Ponentin: In Turkey, everything changes but May Day

A few days ago I showed some pictures of the pro-secularism demonstration in Istanbul on the 29th of April. Below are pictures of another demonstration in the same city:

Volkan Şahin / Birgün

Volkan Şahin / Birgün

Volkan Şahin / Birgün

Volkan Şahin / Birgün

These pictures are taken during the demonstration on the 1^st of May. Trying to guess why these pictures are so different? Hint: look at the date again! Yep, it was May Day!¹

This whole event was actually organized to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the 1977 'Bloody' May Day demonstration, when gunmen fired at peaceful demonstrators, killing 34 people. It is quite ironic that even the commemoration of this incident is perceived as such a great threat by the authorities, that public transport is paralyzed, tv stations are prevented from live broadcasting the demonstration, busses from outside Istanbul are blocked from entering the city and demonstrators are harassed with water cannons, tear gas and batons. At the end of the day several hundreds of people had been arrested.

Well, we live in 2007 now, which means that it has already been 17 years since the 'communist threat' ceased to exist. In the meantime, a true classical Islamist occupied the office of Prime Minister in the staunch secularist Turkey (back in the '90s), and yet another one, appearing to be the 'evolved' version of the former, is currently doing the same... Wow, can you imagine that?! Apparently things do change in Turkey!

So what's new for May Day then? Uh... Nothing, Turkey has a chronic allergy to anything that is associated with socialism!