In Erdogans green backyard

Moving my mind back to Turkey… By now, my time at Gezi-Park seems to be so far away. Sometimes I see tattered posters in Athens. “Solidarity with Gezi” is written on them. It makes me almost nostalgic. But even though the international media left the Gezi-Park for Egypt or Edward Snowden, the protests aren’t over. During the Ramadan time people met for a shared fast-breaking. As far as I know public park forums are still going on. And of course people who got arrested or hurt still fight with the outcome of these days. Furthermore people start to produce movies about #occupygezi as for example the “Istanbul united” project.
Let me share one last story about Turkey with you before we move on to Greece:

I could have stayed in Istanbul forever. Adapting the rhythm of the movement, standing still on Taksim during the days and discussing in park-forums during the night. I think there has never been a political movement I felt more at home. Every morning I would promise myself to just stay one more day. Every evening I would fall exhausted in my bed without any plans to leave… Finally, a friend’s invitation to Izmir gave me a reason to say good-bye to Istanbul and it’s empty, police guarded park.

Within the next days, I learned that leaving Istanbul didn’t mean to leave the Republic of Gezi. On Izmir’s coast open-air concerts were held and scenes from the occupied park and the street fights were shown on a big screen next to the sea. Unlike Istanbul Izmir wasn’t quite. For the first time in a week, I heard a loud demonstration passing by and saw street-art (In an overnight action all of Istanbul’s street-art, whether connected to the protests or not, was covered with gray color.).

If I would have taken a ferry from Izmir to Greece I would have thought all Turkey contains of open-air gatherings, park-discussions and demonstrations. But instead of taking a ferry to Greece I followed a friend inland to Konya. Christiane wanted to go to Konya to see the Mevlana-Museum about Sufi-culture, a mystical flow of the Islam. This was about all we both knew about the city we were going to go to.

Learned while traveling: Blogging is a lonley buisness.

click here to jump to the english version

Viele, viele Stunden meiner Zeit verbringe ich in Cafés vor dem Bildschirm meines Laptop und starre auf die Uhrzeit in der rechten, unteren Ecke. „Um Punkt 14 Uhr fange ich an zu Schreiben.“, motiviere ich mich. Um 14 Uhr lese ich dann grade einen interessanten Artikel. „Um 14.30 Uhr, dann aber wirklich.“, sage ich mir. Und um 14.30 Uhr öffne ich schließlich wirklich ein neues Dokument, beginne zu schreiben, lese was ich geschrieben habe und lösche es wieder. Oder ich speichere es und denke, dass es vielleicht besser wird wenn ich noch eine Nacht darüber schlafe. Am nächsten Morgen stelle ich mir den Wecker dann auf Frühmorgens, klappe den Laptop auf, lese was ich schrieb, befinde es für genauso schlecht wie am Abend zuvor und beginne stattdessen lieber Nachrichten zu lesen. „In einer halben Stunde fange ich an, den Text zu überarbeiten.“, beruhige ich mein schlechtes Gewissen mit Blick auf die Uhrzeit. Es liegt ja noch ein ganzer Tag vor mir…

^{Ja, das Zeug liegt da wirklich nur zur Deko.}