, the definition of a protected surrounding area of the historical heritage patrimony emerged with the goal of ensuring its visibility. The Conpresp signaled that it is not possible to change the resolution “without an exceptional event,” which prevents the new project of the real estate developer being realized. Amid the impasse, the question remains: the state must protect only the visibility of listed buildings? Of course not. Enable the memory requires more than creating conditions for the document, project or object can be seen optically, only. Conceptually known thanks to numerous conferences since the post-war, the ambience should also be considered in equity. In the case of the Parque Augusta, a significant approach has been overlooked, the existence of College Des Oiseaux and the consequent educational vocation of the place. For over sixty years (1907-1969) there was at the park one of the most traditional schools of São Paulo bourgeoisie. Geared for families of landowners and government officials, specialized in women’s education, it was an aim for the institution to spread the savoir-vivre - learn to dress themselves, eat properly, speak French and mainly have a polite conversation, in short, the essential social life activities at this time. No wonder many former students had outstanding public life, as Ruth Cardoso (important public figure) and Marta Suplicy (former Culture Minister by Dilma Roussef). The residence that housed the school was designed in 1902 by Victor Dubugras, a french architect based in Brazil. Built in eclectic style, the “Vila Uchôa” brought together a mix of elements distasteful and technical prowess, reflecting the ideology of the newly enriched coffee elite. Wild ornaments permeated the entire interior of the building, as in the dining room, whose walls exhibit exuberant paintings of brazilian flowers and fruits. At the same time, there was a beautiful outer casing of the cable-stayed automobile metallic structure. The windows of the mansion were closed by modern roller shutters, no curtains - probably the first of its kind to be used in São Paulo. 4 12 – junho//2014
The shape of the mansion was impressive, when compared to its peers contemporaries, one realizes that few were so beyond the orthogonality. The predominance of a rectangular austerity of the open details contrasted with the opulence elements in high relief, applied only to the tower and the main entrance. The economic smoothness of sober prisms was gently subverted, which guaranted a certain originality to the place. Already at those times, the critics recognized a rationalist orientation of the building, placing it at in a line with major international masters such as the catalan Gaudy and the north american Frank Lloyd Wright. The mansion can be considered a precursor of the work what would later be called “the Paulista School of Architecture”, with language guided by the truth of the material. “Granite is real granite. Coatings of mortar not elude, and every piece of wood is there with its own color, with only a protective layer of clear varnish,” describes the architect. Augusto de Toledo to the Polytechnic Magazine in 1905. In 1907, the Vila Uchôa is sold by the homonymous family to the nuns of St. Augustine of Belgium, who transfer to the palace, the college founded recently in Brazil. Set back from the street with large front and side gardens, the institution related to the forest such as a school playground. The green was part of the experience - unlike schools of the First Republic, which had directly access to the sidewalk. The monumental entrance to the Des Oiseaux school configured a sideshow: it was a kind of famous when the students leave the school, properly uniformed with pleated skirts and knee high socks accompanied by their chauffeurs. In 1969, the nuns ended the activities of the school and move to the Morumbi neighbourhood - where they remain till today. After being sold, the the building are darkly demolished, leaving only the wood, the walls which delimitated the ground and the gatehouse of the building. The disappearance of the building took with it a significant chunk of the culture of city. The news was received with great regret by many. Coincidentally or not, several educational institutions re-exists on the surroundings, as the Mackenzie Presbyterian University, the University Centro Maria Antonia, the Sion College, the Instituto Sedes Sapientiae and the College Visconde de Porto Seguro - the last three listed by Condephaat for its historical and architectural values. Such an arrangement sets the axis Roosevelt - Caio Prado – Higienópolis as an important pole of knowledge. In this sense, the actions of Conpresp must be in support of educational potential of the Park, against mere financial exploitation. Several populational groups have proposed and developed environmental education activities on campus. Only so the state will be contributing to the generation of relevant cultural values. Otherwise, what is believed to be an patrimony,
devoid of any social vocation is to prove only a poor remnant of forest. References – Miyoshi, Alex. Victor Dubugras, architect of the paths. Campinas: Magazine RHAA, 12. – PEROSA, Graziela Serroni. Learning social differences: class, gender and body in a school for girls. Pagu notebooks (26), from January to June 2006: pp.87-111. – REIS, Nestor Goulart. Rationalism and Protomodernism in the work of Victor Dubugras. São Paulo: FBSP 1997. – TOLEDO, Benedito Lima. São Paulo: three cities in three centuries. São Paulo: COSAC Naify, 2007.
