Arrest of a monument in Ankara: imposing state-led citizenship upon public spaces

In this case, again, the visibility of supporters of the activists are trapped by their visibility on the streets with the actors. Accordingly, the endless legislative procedures following the activists and their supporters can be considered as one of the disciplinary practices of the state. Hereby, the actors of the streets are to be distanced to each other, or be forced to leave the public spheres due to their new vulnerable legislative situations. At this point, what Ong (1996) and Lazar (2013) intended to describe citizenship as subject formation can be considered with this practical frame because the AKP using security discourse to blame and otherize a particular group demand or deny a particular way of citizenship form also defines themselves with their attitudes in the public spheres (p.380; p.80). In this sense, even if the actors cannot make subject to political power, a legislative vulnerability is created and their visibility on the streets are removed as a result of it. In this little cycle of production of legitimatization, I approached how the justification of blaming the activism depends on the AKP government's security discourse that takes its references from its ideological bases, and while doing this I also explained how two forms of citizenship monitoring or contestation upon the public spaces emerged. The actors face is sued for being a member of terrorist organization when they are visible with the political activists. In this sense, what has the security discourse has to do with this picturesque becomes clearer. The legitimacy of the actors is made vulnerable, so that their social interactions with the social entity where their voice of citizenship is raised in different levels are limited by the state. It becomes clear at each level that imposing a state-led citizenship model upon the public spheres function with the means of governmentality by putting actors into vulnerable situations where their social and political ties can be weakened.

In this sense, social and political practices building a culture of resistance also define a form of citizenship when there is a contestation came into a question in this place and the actors can form up a collective visibility towards the mechanisms of government. Since the AKP government justified its practices towards the public spheres that are charged as politically, the way of being in these streets are also defined and justified. That is why, the government with its justification erected its power representations upon the public spheres so that these power representations can play a regulatory role towards the attitudes of the actors related to the public spheres. Considering the arrest of the symbolic monument too, the display of taking people to the police cars became a routine practice for Konur and Y ьksel Streets in these three years. This new routine is telling the outcomes of the intervention at first glance since all the alternative representations of the citizenship models are repressed in different ways, the flags of these groups are removed and the symbolic statue arrested literally. Since the interviewees state that “Konur is ours” or the “Gezi Park is ours”, it should be considered with the framework I presented above in this chapter. That is why, the contestation between the actors in a public sphere should also be considered with understanding what kind of citizenship forms are conflicting to find a way to exist or produce an alternative one since the visibility became the practice of citizenship on public spheres. Comparing this to the Istanbul and Diyarbakir contexts, the Diyarbakir has a different pre-conditions and historical context as I presented in the beginning of the analysis. However, it is still possible to say that in front of the HDP party building where the press releases held time to time has a representativeness for a form of citizenship that is related with its history and geography too. However, since it would lead me a completely different research agenda, I will be limiting this comparative approach by the positioning of actors mostly. That is because in such a study, touching to the Kurdish issue with all its pre-conditions leads me to a different research agenda under this context. That is why, when I just look at the practice of protest in front of the HDP building, and the positioning of police as an actor in the public sphere I find interesting answers to be discussed, because there is a contrast photo of the actors in the public spheres where the barricading or surveillance is not over the protesters but on the HDP building. According to the families started a sit-down strike in front of the HDP, Diyarbakir, their occupation will last here unless the state does something. In this case, the practices and the roles of the actors are contrast in the picturesque. While the activists expect state to help them in Diyarbakir, the activists on the Ankara, and Istanbul expect state to leave the public sphere and let them exist on the streets. However, I will give more detail about this in the chapter I talk about the police barricades where I look at the actors positioning towards each other. In the chapter below, I introduce more data related analysis to look at how the Konur and Y ьksel Street became contestant by also comparing to Gezi Park Protests and Diyarbakir sit-down strikes when it is necessary and meaningful. In addition to these, one of the interviewees stated that “Since we are unlawfully removed from our jobs, we demand for our jobs, there is nothing normal than this. They did not only remove us from our jobs, they took our chances to defend ourselves in the courts, we cannot go to abroad for any-reason or find a job at the offices."

