CITSEE Blog

Framing the position of Romani minorities in terms of social exclusion usually remains undisputed. It is also not questioned that social exclusion sometimes alludes that Romani minorities are themselves to blame for their position and now the wider society as their saviours has to work out how to integrate them.  

Many observers have drawn parallels between the Gezi protests and the Arab Spring mobilisations, Occupy protests, and the crisis mobilisations in Southern Europe. But the protests in Turkey differ from these in certain respects. Unlike the Arab Spring mobilisations, they are not directed against the very foundations of an autocratic regime. They are also not driven by economic grievances. Yet what the Gezi protests have in common with these is the increasing public conviction in the power of protest. The most obvious evidence is the politicisation of the previously un-politicised. Both the deep engagement of the 90s generation and the participation of the people with no activist record are unusual in Turkey’s map of contentious politics.

Regardless of the context-specific background of Skopje’s urban battles, there is a trans-national story of urban activism to be told, from Istanbul to London, in particular targeting undemocratic practices of usurpation of public/green spaces either by authoritarian leaders or private investors. A wave of neo-conservative politics, tendencies of desecularization, corruption, control over media and growing social and economic gaps actually form the background of public discontent, creative activism and urban sociality and cross-ethnic solidarity. Mapping a new historical narrative onto the capital’s face has come at the cost of hundreds of millions of Euros of public money (official figures are at 208 million) and without a wider public debate and transparent decision-making. Political elites seem to willingly overlook the fact that “the past cannot give us what the future has failed to deliver”.