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ABOUT THE STRUGGLES IN THE CITY: A PROPOSAL FOR A DIRECT ACTION FOR THE PARQUE AUGUSTA. I would like first to thank the people with whom I shared for a few weeks of July, discussions about the struggle that rages around the opening the gates and the implementation of the Parque Augusta. It was these conversations, somewhat unpretentious, that brought me to this debate. Now I like to mention that I do not speak here on behalf of anyone or anything. Thus I emphasize what interests me in this fight: the possibility of restoring the physical space called Parque Augusta for use by stakeholders. Thus it is possible to think about the construction of an unusual space and its diverse use, on the one hand, to prevent the construction of more tacky and gray towers among many in town and on the other hand, states the possibility of existence of a space in which people, motivated by various interests, may try something wild. Therefore, we speak of a struggle against, but also an affirmative effort. In a word, we speak of struggle. A fight that turns against the capital which seeks to build new estate ventures and against the State which see in a space like Parque Augusta just another social facilities to cater the demands of public policy raised by citizens. This text read at the First Forum Parque Augusta, aims only punctuate, for a free talk, the struggles and the forms of struggle that we can start around the park and in favor of free ways of inhabiting the city. The struggles and captures When we talk about a fight, we must reject the main enemy: the willingness to negotiate. When launching into a fight there is not much to speculate, or the person cooperates or combats. There is no neutrality, fair middle or zero sum game. Someone will be defeated. The rhetoric of win-win, features of the current discourse of neoliberal rationality is a fallacy. Here we have a very specific struggle, very clear and very simple and therefore very potent.
It quests to open the gates and the overthrow of the walls. It’s that or nothing. I wouldn’t like here to make long digressions, but in the last 15 years we have seen such struggles with this form of punctual and immediate claim, proven it powerful across the planet. The embers of the fire of June 2013 still burns enough to remember that. However, these struggles bring along a critical power that goes beyond their immediate targets. When we fight, for example, for the Parque Augusta, we note that we are also against a constellation of principles, rules, regulations, world view, ways of life that collide in the city daily. A worldview that sees beauty in buildings and avenues against a way of life that sees beauty in the absence of walls and the presence of trees, in the possibility of a space to live and breathe. This builds freely and dwells in power, every person who is not silent in face of inauthenticity, oppression, misery and smallness that shapes the first. This constellation listed above accommodates in an order, this order is projected on two well -known figures of anyone here: capitalism and the state. So we would like to emphasize that the struggle that brought us here this sunny Sunday, should also be fighting these two figures. The fact that it is punctual, direct and an immediate possibility of giving them a anarchic character which refuses negotiations and mediations prime the anti-political form of resistance posed by anarchists since the nineteenth century: direct action and the experiences of self-management. And this is not about an imperative moral. Positioning ourselves against the State and the capitalism implies being against the form of social, political and economical interaction, that those two laic gods engenders and are today hypertrophied by neoliberal rationality. At the same time, to drives itself outside the standards and requirements that are provided to us, so to conduct ourselves in the construction of a self out of neoliberal rationality. And this is not always easy, in fact, almost it is never easy. As we have recently followed by the street demonstrations, it relates to a struggle that causes reactions, resentment and invariably,violence by the more varied forms and intensities. However, the repressive assaults of society against what is different, unusual, bizarre, is just the most visible part of this fight. Because there are strategies of embarrassment or consensus more elusive, programmatic, subtle. And, therefore, more effective, against those who by instinct or decision precludes a worldview that is offered to them since their birth. In that sense, it’s always more interesting to think not from the negative form of repression and injustice but by the positive way that leads us to question how men and women accept being governed. More specifically how to surrender willingly to obedience. This would be one way, nothing prescriptive, to remain alert that the fight not turn a negotiation, bargaining, game, business, in a word: politics. According to the modern form that was given to this word. If we were in this city a hundred years ago when the anarchist struggles shook the stillness of the obedient, we would say that the revolution has to stop being
political and being affirmed as a social revolution. What I say is that we need to keep on and take seriously the power of revolt so that we are not swayed by passion to power. Lest we take our struggle as something that can be mediated by institutions or lost in countless negotiations. An example of the ability to capture that feature our enemies that use various ruses to quell the fighting, we had right here in this space two years ago, in the mobilizations around the municipal elections of 2012 for the city of São Paulo. Faced with the imnent victory of a conservative candidate, a mobilization of civil society by involving workers in the creative industry (especially musicians, actors, students and university professors), drew a series of demonstrations and campaigns on social networks by the need of love opposition to the current and growing conservativeness. While other factors have contributed more decisively to defeating conservative candidate, the fact is that the mobilization felt victorious, noting the presence of love in the city, following the second round and encouraging, even as it continued saying be nonpartisan, the victory of the candidate of the largest coreligionist party machinery of the country, that also holds the federal government. Fighting the very bad, through possible policy, and with love, advances in the name of improvement. This search for the less worse and that