Gezi: How a Seedy Park in Istanbul Became a Place of Unity

To be honest, if you asked me a month ago what I thought of Gezi Park, I would have described it as scuzzy, seedy, unlovable.  Gezi Park sat on the edge of Taksim like a toothless junkie on a stoop, muttering insults at you under its breath into a paper bag.  You sort of felt sorry for it, but you kept your distance.  I’ve heard, from a gay friend, that it was a cruising spot for men looking for clandestine hookups.  His word: “creepy”.  "Not nice people," said he.  Another friend told me that while attending some sort of open-air concert in the park, she stepped in a pile of fresh human feces.  She described it as the single most disgusting moment of her life.  And so Gezi Park sat on Taksim's stoop and waited to die, muttering insults into a paper bag.

But then a few people saw something in Gezi Park that I could not see.  They loved the unlovable.  They quietly planted themselves under its grubby branches and started to create a tiny republic out of the dust.  A garden of tents sprang up from nothing and the waiting began.  Police quickly intervened.  People rose up out of the dirt.  One woman planted herself in the ground like a red tulip and her hair blew up as the police sprayed her in the face with tear gas.  Tear gas made the people grow, and by nightfall Beyoğlu was a field of red tulips.  Flags blooming on arms raised.

Soon the police were gone.  The garden grew.  People were transplanted and spread and spread and grew under sun and moon.  Gezi Park smiled, toothlessly, and lifted its ruddy face to the sky.  Gezi Park was loved, but more importantly, giving love.  More and more people came and spread like dandelions, filling in the cracks in the pavement and the spaces around trees.  Gezi Park danced and clapped and made music.  The people were all different: some young, some old, some with heads covered, some in prayer, some were babies, some were blind, some had money in their laughs, some laughed at money.  There was color and life, and even the skeptics among us had to admit, there was a kind of utopia.  A ragged Garden of Eden between the burnt-out cars and graffiti.

Gezi Park stood up in Taksim and Taksim wheeled around Gezi Park.  The people grew like mad wildflowers.  Gezi Park cracked into wrinkled smiles and sang old songs and clapped its hands.  It was one week of peace.

Then the police came back and Taksim burned.  Water cannon drowned it.  Gas bombs sent it coughing and sputtering.  Stun grenades terrified it.  Fireworks bloomed above it.  Gezi Park wept in tear gas and the people scattered like dandelion seeds.

But they came back.

And they grew.  And they come back more and more.  And now Gezi Park sits on the stoop of Taksim, catching its jagged breath and clutching its chest, but it's alive.  And unbending.