Survivors of the May 2014 Soma mine disaster, the worst in Turkey's history which left more than 300 people dead. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

By Tessa Love
ISTANBUL, Oct 26 2014 (IPS)

Six days a week, Tahir Cetin spends seven and a half hours hundreds of feet underground on a narrow ledge, mining coal near Soma, Turkey. He breathes in dust that is destroying his lungs, and digs into walls that could collapse on top of him. With one false step, he could fall to his death.

After five years of these conditions, and the low quality of life he faces due to little pay and poor treatment, the father of three says with resignation that it does not matter if he is alive or dead.

“It is slavery,” says Cetin, who lost his nephew in May this year, when an explosion at the Soma coal mine in Manisa in western Turkeycaused an underground  fire, killing more than 300 people in the worst mine disaster in the country’s history. “As workers, we are valuable, but we are despised and mistreated by our country.”“The reason these people died [in the Soma mine disaster of May 2014] is because of the government’s neoliberal policies of subcontracting and making profits. The people really responsible are those in the government who allow privatisation” – Arzu Cerkezoglu, Secretary-General of DISK

According to Hurriyet Demirhan, a board member of the Chamber of Mining Engineers, nearly every miner in Turkey works under such conditions, which are chronic and widespread, and many wonder if or when another Soma disaster will repeat itself.

Both Demirhan and Arzu Cerkezoglu, Secretary-General of the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK), the union that now represents the Soma workers, believe that this will inevitably happen in one or more of the 450 mines facing exactly the same threat as Soma unless drastic changes are made.

DISK, as well as the Chamber of Mining Engineers, has filed reports about all of them, warning the government of their lack of safety. In 2010, Demirhan even filed a report on Soma, listing it as the most dangerous, but no changes were introduced.

While a fire that knocked out power at the mine and shut down ventilation shafts and elevators caused the Soma disaster, Cerkezoglu blames the government for the accident, and she points her finger at privatisation as the biggest problem with Turkey’s mining sector.

“The reason these people died is because of the government’s neoliberal policies of subcontracting and making profits,” she argues. “The people really responsible are those in the government who allow privatisation.”

Privatisation of Turkey’s mines began in the 1980s, when there was widespread agreement that the state was incapable of running mines efficiently. Now, private companies apply for permits through the Ministry of Energy and when they are approved, they hire auditors, engineers and safety personnel, all of whom are supposed to ensure the safety of the mines and fair treatment of the workers.

However, according to Demirhan, because it is the company that hires these personnel, they do little when they find something amiss. Add to this a mentality of high production at low cost, and the result is extremely poor conditions and abysmal pay.

It is through this process, says Demirhan, that workers lose their rights – and death is the consequence. “All of this is the responsibility of the state,” he adds, “and it is only through policies written by the state that workers can regain their rights.”

Immediately after the Soma disaster, DISK began working directly with mine workers and the families of the deceased to compile a file listing their demands for Soma and mining safety in general, which they presented to the Ministry of Energy in early July.

These demands include greater job security, higher pay, shorter and fewer shifts, an earlier retirement age, and compensation for the families of workers who died in the disaster, including new homes, double salaries, and forgiven debts, according to Tayfun Gorgun of DISK.

Gorgun is currently stationed in Soma and is working with the state to ensure that these demands are met for the 8000 workers still mining in the Soma area. But while the government has made promises to meet these demands, he says, progress has been slow.

The biggest promise the government has made so far has been to do away with subcontracting in the mining sector, which would stop many of the problems caused by privatisation. However, this issue, along with several others, has not even made it into the draft legislation phase.

According to Gorgun, “the government’s strategy is to decrease rights by letting time pass until people forget. The only way to make these changes happen is for the public to continue to care.”

Demirhan agrees, saying: “The state knows we will forget. We have forgotten before, and we will again.”

Cerkezoglu is confident that change will come, saying she believes that “the resistance of workers will lead to a change of living conditions and collective work agreements.”

For his part, Cetin wryly acknowledges that workers have been displaying this resistance. “We have asked for our rights, we’ve gone on strike and we’ve marched,” he says, but then he describes the violence that workers have faced for their efforts, including being beaten with batons and gassed by riot police.