possible acceptance, can stifle our energies and make us into professional activists who pragmatically assess possibilities and end negotiating the non-negotiable. In the specific case of the struggle around which we are today we want the park, not private neither public but free. Neither more nor less. And I think before negotiating, if we have the strength to do this, we have to practice the direct action and occupy the land, our way. The non-partisanship, or even counter-partisanship rather a counterstance is today, in politics, the new name of neutrality, which, as you know, always favors whoever is in charge. Follows that, in my reading, to go beyond that arises as a renewal of the policy, we must invent other forms of struggle that are also other forms of life. Nothing neutral, the power of a punctual fight is exactly in the clarity of what we want, I repeat, the Parque Augusta Park opened, the walls on the floor. A warning about the principles How does this poses to a specific struggle, here and now? There is a material gathered in a magazine format, circulating among you, who gives a good edge to start a conversation. In the magazine of Organismo Parque Augusta, you find it very clearly, the principles, objectives and actors involved in the fight, plus other productions that inspire and inform about the existence of the park. I will comment briefly on these points as a way to end my presentation here. I emphasize the principles of horizontality, permaculture (associated with sustainability) and direct democracy. It is known as the horizontality shown today, in many areas, from the state government to
corporate governance, as a means to renew dominations as sustainability, as its outstanding dubiousness in the magazine itself, is a great way of renewal of capitalism. Therefore every alert in the way of use these concepts and practices is not enough, if we want to shirk the catch, if we want the struggle be direct and nonnegotiable we need to be alert. Direct democracy is more complicated, insofar as, even if pronounced and used rhetorically by demagogues, these lackeys of the mob, consisted, if practiced effectively in a strong weapon against the varied representations. In this sense, it must be critically elaborated how to conjugates direct democracy with characteristic elements of representative and participatory politics as “radical transparency”, “global citizenship” and “pluralism.” Democracy fosters freedom, but its exercise in a direct way, without representations, not coupled with pluralism, consensus and transparency. These are practical elements that constituted the control society. Direct democracy is a practice that values difference, dissensus and opposes itself to the monopoly of the secret that guarantees the power of bureaucrats and professional politicians. As for goals, beyond those already outlined above, I would draw attention to the notion of public space. Perhaps somewhat simplistically what I say, but under the rule of capitalism and the State there is no public space, everything is State. This operates and manages in partnership (that word so trendy) with the interests of capital and capitalists. To notice this, simply observe the Roosevelt Square in São Paulo, how to speak in public or social function of a social space equipment, when armed agents of the state are ready to act if something upsets them or hurts the law? I suggest that we start to think of open spaces, free zones, even if in a temporary way. But that this open to spaces liberated permanently. After its revival (another trendy word), the Roosevelt Square became the square of the police, and everything done in it, the agents of the Metropolitan Guard and the Military Police in the fight occurs. Just remember two videos that recently circulated on the internet, one of the metropolitan agent wearing his civil clothes beating a skater and another of the military police surrounding the square and arresting a lawyer amid a public demonstration. Finally, the actors. Words, concepts, analyzes and interpretations are not creations of enlightened that, for one reason or another, forge them as a pure exercise of thought and reflection. They are the product of historical struggles, hard-fought battles and often inglorious disputes. Therefore, the public power in its various forms (legislative, executive and judiciary), and the owners know very well that they were inserted in a fight, pacified by political representations as a guarantee of their interests. That is why, they try to take this struggle to the field in which they are stronger, thus have some assurance that regardless of outcome, they will gain. 7
Therefore, rather than an effort to seek protagonism, we must de-individualize and ask ourselves in what field it is possible to assert our power. This is the impasse that arises in what may be, from now, a new moment of this struggle. And it’s for real! An open conclusion or the air we breathe. As warned once the philosopher Michel Foucault, “Grow the action, the thought, and the desires by proliferation, juxtaposition and disjunction rather than by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchy. (...) Do not demand of the political action that it restore the “rights” of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product of the power. What is needed is “de-individualize” by multiplying the displacement and the various mediations. The group should not be the organic bond uniting the hierarchized individuals, but a constant generator of “de-individualization.” (...) “And above all,” Do not fall in love with power. “(My emphasis). This first Parque Augusta Forum, held in due course as a way to reactivate the struggles and in the wake of the events of June 2013, is the beginning of a conversation that must be unfolded. It is not only about this park, although its power is in its particular struggle. Big cities, across the planet, have become places impossible to live. We live in them as if trapped in the open and surrounded by police, in uniform or not, electronic surveillance cameras, multiple access control, intense urban mobility. Capitalism, from its beginnings, requires movement. Today, it wants more, require participation, denunciations, that everyone is always young, innovative, creative, fast. Having a space, not yet sealed by asphalt, in which you can stop by, have picnics, meetings, assemblies, evening parties, dancing, playing with children or simply relax and enjoy is a resistance to current times. Refuse suffocating aridity of life in big cities is to undermine the foundations of this monitored and hyper-conected life which is required in contemporary capitalism. Stop, breathe, stand, rest, is to deny the imperative of the State government which is summarized in the police command directed to any group that are deemed suspicious: “circling, circling ...”. To resist the police imperative of circulating, don’t need to be something sullen, angry or resentful, it’s only about to respond without fear or apprehension to the order agent: “No. I’m right here. “Stay and breathe. This is the few possible that some may create with the Parque Augusta. A possibility that resists the suffocating imposed life by living in big cities. That the trees and the land remain and that the concrete does not arrive! São Paulo, August 24, 2014
