May Day, 2009

May Day was an official holiday in Turkey this year, for the first time since the 1980 military coup d'état. In Istanbul, workers were still not given permission to enter Taksim Square. They struggled to enter anyway, this year as last. On television, we watched battles all morning between rebels and police. The police used water cannons; rebels threw stones and Molotov cocktails and in one case kicked in a bank window. Different broadcasters showed different scenes. (Photos from Radikal.) Police seemed to go light with the billy clubs, at least on camera; they did however throw some stones back at the rebels. Eventually some unionists were allowed to enter Taksim, for the first time since the massacre of 1977.

Meanwhile, for the Ankara demonstration, we were meeting in front of the train station in the early afternoon. The weather alternated between cloudy and sunny. Sometimes a fine rain fell, but it was never very much. The mayor has built one of his beloved roadway underpasses in front of the train station; some groups assembled down there, getting ready to march to the rally at Sıhhiye Square.

Captions (below the pictures) generally translate the banners:

Hands off my headscarf!
We are all transvestites [or just queers]!
Save the planet, not the corporations!
—Revolutionary Socialist Worker Party

Revolutionary Movement

Free the detained unionists!
—Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions

Revolutionary High School Students

Greens

Homophobia is a treatable disease!
Taksim is not enough; we want Kızılay [Square in Ankara, just south of Sıhhiye, still open to cars]!

Turkey Socialist Worker Party

Socialist Youth Association
Founding Committee

(Some people even brought children in strollers)

Viva May Day
—Banking and Insurance School Alumni Association

Viva May Day

Youth are the future
The future is socialism

All Student Parent Solidarity Association

(The real May Day spirit)

For an egalitarian, free, honorable future,
the only way is socialism
—High-Schoolers Young Hope

Don't leave it to the AKP
Take charge of your university!
—Selçuk University Student Collectives

Let's take charge of our streams, our water, our future!
Youth is coming, the struggle is growing

We're not customers, we're students;
we're not just students, we're the future!
—Dershane students
(A dershane offers classes to prepare for the university entrance exam)

(caught in the act)
Down with the AKP and the Crisis
—Student Collectives
Revolution is the only way

Death to fascism

Freedom, Education, Future
METU will not give up the struggle
—METU students
(These are our students)

Students of the faculty of political sciences [at Ankara University]

Hacettepe University Students
What's being told is your story:
Don't stop your ears

Labor freedom

(dancing)

Socialist Party

Revolutionary High-School Students

(just a couple of spectators)

(some of our METU teaching colleagues and friends)

Uncle Obama, in place of a soldier, take one in three…
(This guy had an air of schizophrenia)

We shall create a free world
—Working Women Association

Revolutionary Worker Party

Viva May Day
—[Waste] Recycling Workers

There are homosexuals here
We're here, we're queer, get used to it

Don't be a Masochist; be a feminist!

(Some groups, as these METU students, would stop marching for a while, just for the fun of running to catch up.)

(Normally the police would set up these portals, through which all demonstrators would have to pass and be searched when entering the final rallying area at Sıhhiye. We heard that this time a group of rebels came and fought with the police and dismantled the barriers; the police were eventually instructed to give way, though it seems they used tear gas first. Photos from Radikal)

(Here the police have abandoned their fences)

(A lot of news organizations were present, but the events of Istanbul were all we saw on the evening news)

We're issuing a firman against the [economic] crisis and the university entrance exam
—High-School Youth Opposition

(traffic diverted from the rallying area)