Response to Fatma Aygun mentioned in a NY Times Article dated June 16th...

“This whole thing is not as bad as it looks,” Fatma Aygun, 33, said. “It is just a game of the foreign media.”

She added, “Things will be back to normal in three to four days. Taksim will look like this: happy, colorful and festive. We are the majority, and we will make sure of it.”

                                             The New York Times -Front Page Photo                                                                                                               

The New York Times Article From June 16th: Turkey Expands Violent Reaction to Street Unrest

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REALLY FATMA? were you "present" during any of those protests? did you get to watch them from a nearby building? or did you get gassed for carrying a Turkish flag and hanging out at the park while the crowds sang songs? did the police attack you or kick you for having an opinion and not keeping it to yourself? did people who are not even police attack you with sticks, stones and knives, while many police officers just stood by and watched, glad someone was finally doing something violent to shut you up?

did you even watch any of the channels that showed what truly happens out on those streets, or look at some of the photos taken by protestors and/or onlookers that showed how viciously the police was attacking everyone? (you may have become the majority since after your "precious Prime Minister" told you to have 3 kids, your people who were already on the breeding-train probably started breeding like crazy, popping out anywhere from 3 to 10 kids per marriage, while the rest of the population mostly choses to only have as many kids as they can afford to decently and responsibly care for, in this day and age... but that's a whole other story and not worth getting in an argument over at this very moment...)

but even if you were/are the majority, that does not give you the right to trample over the rights of the rest of the population... or pretend that their grievances are not real and therefore can and should be ignored. This country was and always will be OURS, at least as much as it has been yours. You, do not have the right to exterminate us like you would mosquitos or vermin, with your endless supply of pepper spray, other gasses and water cannons that spray water diluted with unknown and hazardous chemicals... until we're too tired or scared or too broken to speak up. 


just a game of the foreign media you say? - no honey... the foreign media might be trying to affect what happens next, but they did not start this. They arrived much later. in fact, the only reason they showed up was because our own media was too scared to show what was happening all over Gezi Park, Taksim and Besiktas during the first few days of the protests... if the Turkish affiliate of CNN, which is a News channel choses to show a penguin documentary while a riot is going on, two streets down, i'm sorry to be the one to break this bad news to you, but that is cold hard proof of censorship. And it is also why the protestors lost faith in Turkish mainstream media, which eventually resulted in calling in foreign media, hoping that at least they would be brave enough to broadcast the truth... 

We are not puppets of a foreign conspiracy, we are not extremists or marginals or anarchists... Many of the people protesting are just regular citizens that have been very unhappy with the government's decisions for some time now... for the first 50 people it may have been only about Gezi Park and the trees there, but the rest of the people joined in when we saw and heard what was done to those peaceful protesters sleeping in their tents the first night... The callousness of that treatment was the straw that broke the camels back, and finally we had had enough of this government's dismissive attitude towards anyone with the courage to question their decisions and their methods... 

You may be comfortable giving away unlimited power to the government but we are not. You may not value all of your freedoms, earned and/or gifted to you by Mustafa Kemal ATATURK, but we do! And we will keep fighting for them as long as we have to, whatever the cost.

And though we rarely agree with AKP's views and the Prime Minister's take on current and past events in Turkey (dating all the way back to the Ottoman era) - most of us still listen to it patiently and more or less respectfully in order to guarantee we can make informed decisions by getting both, if not multiple sides of every story... why not try that some time?! maybe you'll remember what it was like to use your brain for more than inventing excuses for a Hitler-wannabe!!! Who knows? Maybe ('God willing') you'll even remember how to be just and impartial if you try hard enough... :)