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THE URBAN ROOTS OF GEZI, ISTANBUL TOPLUMUN ŞEHIRCILIK HAREKETI / SEPTEMBER 2013 Toplumun Şehircilik Hareketi is an activist from IMECE, an urban grassroots organization fighting for democratic and egalitarian urba- nization in Turkey. Formed in 2006, IMECE has been involved in various struggles against neoliberal urban projects in the central and peripheral neighborhoods of Turkish cities including the Gezi Park protests. It is now a truism to state that the Gezi Park Revolt in Istanbul, represented much more than a resistance against the demolition of a public park. It has articulated long-time grievances, mostly cultural in their content, against Erdogan’s neolibe- ral and socially conservative government. On May 28th when a handful of urban activists and environmentalists resisted the municipal bulldozers entering Gezi Park at Taksim Square, they had no idea that their defense of the park would lead to the biggest urban revolt of Turkish history during which 2.5 million people in 79 cities took the streets at the very least.1 At the heart of the initial conflict was an urban redevelopment scheme that has planned the construction of the replica of 19th century Ottoman Barracks called Topçu Kışlası to be used as a shopping mall. This was part of a broader urban plan of transforming Taksim Square contested by the urban activists in the year prior to the protests. Between May 28th and May 31st, activists put up peaceful resistance, organized sit-ins, and camped out in the park, each time with growing numbers in the face of persistent and ever more brutal police violence. This escalating urban conflict took place in the political context of increasingly blatant authoritarianism [1] Estimates of Ministry of Interior Affairs in “2.5 milyon insan 79 ilde sokağa indi” Milliyet Gazetesi, June 23, 2013. of the government which was manifest in various acts including a recent law restricting the sale of alcohol, government censorship on media pertaining to a massacre in Reyhanli near the Syrian border, and the police crackdown on May 1st demonstrations among many others. In this socio-political context, invested with meaning transcending the original protest, Gezi both as a symbol and a concrete physical space has become a nodal point representing the frustrations of a heterogeneous mass of people with the consolidating authoritarianism in Turkey and their democratic aspirations. Although this argument certainly has a merit, it does not do full justice to the urban specificity of
the Gezi protests. We must ask how has the Gezi Park resis- tance acquired this incredible capacity for representation in the absence of an organized campaign to invest it with such significance? Was there anything immanent to Gezi Park resistance that made the fierce police crackdown on ini- tial protestors resonate with the broader public more easily than all-too- routine incidents of the same sort? Neoliberal Urbanization under AKP  We think that the distinct role of the urban question came to occupy in contemporary Turkey under Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule 2 is central to our understanding of the Gezi Rebellion. More succinctly, we argue that the urban policy arena has become the microcosm revealing AKP’s broader authoritarian mode of ruling. For urban citizens, Gezi was indeed the all-too-evident but also physically accessible manifestation of this mode of ruling that has been engraved on the physical and social space of the city in the last decade. This authorita- rian mode of ruling was in many ways the political requirement of the political economic functions the urban policy started playing in the AKP period (2003-) as a key mechanism for generating economic growth and distributing material favors. More than any other government in Turkey’s history, AKP utilized the urban policy tools for its broader neoliberal economic growth-oriented policy. In doing so, not only it drastically changed the institutional and legal setting but more importantly unsettled the long entrenched patterns of urbanization. Increasingly, the radical make up of the urban fabric started enmeshed in Neo- Ottoman aesthetics as a discursive strategy of reconciling blatant neoliberal consumerism with conservative populism that constitute the contradictory poli- tical ideology of AKP. [2] AKP is an offshoot of the Islamist movement, which came into being in 2001 when a faction led by Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul broke away from the Virtue Party and joined forces with center-right cadres. The party won 34 percent of the votes in 2002 general elections, formed a single party government and has remained in power for three terms by increasing its vote shares. The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, currently under AKP rule, has been run by mayors from the Islamist tradition since Erdogan’s election as a mayor from Islamist Welfare Party in 1994 local elections.   Urban populism was a key tenet of the Islamist movement in the 1990s and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as the mayor of Istanbul, was its most popular face. When AKP under Erdogan rose to power in 2003, this focus on urban policy took a new neoliberal shift within the austerity conditions of the post 2001 crisis era. AKP embarked on a neoliberal urban agenda that reconfigured urban policy as the key tool for economic growth/capital accumulation. This included massive infrastructural investments, penchant for mega projects, massive sale of public assets to private investors, an urban redevelopment agenda 9
