Arrest of a monument in Ankara: imposing state-led citizenship upon public spaces
Emerging culture of resistance in public spheres. Visibility of power representations in public spaces. Territorial identity or a project for state-led citizenship. Monotype public spheres, removal of the street art. Arrest of a monument in Ankara.
| Рубрика | Культура и искусство |
| Вид | дипломная работа |
| Язык | английский |
| Дата добавления | 25.08.2020 |
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Considering this statement, while describing the bases of the state-led citizenship of the AKP government, I mentioned of neoliberalism, faithfulness and a particular way of moral bases. In this sense, seeing the AKP governments' conceptualization of the people under a conservative roof and a building block can also be seen from this practice. In this sense, this conservative root of the state-led citizenship that is being promoted on the streets is literally happening already. It is because, since the LGBTI-Q members were not allowed to be visible on the public spheres, the group of Alperen Ocaklari can stand on the public spheres against the LGBTI-Q members. According to the interviewee, their way of being is not allowed but the ones who oppose their even existence can be allowed on the public spheres of Istanbul. Hereby, again, the police barricades functions selectively as it is seen. Besides, in the figure 11, the same group is on the Taksim Square protesting against the Pride March same day. In this case, the intervention of police done against the pride marchers but not to the groups close with the government ideologically and practically. Also, they were allowed to occupy the Taksim Square to protest Pride March.
Figure 11: Alperen Ocaklari protests against the honor pride on Taksim Square which was forbidden for any political declaration specifically that day (Photo Taken from the twitter account: @140journos)
6.4.2 A Political Party Building under Siege
Lastly, I would like to add another example of this selectiveness of government mechanisms in the public spheres. In Diyarbakir, the political occupants in front of the HDP building were not suppressed or surveilled however, the building of the HDP and its members were in the positions of being surveilled. In the figure 17, the police blockade against the HDP members can be observed. The photo was taken from inside the HDP building when the HDP members were hindered to make a political statement in front of their building as they used to do before.
Figure 12: Inside the HDP Building in Diyarbakir (Photo: Budancir, 2019)
In the figure 18, the front of the barricades is against the HDP building, and in the figure 14, the interior minister of the Turkey is visiting the occupants by presenting his support to the families making a sit-down strike in front of the building.
Figure 13: In front of the HDP building, Diyarbakir (Photo: Budancir, 2019)
Figure 14: Minister of Interior visits and expresses his support to the families in front of the HDP building, Diyarbakir
Figure 15: Ministry of Family and Social Policies visits and Expresses her support to the families in front of the HDP building, Diyarbakir (photo taken from euronews.com)
Lastly, in the 15th figure, the Family and Social Policies Minister visiting the families to declare and show her support to the families. This picturesque of the police barricades tells a lot about how the barricades took position towards which actors. In this sense, hereby I relate this cell membrane specialty of the police barricades that can arrest a public park, a building or a monument with the theoretical framework of this study to understand how monitoring citizenship functions within. As it is seen in the police practices, positionings towards the different actors, this little approach illustrates how the surveillance only targets particular groups that are also defined as non-public as Ate§ (2017) stated by the AKP government. That is why, in Diyarbakir, the police were standing with the political activists against the oppositional political party activists, and besides, the building was surrounded with police barricades like it happened in the Ankara, and Istanbul. For Istanbul, the syndicates who get along well with the government or the syndicates that the AKP government founded were allowed to leave a wreath on the Taksim Square in company with police, on the other hand one of the oldest workers syndicate DISK, was not allowed even to come closer to the public sphere at first place. However, as it has been in the recent years, the activists did not just give up to leave a wreath, but tried to manage to go to these public spheres. In this case, as it is seen in the figure 14, the only wreath fragmented is the one that does not have a good history and relation with the government. In addition to this, in the pride march, the groups supporting the government stand with the police to prevent people to make the pride march by telling that is forbidden to go to Taksim Square. However, they let the Alperen Ocaklari to make a protest or political declaration in the Taksim Square when the square is closed to any kind of political activity on the very same day. That is why, the analysis below considers this selective attitude of the police.