“We have always known the taste of dynamite dust in our lungs, but we had never known the taste of pepper gas. Thanks to the state, we now know that as well.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Police barricade in Gezi Park – one of the last green spaces in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district and an “oasis” in Taksim Square, a large stone plaza of mostly open space with a few statues, fountains and entrances to underground stations (May 2013). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

By Tessa Love
ISTANBUL, Oct 14 2014 (IPS)

A year after the Gezi Park uprising – a protest that began as an act to save trees – exploded into anti-government riots around the country, sparking cohesive community efforts to fight urban sprawl, the face of environmental activism and awareness in Turkey has changed.

“It’s no coincidence that the demonstrations were ignited by an ecological issue, by concerns of urban development,” said Morat Ozbank, an assistant professor of political theory at Bigli University and a board member of the Turkish Green Party. “And this later became an issue of human rights and democratisation.”

At 11 pm on May 27, 2013, bulldozers moved into Gezi Park – one of the last green spaces in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district and an “oasis” in Taksim Square, a large stone plaza of mostly open space with a few statues, fountains and entrances to underground stations.  They were there to clear the trees for the controversial construction of an Ottoman-era style shopping mall.“The mega-projects are disastrous for Istanbul. All development is hurting something. Urban planning is a rational profession, but the government does not listen to this rationale. They take our public spaces and sell them for construction” – Akif Burak Atlar, secretary to the board at the Turkish Chamber of Urban Planners

Within 20 minutes, throngs of people filled the park to block the construction, and they stayed for 20 days before being forced out by police.

The proposed shopping mall was just one of a long list of mega-projects spearheaded by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Other projects include a third bridge across the Bosphorus, a tunnel for private vehicles beneath the same waterway, the world’s largest airport, and a second Bosphorus on the Asian side of the city.

Many of these projects are being carried forward despite opposition from bodies such as the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), which is responsible for assessing the potential impact of proposed projects and advising against those that could be detrimental to the environment.

According to Akif Burak Atlar, secretary to the board at the Turkish Chamber of Urban Planners, all of these projects fit that description.

“The mega-projects are disastrous for Istanbul,” he says. “All development is hurting something. Urban planning is a rational profession, but the government does not listen to this rationale. They take our public spaces and sell them for construction.”

Atlar believes that every neighbourhood in Istanbul should legally have a certain amount of green space to uphold urban planning standards. Nevertheless, public parks are being destroyed and, beyond the city limits, miles of wild forests have been destroyed to make way for the third bridge and the second Bosphorus.

While all of these projects had elicited outcries from various small organisations and legal action from TMMOB before May 2013, nothing came close to the response at Gezi Park.

“Gezi was a unique moment is Turkish history,” says Atlar. “There was no leader, no formal organisation. It was an awakening.”

One year later, this movement is still alive and although policies regarding urban planning have not changed at governmental level, grassroots organisations have joined forces in the hope of making changes where they can.

One of these – Northern Forest Defence – is a movement organised by free volunteers to defend the last forests of northern Istanbul. Known as the “Child of Gezi,” it works to halt the development of mega projects like the third bridge, as well as working within small communities to stop the destruction of public parks for development.

While many of these efforts are small, Cigdem Cidamli, a founding member of the organisation, believes that they are essential to the progress of urban defence. “Small movements can’t change as much as big movements,” she says, “but we can’t have big movements without the small ones. So now we are trying to create more integrated channels of solidarity.”

Cidamli, Atlar and Ozbank all agree that the integration of organisations is the most recognisable accomplishment of Gezi so far. Many neighbourhoods now have an urban defence group to discuss a wide range of issues including urban development.

Many of these groups have come together to form larger organisations such as Taksim Solidarity, Istanbul Urban Defence and Northern Forest Defence.

One small group, Caferaga Dayanismasi, is a collective in the Kadikoy neighbourhood that conducts meetings and organises activist movements from a “squat” – an abandoned building that members have occupied and are renovating.

Bahadir, a member of the squat, says that the best thing they have done as a group is to have occupied and cultivated an empty lot that was going to be turned into a car park. Now it is a community vegetable garden where neighbours, both the young and the old, get their hands dirty.

Cidamli is thankful to Gezi for this development. “After Gezi, people are looking inward to create solidarity in small ways,” she says. “We can’t have Gezi every day. So, instead, we cultivate tomatoes.”

With this growth in community-minded activism, Bahadir says that the city cannot cut down a single tree without sparking a protest.

But so far, the only major development that has successfully been halted is the shopping mall at Gezi.

“The funny thing is, they can’t do anything in Taksim Square right now,” says Ozbank with a smile. “They can’t touch anything … not even to beautify the place.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)