targeting working class and popular neighborhoods in the center and the periphery, ultimately a policy logic that prioritized the valorization of urban rent more than any other concern with public good. Social housing policy within this policy landscape emerged as a tool to relocate the urban poor and a relatively quick and concrete fix to manufacture the image of a party that is “accomplishing things”. It could be argued that it served a limited lower middle class constituency. AKP’s urban policy agenda seeks to address three distinct objectives: boosting economic growth and employment, addressing the demands of the major deve- lopers and nurturing a pro-AKP contractor class, and manufacturing the populist image of a party serving its constituencies. As urban scholars often noted, urban neoliberalism often requires authoritarian mode of ruling in order to circumvent the popular pressures that might be challenging it. This is more so the case when urban policy is conceived as an instrument of transferring massive public assets and wealth to a new crony capitalist class. Under AKP, this was not simply limited to the formation of entrepreneurial municipal governance; it instead meant a major institutional transformation that re-scaled urban policy-making to the central state authority. After 16 legal changes, the Housing Development Administration (TOKI), directly connected to the Office of the Prime Minister, emerged as an urban leviathan with draconic powers over the use and distribu- tion of urban lands and public assets. Not only it acquired the command over all public lands and the right to sell and develop them for private sector projects, but it was also granted the permission to keep its public auctions outside of any accountability mechanism, most importantly that of Court of Auditors. Through two laws on urban renewal of historic neighborhoods and poor and dilapidated zones, TOKI in collaboration with the metropolitan and district municipalities gained the capacity to demolish the valorized working class neighborhoods, relocate the “entitled” residents under the terms of long term debt and open the emptied lands to large-scale urban development projects. After 2010, the Ministry of Urbanism acquired these exceptional rights over the entire country through a “disaster law” enacted purportedly to take precautions against the looming earthquake. The outcome of these laws under the conditions of high financial liquidity was a construction spree not leaving a single area untouched, including the globally cherished vista of the historical peninsula. The monotonous construction of low quality public housing complexes across the urban landscape of Turkey accompanied these private projects and the demolition of squatter and historical neighborhoods became common news. The mega projects seeking to privatize and redevelop such public assets and spaces like ports, train stations, schools and open to construction remaining forest areas were personally branded as “crazy projects” by Erdogan himself. He was the one taking the helicopter ride to decide the exact location of the Third Bosphorus Bridge, and presenting the projects of building a new canal, satellite city and an airport on the remaining green areas 10
and water basins of Istanbul, the grandest mosque of Turkey on the Camlica hill overlooking the Bosphorus and finally a shopping mall dressed as a revived Ottoman Barracks replacing Gezi Park. Thus urban authoritarianism was quite visibly associated with the figure of Prime Minister Erdogan. Moreover, the cronies of the party and the prime-minister including the firm of his son in law, Calik Holding were directly involved in these numerous construction projects. In other words, urban development was a mechanism for accumulating personal wealth and transferring rents to the pro-government elites. Resisting Neoliberalism  For the larger public, these authoritarian neoliberal urban policies meant a number of things. First, they initiated a series of local resistance movements against specific projects by the coalition of actors including the Chambers of Planners and Architects, local residents, urban activists and organizations. These movements pressed legal challenges, organized street protests, waged media campaigns, etc. They failed in some, achieved partial victories in others. But they certainly created a degree of public awareness of numerous projects that were violating law and citizenship rights, detrimental to ecology, enmeshed in corrupt practices. For the middle class who are certainly not anti-capitalist or for that matter even necessarily anti-neoliberal, the endemic corruption among the central and local government and the contractors involved in these projects were all too visible. As the construction spree started targeting the remaining green areas and iconic cityscapes with an increasingly conservative symbolism, not so long terms consequences of AKP’s urban policy agenda for their urban life and ecology were more visible. Gezi Protests emerged at the backdrop of these urban processes. The urban activists had already been organizing a campaign against its demolition for around a year before the initial protests began. The barrack project was consi- dered as a chain of the broader project of reconfiguring the Taksim-Beyoglu area for a global tourism industry, which would make it increasingly inaccessible to popular sectors, and strip it from its historical cultural and political heritage as the demolition of the iconic Emek Cinema and the re-closing of Taksim Square to May Day demonstrations revealed. The initial resistance against the demolition was organized by the established network of activists and turned into a collective action to occupy and appropriate the public space as a “common” to protect it from encroachment. Within three days despite and perhaps because of state violence, the occupation managed to gather more than around 10 thou- sand people to protect the park, on its own one of the largest urban struggles in Turkish history. For those participating, it not only meant saving one of the few green spaces remaining in the city center but also resisting the broader urban policies encroaching on entire Istanbul. Moreover it signified a collective defiance to the figure of the Prime Minister who dismissed the protests and claim for participation, thus in a way articulated the Gezi as yet another instan-