Another actor commented on the situation of the particular activists on the Konur and Y ьksel Streets like this: “It is literally like; they prisoned, tortured and removed them from their jobs, because of their political opinions, and they are implying that “they cannot live, find a job or be a part of activism as long as we are the political power" ".

Some of the actors of these streets have been demanding the same things for three years on the Konur and Y ьksel Streets, however the answer they got from the government mechanisms is to be displaced from the public spheres. As some of the interviewees stated there are a lot of investigations opened against these actors, and they are being investigated if they are a member of a terrorist organization. Some of the interviewees have more than 5 law suits related to this routine usage of the Konur and Y ьksel Streets. In the videos broadcasted in the accounts such as FOSEM and Yьksel TV too, all the activists emphasize that how the AKP government removed them from their jobs unlawfully due to their political opinions and that is why they demand their jobs back from the government as they state it in their everyday resistance on the Konur and Yьksel Streets. Since there is a visual evidence of more than three years that the activists are being taken into police cars, or being dragged by police to make them leave from the streets, I find this picturesque quite explanatory for the research focus. Hereby, the equation gives an outcome where the AKP government's practices towards the people, who are not subjected to the ideological formations of the state-led citizenship, are being removed from the public spheres. In this case, it is possible to say that the activism not enrolled with the government is justified as the bad thing for the AKP government, and the legislative mechanisms are also used to mob the activists to quit demanding political issues on the public spheres since their legitimacy is reduced to zero due to the vulnerable political agenda of the country. Even if the activists state that they only want their jobs back in their protests, the investigations opened against them are mainly questioning if they are involving in a terrorist organization and opposing to government's mechanisms.

Since I have been mentioning about how a citizenship should not be only conceptualized by an empirical definition but with its practices so that with its visibility on the public spheres as Gцle (2013) and Зinar (2019) stated too, the intervention towards this visibility of actors are to subject them to the political power which promotes a state- led citizenship in this case. There does not have to be a dualistic empirical definition of citizenship in this case, but practices and the visibility with the government that has the power to redefine a population in this sense should be considered too. In this case, subjection to political power is the practice of recruiting new citizenship models in this case referring to Ong's (1996) and Lazar's (2003) concept of cultural citizenship as subject formation.

Since it became clear that how suppression and the state-led citizenship is justified with such security discourses resulting in the investigations towards the actors, hereby, I also defined the objects of surveillance and intervention to see which actors are targeted in the public spheres. Moreover, representations of alternative forms on the public spheres and their visibility as its practice is under a siege of the governmentality mechanisms. As Foucault (2007) stated too, the security upon a territory deals with its population too since they are inseparable due to their socialness on each other (p.378).

6.3 Being Subjects of the Prefabricated Police Stations

In this chapter, I present the particular practices of governmentalization that I have been mentioning from the beginning of this study. In other words, I find it useful to study the visibility of power representations, actors, and their relations to the theoretical framework considering the power representations and their visibilities with different concepts of citizenship models. Since my study arises from a physical arrest of a monument, I elaborate how each practice complete each other to understand my theoretical approach. That is why, first of all, I would like to continue looking at what a prefabricated police station meant and what kind of concept it is in this context. Especially after the intensification of hunger strikes and sit-down strikes next to the Konur and Y ьksel Street, at first stage, a police bus surrounded by a police barricades located next to the monument of human rights, then it by time it is replaced with a prefabricated police station with a big Turkish flag hanged over on it (Figure 12).

