Turkey - Leafs from Taksim Square, Istanbul, by Kate Elizabeth Creasey
A Few Observations on Accumulated Knowledge and Collective Resistance
On Friday evening I finished work after the school shuttle service stopped running, so I took a cab from the end of the Golden Horn to my home near Taksim. As we passed the Kasimpasha exit and headed toward Dolapdere I could see a fog rising from the hotels at the top of the hill in Talimhane. “I can’t take you into Tarlabasi,” the cab driver told me after a muffled conversation with a fellow taxi driver on his phone. “There is a code 005.” I tried to argue with him, but he insisted it was something official and he could only take me as far as the bottom Kalyoncu Kullugu Avenue. “Fine,” I agreed in an annoyed tone. As I trudged up the hill, the quality of the air changed. It smelled sulfuric, like rotting eggs, and my nose and eyes became irritated. When I got home, the irritation continued the entire night. Even my cat seemed bothered by it. A friend later told me that he had taken the ferry from Besiktas to Kadikoy on Friday evening and the clouds of tear gas were so thick that it was not comfortable for the ferry passengers to sit outside in the middle of the Bosphorus. Tear gas had enveloped the city.
This was not the first time most inhabitants of Istanbul had experienced the effects of tear gas. State repression has a long history in Turkey. Over the years people from diverse backgrounds and of different political views have been the target of it for one reason or another: marching in banned May Day parades, protesting the right to wear a headscarf to school, participating in an illegal strike, speaking out against the ruling party, going to the concert of a banned music group. Police violence is a shared experience of living in Istanbul and many residents have developed tactics to deal with it.
Saturday morning I was having trouble breathing, so I decided to do some internet research on how to combat the effects of tear gas. On English language websites there was little information about how to deal with tear gas. With the exception of a few anarchist websites, most carried the incredibly useful advice to simply stay way from situations where tear gas was present. Seeing as I was wheezing in my apartment with the windows closed this was obviously not an option I could pursue. Turkish language websites provided ample information on what to do in the event you are tear-gassed. Some suggested covering your face with a bandanna or scarf soaked in vinegar and biting into lemons. Others provided detailed instructions for making your own gas mask using plastic bottles and a surgical mask. One offered information about the chemical composition of tear gas and advice on over the counter remedies to counter its effects. The site even suggested mixing the antidote and keeping it at your side in a clean spray bottle for faster relief.
On Sunday afternoon I went to the square and met up with an old friend and his girl friend who had ventured to Taksim from the Asian neighborhood of Kadikoy on Thursday. He told me that before they left Kadikoy they stopped by their neighborhood pharmacy to buy some first aid supplies. Every neighborhood in Istanbul has at least one pharmacy. They are local establishments usually run by people from the neighborhood and staffed by members of the person’s family. Many people go to their neighborhood pharmacist with minor health complaints and it is common for pharmacists to know not only the names of their customers, but also their medical histories by heart. My friend described this pharmacy as a classic Istanbul pharmacy with dark wooden fixtures, glass bottles filled with substances to cure every aliment, and staffed by an urbane gentleman wearing a clean white smock in his early 70s. It sounded like the kind of place that smelled like my grandmother’s medicine cabinet and hadn’t seen much change since the early 1960s. “That should be enough supplies,” my friend said as the pharmacist continued to gather gloves, surgical masks, bandages, medicines, as well as tear gas antidotes. The pharmacist only stopped when it seemed he had put everything thing he had that could be of use on the counter. When my friend asked how much money they owed, the pharmacist said, “I am old and can’t go to the other side, but since you all are young, I will give you what I have, so you can fight in my place and help others that might get injured.” He proceeded to then give them a lesson on how to administer the tear gas antidote he had provided them.
Later as we sat on a side street stoop drinking a beer, my friend showed me pictures on his phone of the pharmacies around Taksim that opened their doors to injured protesters and bystanders. Many of the pharmacists, according to my friend, had refused payment for the treatment and medicine they provided. My friend also showed me pictures he had taken on his phone of some of the people he had given first aid too. One of the most graphic photographs was of an elderly shoe shiner who had been sitting in his usual spot on Istiklal Avenue when he was hit on the head by a tear gas canister. When my friend saw the injured man, he stopped the bleeding, cleaned the man’s wound, and put a bandage around his head. “Where did you learn first aid?” I asked. “During my military service.” he casually replied...
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