ce of his condescending authoritarian discourse and practice dismissing and ridiculing public opposition. Thus, when the police violently cracked down on a peaceful press release on 2013 May 31st, it touched upon one of those deep moral strings that otherwise apolitical or unorganized people have. The authoritarian intrusion in the city and the park perfectly resembled the other forms of intrusions in people’s lives including but not confined to education, the female body, alcohol consumption, etc. The on-going resistance was considered legitimate and necessary. The fact that the urban conflict has not been part of the ossified social and political pola- rizations such as the Kurdish issue that used to render state violence against its participants relatively unproblematic in the eyes of the larger public, also made this round of police violence unacceptable for the masses. If AKP’s urban policy is key to our understanding of this historic event, we must not underestimate the articulatory power of the social and physical space. Its accessibility and habitual presence in the daily routine of Istanbul’s middle class youth certainly made a protest of this size possible; perhaps its historic and contemporary importance in the collective imaginary even more so. Today, the Gezi Rebellion unleashed an immense potential for reinvigorating and expanding the urban struggles over the future of Istanbul. Neighborhood assemblies, which could not have been imagined only a few months ago, spread across the city and currently comprise more than 50 neighborhoods. Weekly protests on a diverse array of local issues are organized. A new youth gene- ration gets politicized around urban issues to demand the democratization of urban space and local politics and become more vocal against the neoliberal assault on Turkish cities. The central task ahead is to build linkages between these emerging forms of struggles and the existing conflicts in the working class neighborhoods of Istanbul which face and experience dislocation, dispossession and socio-spatial isolation. The prospects of accomplishing these challenging tasks look much more promising after Gezi. BIBLIOgRAPHY > Bartu-Candan, A. and B. Kolluoglu. 2008. “Emerging spaces of neoliberalism: a gated town and public housing project in Istanbul.” New Perspectives on Turkey. 39: 5–46. > Casano, J. 2013. “Le Mouvement du droit à la ville et l’été turc.” Jadaliyya, June 26. > El- Kazaz, Sarah. 2013 “It is about the Park: A Struggle for Turkey’s Cities.” Jadaliyya, June 16. > Keyder, C. 2005. “Globalization and Social Exclusion in Istanbul.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29 (1): 124-134 > Kuyucu, T. and O. Unsal. 2010. “‘Urban Transformation’ as State-led Property Transfer: An Analysis of Two Cases of Urban Renewal in Istanbul.” Urban Studies, 47 (7): 1479-1499. > Lovering, J. and H. Turkmen. 2011. “Bulldozer Neo-liberalism in Istanbul: The State-led Construction of Property Markets, and the Displacement of the Urban Poor.” International Planning Studies, 16 (1): 73-96. > Tugal, Cihan. 2008. “Greening Instanbul.” New Left Review 51: 65. > Tugal, Cihan, 2013. “Occupy Gezi: The Limits of Turkey’s Neoliberal Success.” Jadaliyya, June 4.
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RECLAIMING, RETHINKING, RE-PRODUCING SPACE AND DEMOCRACY The Turkish Prime Minister’s proposal to build a new shopping mall on the site of Gezi Park, the only remaining green space in the extreme densely populated centre of Istanbul, triggered a revolutionary moment. The protests rapidly spread beyond the city and led to the articulation of intertwined demands for social, political, and economic reform throughout the country. The different dimensions of the protests voiced and the nature of the demands made had global echoes. The event itself being larger than life, this article aims to reflect on the following questions in relation to the Gezi Park uprising. (1) Is it possible to overcome the urban ecological crisis within the existing institutional framework, i.e. without tackling the crisis of democracy? (2) What sorts of spaces can strengthen democracy and contribute to a more equal distribution of power? (3) Can we imagine a radically different future, not for the few, but for all? To answer these questions, first, the social and political context of the Istanbul protests will be briefly considered, followed by six propositions that analyze the specific spatiality of the movement. Context: The double-edged crisis of urban ecology and democracy (1) An economy dominated by the construction sector The AKP government came to power in 2002 in the aftermath of one of Turkey’s worst financial crises. Since then, the government has initiated and supported urban and rural interventions at a grand scale to resolve the country’s capital surplus absorption problem. Today, after more than a decade, economic growth in Turkey is heavily dependent upon the construction sector. (2) Massive-scale urban transformation Turkey is currently experiencing an urban transformation at a massive scale. The expected number of housing units in Turkey to be demolished and redeve12
loped is around 7 million, a substantial part of which is located in Istanbul. (3) Rapid and unlimited access to urban and rural land Rapid and unlimited access to urban and rural land is at the centre of this economic model. This year, 60% of all decisions made by the Council of Ministers were related to real-estate development and construction. The dispossession of the urban poor, the loss of public spaces, and the threat to urban ecology are unavoidable repercussions of the search for further urban land to be developed. (4) Istanbul becoming global Being at the centre of this economic policy, Istanbul, in the last ten years, has rapidly become a mega construction site where around 30% of the national GDP is produced. It is a Global City in the making. The fact that Istanbul was ranked first for real estate investment and development in Europe in 2012 underscores this assessment. (5) Uneven social development The construction boom that the city has been undergoing is accompanied by a highly uneven social development. On the one hand, Istanbul is now number five on the list of world cities with the highest number of dollar billionaires, yet on the other hand, Turkey is ranked last among the 31 OECD countries in terms of social justice. The urban ecological crisis is intrinsically linked to the crisis of democracy. The Networks of Dispossession Project is an initiative that seeks to contribute to social and political reform in Turkey by exposing the collusion of political and economic elites in reshaping the country with no or minimal participation by the millions of ordinary citizens who are affected by these elites’ policies. The website offers a series of maps that identify the actors behind projects that have a detrimental impact on the ecology and exacerbate urban inequalities. On one map the urban and rural projects in question are indicated individually through black dots; the monetary value of each project is rendered by the relative size of a dot. The blue lines connect the projects to their developers. The logos name relevant media outlets, which are owned by the same companies developing those projects. The map thus reveals a highly interconnected network of public and private actors characterized by an extreme concentration of power and wealth. We see an economy worth more than 100 billion euros, around one fourth of the Turkish GDP. Hence, within the established institutional framework, how can common people reclaim their living spaces and overcome the current urban ecological crisis? The Gezi Park uprising gives a hint at possible answers. Gezi Park and Taksim Square In line with the overall makeover intended for the city, Taksim Square, Istanbul’s most central and most