This means twenty-four-hour surveillance upon the public sphere where the police officers are constantly on guard with their equipment, and ready to intervene to any issue in an instant time. I interpret this process of settlement as a consolidation of power representation in the public sphere. The permanency of the police in the street visibly became observable with this settlement process especially when the time consists of 3 years considered for this new concept of the Konur and Yьksel Streets. One of the interviewees stated that “the police 's first thing to do on the streets while they were establishing the portable prefabricated police station was to collect all the flags of the groups and hang Turkish flags over the streets"

After the justification of the intervention by security discourse and blaming the protesters, another stage of the intervention was “to flag” the territory as Billig (1995) stated (p.8). That is why, I also consider this flagging practice of the AKP government as to redefine territory by erecting the symbols of a nationhood. In this case, this practice is meaningful when the socially produced space around these streets considered. In this case, this flagging can be interpreted in terms of nationalism and so forth, however, hereby I would like evaluate it as a power representation artificially since the practices and the interactions of different actors became the issue of different forms of citizenship models. In this case, I should also remind how the security discourses are the building blocks of the AKP-led citizenship upon such public spheres. The de-flagging and flagging are to define a metaphorical moral upon the territory where the government mechanisms use the nation flag. It is important because since the eternity of the state featured in such concepts while defining a territory and population under the AKP rule, the Turkish flag became the power representation of this security discourse. In this sense, it can be interpreted as the actors when they oppose to the mechanisms of government, they also oppose to the nationhood, eternity of the state since the police is the educatory tool of the ideological states as Althusser (2006) stated too (p.96).

The police are de-flagging and re-flagging the public sphere and erase their visibility. In this sense, what Billig (1995) stated for flagging is embodied by practice of police here. Hereby, the flagging practice is one of the steps of intervention. After removal of the banners, flags and the street art related to political figures, Turkish flags hanged over the Konur and Yьksel Streets, in addition to this, considering the prefabricated police station, it has a Turkish flag that can be easily observed by everyone on the street. I find this practice meaningful to interpret in terms of the theoretical framework I approach to this field because what it is visible in the street with the Turkish flagged prefabricated police station is a representation of an ideological power, or embodied political power of the AKP government since the public sphere is charged in a different way politically by the government.

Since I study how the means of governmentality function towards a new form of citizenship which is burgeoned from the ideological bases of the AKP, here I see a practice of fanning the flames of a nationhood by hanging over flags to remind where the inhabitants of the street belong or subject to. Hereby, the state's visibility is characterized by the practice of flagging the streets, and the actors are expected to be subjected to this ideological representation since the alternative voices are reduced by the intervention. In this sense, the Konur and Yьksel Streets has been a place where people are reminded what they are subject to at this stage with flagging practice of the means of government. In this case, a prefabricated police station with a Turkish flag (see figure 9 above) has also a symbolic intervention to the public sphere since they also practice de-flagging.

In this research, since I combine various theoretical frameworks to study how the means of governmentality function towards different forms of citizenship models upon public spheres, the visibility is the practice of these citizenship forms. This overarching concept of approaching the practical conflict between the citizenship model is reading all the process of subject formation of the practices. Since this subject formation is also a process and the citizenship are the outcome of being subject to the political power, it is possible to interpret that the re-defining the public sphere has different stages even without considering the perspectives of the actors at first stage. Before analyzing the police practices and how they function in a disciplinary way towards particular actors related to public spheres, in the chapter below, I want to elaborate how the police barricading and the exercise of power against different actors' function. In the chapter below, I want to clarify how police as a mean of governmentality is important to be understood in terms of imposing a real-life practice of cultural citizenship idea upon the particular public spheres against particular political groups. Then, I can analyze what kind of punitive measures are taken towards whom to ensure governmentality in these territories.

