Friday, 2 January 2009Following top Turkish politicians' condemnation of Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip, Turks throughout the country have begun to voice their outrage at the attacks.
Turks joined the grieving and impoverished people of Gaza on the first day of the new year. Celebrations for the beginning of 2009 were either cancelled or downgraded countrywide. Firework celebrations in Ýstanbul's Taksim, Niþantaþý and Beþiktaþ neighborhoods were all cancelled, and the city entered the new year with relative calm and gloominess. Israel was even condemned by nightclub owners, who failed to fill their pockets on New Year's Eve due to low demand for entertainment and alcohol.
Celebrations organized in Ankara's Güvenpark Square were downgraded and no more than 300 people were at the square at midnight. A smaller but more vigorous group stood in front of the Israeli Embassy at midnight to protest Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
The Cihan news agency, accustomed to greeting the new year with people working under dangerous conditions, found coal miners in Zonguldak praying for their brethren in Palestine. One miner, Nedim Sevimli (33), called on the Muslim world, "from 100 meters below the ground" to help "our brothers there both materially and spiritually."
Afyonkarahisar residents organized funeral prayers in absentia for the fallen in Gaza while Yozgat, Muðla, Þanlýurfa and Hakkari saw residents taking to the streets in protest. In Konya, elementary school students ran fundraisers.
A number of leaders of nongovernmental organizations condemned the attacks and offered solutions, including the cancellation of all economic, diplomatic and political agreements made between Turkey and Israel, the mobilization of the D-8 group in order to "give Israel the harshest answer it deserves" and even sending the "Turkish Armed Forces [TSK] to Gaza." Several chambers of craftsmen called on the people to boycott Israeli products, while several others started campaigns to collect humanitarian aid for those wounded in the Israeli attacks.
In symbolic moves to protest the Israeli atrocities, craftsmen used their skills to speak out. In Antalya's Manavgat district, three pita bakers prepared "Welcome 2009" pitas. Profits are to aid Palestinians in Gaza. Two local newspapers in Erzincan published the first issues of the new year in black and white as a sign of solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Turkey's Alevi organizations also joined the nationwide protests and condemned the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Yusuf Öksüz, the president of the Pir Sultan Abdal Society in Adýyaman, called "anyone who calls himself a human being" to speak up against "these Israeli massacres."
Other condemnatory remarks were issued by the Turkish Mine Workers' Union, the Confederation of Public Workers' Unions, the Confederation of Disabled People and the Federation of Radio and TV Broadcasters. Three major Turkish humanitarian aid groups -- Red Crescent (Kýzýlay), the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (ÝHH) and Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There?) -- also mobilized their funds and asked people to support their efforts to send aid convoys to the region.
Several protests are organized for the weekend nationwide. Protests in Ankara and Konya are expected to attract large crowds. |
Friday, 2 January 2009
Journal of Turkish Weekly
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