political public space, and the adjacent Gezi Park have both been subjected to a dramatic transformation. Gezi Park, dating back to the early 1940s, is one of the very few non-commercialized open spaces in the centre of Istanbul. The park constitutes 15% of all green areas in a district where a quarter million people live and 2 million visitors pass through daily. The government’s intention was to turn Taksim Square into a depoliticized, museum-like static space, from which all political demonstrations would be banned, even if this represented a breach of democratic rules. Simultaneously, the government started to build a massive gathering place for up to one million people on the Marmara Sea, created by filling a stretch of coastal bays with rubble from the demolitions taking place all around the city. Also at the same time, a new infrastructure project, called Taksim Pedestrianization Project, was introduced to radically transform mobility at the square by diverting car traffic to an underground tunnel. In conjunction with the Taksim Pedestrianization Project, Prime Minister Erdoğan proposed to replace Gezi Park with the reconstruction of an old army barracks demolished in the 1930s, to function as a shopping mall. The Uprising The new plans for Taksim Square sparked widespread opposition among the citizens of Istanbul since their inception in early 2011. Initially, this opposition coalesced into the Right to the City Movement, which then rapidly evolved into an urban ‘revolution’ that voiced demands going far beyond the initial neighbourhood-related concerns: – In reaction to the Taksim Pedestrianization Project, mainly academics and public intellectuals founded the Taksim Platform in 2011. This group succeeded in collecting 50.000 signatures against the Taksim Project. – In March 2012, the Taksim Solidarity Platform was founded with the aim to expand the reach of the Taksim Platform. The Chamber of Architects and other professional associations joined the movement. – In March 2013, the Taksim Gezi Park Association was founded, through which the artist communities of Turkey as well as various celebrities joined the struggle against the Taksim Project, making the protest movement more popular among the public. – On the night of 27 May, less than 50 activists responded to the call to prevent the felling of trees in Gezi Park by shielding the trunks with their bodies against the approaching bulldozers. The excessive police violence triggered more protests. Activists set up a camp in the park, which was repeatedly attacked by the police. Growing in proportion to the stepping up of violence by the police, the ranks of the protestors swelled from 50 to half a million in less than five days. On 1 June, the uprising spread to almost all major cities in Turkey. The police was driven out of the park and the Taksim Square area. For almost two weeks the city centre was completely controlled by citizens. The following six propositions are based on the on-si-
te experiences and research carried out during those two weeks in and around Gezi Park. Propositions (1) The Gezi Park community as a multitude The community of activists that gathered in Gezi Park consisted of heterogeneous individuals, groups, and politics. The plurality within the boundaries of the park comprised all forms of political ideologies, and also non-political positions. Groups representing a variety of causes, including environmentalists, feminists, secularists, Armenian and Kurdish rights activists, socialists, communists, anti-capitalist Islamists, LGBT rights activists as well as football fans, shared the space of the park and cooperated to reach a common goal. The Gezi movement, while allowing singular subjectivities to be expressed and a wide range of struggles, each with a particular agenda, to be presented, yet formed a unified multitude. Spontaneous and unavoidable contacts within the multitude enhanced the feelings of collectivity among these diverse groups of people. (2) The Gezi movement as a heterotopia of resistance This condition of multitude was no utopia of diversity where a certain version of a perfected society had emerged. Rather, the Gezi movement may be described as a heterotopia of resistance, capable of juxtaposing various incompatible spaces in one place. Indeed, the confluence and co-existence of incompatibilities allowed the creation of an effective ‘counter-site’ that inverted and contested existing economic and social hierarchies (Kohn 2001). To provide an example, Gezi Park did not become a utopian space where the existence of substance addicts and street youths was denied or overlooked; instead, it turned into a heterotopia of resistance as a space where they could feel equal with and respected among the multitude. (3) Spatial agency at Gezi Park During the Gezi uprising, we observed the transformation of a highly controlled and closed area into a reclaimed space, initially, and soon after into a selfcreated space. In the course of this short period, an extraordinary level of spatial agency developed on the part of the people. The demand to take part in the spatial reproduction was like a rallying cry; selfcreated spaces were springing up all over the place. Speaker’s corners, allotment gardens, soup kitchens, libraries, free exchange markets, health care centres, cafés, nurseries, the Gezi Revolution museum, citizen-run TV stations, and monuments remembering the martyrs of the movement were among the many spaces created by the people. In the park, the customary roles and clear boundaries between designer and user were blurred. Participants determined their own level of engagement in these space-building processes. And those few architects involved in the production of spaces, very 13
