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

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Gezi Spirit: The Possibility of an Impossibility [Part 5 of 20: Reflections on the Gezi Uprising]

Click here to access article by David Selim Sayers from Reflections on a Revolution. (I can't seem to keep up with this series of articles on Turkish politics. See this introduction for the complete list of the series.)

The ferment in the Middle East as evidenced by the "Arab Spring" in general, the Egyptian uprising and counterrevolution by the military puppets of the Empire, the Saudi sponsorship of terrorist activity all across the Middle East and Eurasia, and the recent Iranian and US rapprochement, is far from over. It bear serious watching because it may develop into something which could radically change the geopolitics in the region and the world dramatically. This series of articles by very knowledgeable people focuses on the evolving political conditions in Turkey, a key player in the Middle East.
If this was the end of the Turkish Uprising, then what end did the Turkish Uprising actually serve? And why is it still an interesting phenomenon for us today? 
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