Considering the statements of the interviewees in Diyarbakir, the people were expecting the support of government. In other way of saying, they made their political demands from the government by starting a sit-down strike in front of a political party building. Considering all the public spheres I took into consideration for this research, they all had demands from the government. Even if their political motivations were different, the relationship between demanding something from the government on the public spheres has a basic mechanism, and this mechanism is between the state and the activism. Hereby, the AKP government selects supporting only one political group. In this sense, the visibility of different actors and the police's different approach to these different actors again concludes the similar conceptualization I made. Considering who they stand with, the answer of the imagined state-led citizenship being monitored upon the public spheres can be distilled. In this sense, considering the AKP's Islamic building blocks, and also the security discourse they constantly use against the protesters function selectively depending on if the protesters against the government or not at any point. The allowance of the groups that cooperate with the police against the non-public that the AKP created by time is also visioning a model for a citizenship who does not oppose the government, and its conservatism's reflection can also be observed by looking at how it reflected on the pride march. The means of governmentality completely reflects the ideological bases of the AKP government by just being a supporter or opposer actor in the public sphere. In this sense, the allowance of the government sided groups to use the public spheres tell the story of what kind of citizenship is accepted even if they are being involved in politics since they also created this other concept of public. In this sense, the state does not have to tell what kind of citizenship they approve or promote to ensure governmentality, the researchers studying these concepts can use how they use the means of governmentality exceptionally as Agamben (2015) stated (p.7). In this kind of exceptionality Agamben (2015) questions the legitimacy of power where the state of exception became rule the government instead of a normal conceptualization. In this case, the state of exception as a ruler exercise the regulatory power to redefine the territory against particular groups only. In all three cases, the common of these selective permeable police barricades is that their fronts are looking at the non-public that is created by the AKP government, or the people who define themselves alternatively by opposing the imposed way of living as Зinar (2016) stated it for Gezi Park protests too. Below, I discuss the disciplinary and punitive of the means of governmentality examples from the field work to analyze how they functioned towards the cultural citizenship project of the AKP government upon the public spheres. This chapter proves how police as a power representation in the public spheres is also explicitly political towards the alternative forms of citizenship models. In this case, the non-public that is also created by the AKP government is to be subjected to their ideology by suppressing them since suppression of other political activism is also justified by the security discourses that are being fed by the ideological bases of the AKP government.
6.5 Disciplinary and Punitive Practices
In this chapter, I present how the means of governmentality functioned towards standardization of the everyday life routines of the Konur and Yьksel Street as a social entity that includes all the social and political interactions and practices of the actors. I consider the perceptions of the inhabitants towards the police occupation and also the practices of barricading the street in terms of the study focus. Hereby, the discrediting, punishing, or the reduce of visibility of an actor should be understood as the punitive practices at first glance. In addition to this, how the perceptions of the interviewees were and how they are with the constant police existence is considered to understand how regulatory practices affected the social network of the public sphere. While doing this, one of the important points that should be remembered is which actors are affected by what kind of practices.
Figure 16: "This blockade will be removed" written on the police barricades, Ankara (The photo taken from: politikyol.com)
As in the figure 21, the barricades strangely surround the monument and a police bus and police officers waiting next to it constantly. In the very first months of the intervention, the police barricades were not only surrounding the monument of human rights, but they were also blocking the ways entering the streets (figure 17).
Figure 17: The protest of the inhabitants against the police blockade
Since the culture of resistance emerged from this social entity included all its actors, the government blocked the ways of the streets for a particular time, which resulted some work places' closure during that time. As it is seen in the figure 22, there are tables on the street. These tables were put outside the cafes to protest police's blockage of the street by the bar workers and owners. One of my interviewees stated that “They should see how much customers we have now to earn our lives, so we put our tables here if it made them feel anything about what they do” Ironically, because with the blockage people were not let to the streets which surrounds the monument of the human rights. Some of the cafes remained closed during these police barricading which means they lost their incomes and profits. By this barricading, the mechanisms of the governmentality put the workplaces into a vulnerable position where they cannot make money. In this sense, this illustrates an economic disciplinary attitude towards all the cafes and bars in the street. Without considering any workplace if they are a part of a mobilization or not, the whole streets are barricaded. With the loss of income, bar owners came together to discuss issue, and in the discussion, there was even a proposition to remove the monument of human rights from the street so that the protesters would go somewhere else to protest. This interesting idea is quite strong explanatory of what kind of things wanted to be removed from the street. Even if there used to be a solidarity between the workplaces, loss of profit broke some of this resistance due to the economic outcomes for the workers. And, this became clear with some propositions of the bar owners related to the activists. Some of them proposed that no bar, cafй or workplace allow them inside their places or let them distribute their banners to the bars. However, the majority of the work places were not even interested or commented on this idea. In practice, few work places tried to keep their doors close during the particular times of the day when there is a police intervention so that they were planning to help police in this case. The visibility level of this collectiveness reduced since police started not letting anyone to hang over a banner or do a political protest on the streets. One of my interviewees stated how the Konur and Y ьksel used to “resist towards police” with this particular example:
“I remember a day when the police came to tear down a banner hanging over the street and intervene to the protesters, people from these bars were throwing bottles to the police to prevent them coming to the streets and disturbing the customers."
