We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, June 10, 2013

What future for the Turkish uprising?

Click here to access article by Mehmet Döşemeci from Reflections on a Revolution. 

The author, who is an assistant professor of history at Bucknell University (Pennsylvania), provides us with an honest attempt to both assess what has occurred so far and analyze the possible outcomes of the people's uprising in Turkey. However, I would never carelessly use the word "democracy" to describe any existing government.
Provided the uprising is not quashed by murderous repression, hijacked by a nationalist discourse that serves only to empower the opposition, and does not fizzle out through exhaustion, it has the potential to create long-lasting changes in the practice of citizenship and representation in Turkish democracy. 
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