much followed a pedagogical approach, i.e. they were supportive of existing space-building practices. Creating spaces oneself was only possible via strategies of encampment or ‘occupation’, which provided the crucial ‘spatial’ dimension to the resistance activities. Via territoriality, the temporal resistance could evolve into a more profound accumulation of experience. (4) Towards an autonomy of governance The high level of agency that we observed in the production of spaces was interrelated with the way in which the park was governed. Gezi Park rapidly became a self-governing space, i.e. a space of autonomy. Political participation of individuals and organized citizens’ groups, compared with the usual low intensity of engagement, was at an extremely high level, with minimal forms of representation and maximum direct engagement. In terms of service provision, the park became a self-serviced space. For instance, as soon as the police retreated from the area, activists stepped in with a rigorous cleaning campaign. Garbage was collected by volunteers; medical support during and after police attacks was provided by volunteering doctors and nurses – with activists carrying stretchers; food was distributed by the people. The lack of media coverage was compensated for by social media and the park media initiatives, such as ustream, twitter, radio, photocopied daily newsletters, etc. Security, both at the borders against the police and within the park against internal fights and thievery, was provided collectively. We witnessed, from the very early days of resistance, an explicit demand for the citizen’s right to political participation. There was an evolution to be observed from speaker’s corners (which reflected the call for freedom of expression, the right to voice one’s opinion and the right to be publicly heard) towards forums (popular assemblies as decision-making platforms). This was clearly a new form of democratic experience, intended to develop horizontal mechanisms for organization and democratic practices of decision making, so that all participants could lead together, which made the experience unmediated, revolutionary, and collective. Directly out of the Gezi experience, local popular assemblies emerged in 40 parks all across Istanbul, and in a number of other cities in the wake of the massive police raid on 15 June. These local forums are organized into thematic working groups many of which devote their efforts to dealing with the pressing urban ecological issues of the city as a whole, and do not limit themselves to one particular locality. (5) Redefining the public sphere At the heart of the spatial agency and autonomous governing observed at Gezi Park lies a new understanding of the public sphere. According to Habermas, the public sphere is a space where different citizens can gather to collectively determine at least the general principles governing their common 14
life. However, this definition of the public sphere is limited to a bourgeois milieu characterized by high levels of elitism and homogeneity. In order to democratize the public sphere, Nancy Fraser proposes to include a variety of subaltern counterpublics. By creating a temporal space that was freed from the influence of the dominant power poles of the state and the market, the Gezi movement empowered a multitude of citizens (including numerous so-called marginal groups) to estabish a new kind of public sphere, in which an alternative political discourse could be articulated. (6) A struggle for urban commons While the multitude of ideologies voiced through the protests would not allow us to characterize the Gezi movement as a ‘socialist’ project, it clearly expressed an anti-capitalist direction, which in fact functioned as a common denominator among the various policies that were proposed. Within the park’s ‘ecosystems’, solidarity and sharing among people were the social norm, on the basis of which a gift economy could flourish rapidly and vividly. As a principle, monetary currency was not allowed (signifying an abolition of sorts of the market) within the boundaries of the park. All essentials, such as food, water, health care, books, entertainment, art, etc. were provided by the joint efforts of the people, in other words by the park communities. There was a categorical rejection of commercialization and privatization of urban land and public spaces, which most immediately manifested itself in the stance against the shopping mall project. Conclusion The revolutionary events that take took place in and around Istanbul’s Gezi Park reveal how it is possible to create new kinds of spaces that strengthen democracy and contribute to a more equal distribution of power. Months after the uprising, in September 2013, a few citizens from a neighbourhood next to Gezi Park painted the steep stairs climbing up to their houses in rainbow colours. Thanks to the social media, the stairs rapidly became a civic monument enjoyed by many Istanbulites and visitors. The district municipality painted the stairs grey in less than 48 hours! Presumably this would have been the end of this story in the pre -revolutionary Istanbul as we knew it. However, the next day thousands of people painted their stairs and many other public spaces in rainbow colours all around Turkey. Some municipalities quickly responded to the demands of their citizens and provided them with free paints. Such instances of people-driven, bottom-up spatial processes, and consequent adaptation of (local) authorities, are regaining presence in our cities. This might be interpreted as the resurgence of ‘the public’ as a political ideal, in the age of extreme privatization and commercialization of the urban realm. In search of the post-neoliberal city, the public space and its defence has a very central role, through which the city reborn as a space for politics. Indeed, we can imagine a radically different future, not for just the few, but for all.
References: Margaret Kohn, “The Power of Place: The House of the People as Counterpublic”, Polity, vol. 33, no. 4 (summer 2001), pp. 508. Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere”, in Craig Calhoun (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 109–42.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS ACÁCIO AUGUSTO, Prof. Dr. in political science. Search contemporary anarchy, libertarian culture and new social movements. AMER MOUSSA is an architect and urban planner graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of São Paulo. • YAŞAR ADNAN ADANALI, Istanbul-based urban activist / researcher. Worked on development planning, research and management in London, South America and Tanzania. He continues to work in Turkey and the Middle East. He has a BA on social and political sciences from Sabanci University and a master degree on development and planning.
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BURLE MARX RJ