6.4 A Selectively Permeable Cell Membrane: Police Barricades

In this part of the analysis, I elaborate and analyze how police barricading functions towards different groups and actors to explain what kind of citizens are allowed to be visible in the public spheres under the monitor of the state-led citizenship upon the public spheres. Police barricades became a part of the everyday visual of the people in

Turkey. In this sense, I find it useful to understand how do they function by surrounding a park, a building, a journalist or a monument to erase their visibility from the public spheres. That is why, what does this removal of visibility mean has a crucial answer for the research problem. Since these ideological power representations of the AKP government play a regulatory role in the public spheres, what kind of practices are applied to which actors should be considered to understand what is allowed to be visible as an actor in the public spheres. After presenting how these police barricading, and surveillance functions towards particular groups, in the titles below, I present the disciplinary, regulatory practices of the police intending to ensure governmentality to monitor a citizenship upon the territories by disciplining and punishing the created nonpublic or the other way of being citizens. As I explained the dominant fabric of the actors appropriating the Konur and Yьksel Streets, here, I consider their positioning towards police and state to be able to compare how different actors are affected by the power representations of the AKP government.

6.4.1 Closure of the Taksim Square

The closure of the Taksim Square and Gezi Park on particular times literally means the barricading of the whole area with police barricades. It is also interesting, the barricades that are being used to surround these places always stand next to the police cars whole year, in this sense, there is a display of constant police existence in the public sphere and next to their settlements, there are a lot of barricades that are ready to be deployed. On the 1^st May 2020, the Taksim Square is surrounded with police barricades as it was done in the previous years such as 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 too. The syndicates wanted to place a wreath on the Taksim Square, however, the police did not allow all the syndicates. That is why, two contrast images appeared on the Taksim Square (Figure14). It became one of the main topic conversations during the 1^st May that how some syndicates are allowed to leave a wreath on the Taksim Square while the others are intervened by police even if their demands were not far from each other. The different experiences of the syndicates became a litmus paper here to understand their relationship with the government. The 14^th figure illustrates the wreaths left on the Taksim Square at the end of the 1^st May 2020. While the syndicates such as `Birle§ik Kamu І§', `HAK-I§', `HAK- SEN' were leaving their wreath on the Taksim Square in company with police, the members of the syndicate named DiSK were not allowed and some of them were taken into the custody. In the 14^th figure, there is one fragmented, and wrecked wreath that belongs to the DISK.

Figure 10: 2020 1st May, the wreaths of the different syndicats on the Taksim Square (Photo Taken from the Twitter account: @sahmetsahmet)

Hereby, the visibility of alternative syndicates is also seen as fragmented on the Taksim Square. Since the DISK has been one of the important political groups took place in the Gezi Park Protests, their visibility as an actor has the similar patterns as an alternative voice of citizenship. Comparing this to the other wreaths, the visibility of the “other” is fragmented and were not able to pass from the police barricades without any conflict or police violence. In this case, being subject to political power and being an alternative sound on the public spheres are filtered on the public spheres. Accordingly, it is possible to interpret this in a similar way, only the ones who are subject to the political power of the government can pass from the membrane of the police. One of my interviewees stated that, “it has been an issue between left wing political groups and the AKP, every 1^st May, we try to go to Taksim Square and they try to stop us doing it. Especially last 10 years, each 1^st May became a war place thanks to the police and government".

Especially after the Gezi Park protests, the closure of this public spheres and the control of them became an issue for the AKP government again, and their practice of arresting the public squares, and parks, and letting only the actors who are subject to the dominant political power is the outcome of this picturesque.

Another complementary example to this is the relationship between the AKP government and the other political Islamic groups. For example, Alperen Ocaklari Alperen Ocaklari is a political group known by their support to the AKP government in the elections, and their conservative-nationalist ideological bases. is one of the Islamic political groups in Turkey who stand with the Erdogan government during the elections, and they showed up in the streets of Taksim Square to prevent the pride march like they did its previous years. On the day of pride march in 2019, a lot of conflicts happened between these actors. Some members of the Alperen Ocaklari even threatened the members of the LGBTI-Q if they continue walking to the Taksim Square. Police was there to prevent pride march to reach Taksim Square or intensify around the Taksim Square. One of the interviewees stated that “as we see every year, islamists can go to Taksim square even if it is closed for any kind of protests specifically that day due to our pride march, but we cannot even walk to the Taksim Square from the Istiklal Street because of who we are."