Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Cracking Down on the Press: Turkish Media after Gezi [Part 12 of 20: Reflections on the Gezi Uprising]

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

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Cracking Down on the Press: Turkish Media after Gezi [Part 12 of 20: Reflections on the Gezi Uprising]

Click here to access article by Beatrice White from Reflections on a Revolution. (Note: If you wish to see an outline of the entire series, click here.)

Control of information is the most powerful weapon of all that ruling classes use to control their citizens. This author reports on how this is being done in Turkey following the Gezi park protests of last year.

After the world’s attention moved on, the lack of international scrutiny gave the government the leeway it needed to mete out the sanctions and penalties it felt were warranted by the embarrassing show of civil disobedience and dissent.

The past few months have witnessed a backlash of remarkable scope, affecting all levels of society.

From this report we learn that the directors of the Turkish ruling class are frequently using a favorite method of their counterparts in the US, but applying it much more aggressively (only because the Turkish ruling class is much less secure than the US's): they are taking away jobs from journalists and others who express dissent in all forms of media including social media. Hence, underground alternative media that is financially supported by citizens must be established in this war of information and ideas in Turkey as well as in the US.