By these words, the action of the police surrounding whole streets can be considered again with the theoretical framework of this study. However, after the intensive and insistent demands of the workplaces around the street, the area that the police barricades surround narrowed down to the around the monument of human rights where the political declarations usually held by different groups. In the long-term, this economic disciplining practice towards the inhabitants of the street seems like it worked in terms of regulations of the government. The interviewee stated after a particular time from the first interview:
“Today, there are people just stand next to the police cars to watch police take the activists to police stations, and I know it is not because they are clueless about what is going on. People got used to see these arrests and the intervention every day, so people are really tired".
This statement also gives a clue about how the culture of resistance evolved into something else apart from the social fabric of the streets entitled with the representation of an alternative way of being on the streets. In this picturesque, the alienation between the actors related to the public sphere becomes observable, and according to most of the interviewees people got used to see an everyday arrest on the streets, and no one react to it anymore, because otherwise the police practices will also target other actors too. In this case, the collectiveness of the social entity seems to be reduced on the Konur and Yьksel Streets. Accordingly, the symbols of alternative citizenship are also reduced and regulated by the power mechanisms of the state. In this case, the actors can be on the streets unless they are subject to the power representations of the AKP. In this sense, since I referred Ong (1996) too, this subject formation erecting a state-led citizenship while reducing the other one. Especially since this public space has been a politically contestant place, and politically charged place, one of the citizenship models will raise at the end of this contestation. In this case, the means of governmentality functions towards reducing the visibility of the alternative way of citizenship representations on the public spheres.
Even after the narrow down of the area that police barricades surrounded, the punitive practices of the police continued economically towards the workplaces around the monument. In this sense, the interviewees describe how these practices happened against them “police just come into the cafes to check people's identity cards, and they say it is a routine control. They blame as by saying that we hide someone from the protests, and they reason their frequent id checks by this”.
As the interviewee stated too, the justification of the id checks in the bars took a dimension that blames the activism again. Also, the police intervention to the inside of the bars create a more complicated context where the co-operation is also forbidden with the actors. In this sense, this practice can be considered as another economic disciplining practice since one of my interviewees stated that they lose profit because of this kind of intervention into their workplaces. They also stated that they know some of their customers do not visit the bar because of these policed bars, and streets. In this sense, one of the actors of the streets are being punished by such practices that results in economic loss for them. Since my interviewees stated that the police were even checking for the banners, and the notice papers, cultural event advertisements on the walls to sue them or to “disturb the bars” more in the future as a justification. This picturesque is full of police practices, and the interactions between the inhabitants. In this case, this study illustrates how economic disciplinary mechanisms functioned towards the inhabitants. Since interviewees stated that the police always “disturb” the same bars that usually the activists visit or that are keeping banners, or any kind of political event related paper or picture, this kind of intervention confirms that the selectiveness of the police function towards the ones who do not collaborate with government or politically charged in a way that the government does not approve. One of the interviewees described a dialogue between the police officers and her while the police was tear gassing the streets and some of the bars. As the interviewee shout at the police that “why are you tear gassing every single corner of the street, what do you get from this?”, the police answered that “we will stop doing this after these leave the street, if you do not want this, do not allow them inside your places.”
This dialogue has a crucial and intense meaning within, because what I have been discussing in the literature review is practically appearing in the public sphere and become concrete. In the chapter that I mentioned the literature related to monopolization and standardization of the streets and public spheres, the standard that the government envisions for becomes concrete, and comes to light. The standardization envisions an apolitical public sphere, and in addition to this, as I mentioned in the literature review, a public sphere or territory cannot be thought of without its population or actors. In this sense, the standardization includes all the social entity with its social, political interactions consist of solidarity, cooperation, and collective mechanisms they have. In this case, this should not only be seen as an intervention to a public sphere, but as a political project upon a territory. As Golan (2005) stated too, militarizing, and policing a politically charged public spheres was to ensure public safety at first place, conversely, it also eliminates the opposition towards the dominant government ideology if there is, in this case, as Foucault (2007) stated, the security governmentalizing the territory with its population is the picturesque of how police practices functions in these fields I study (p.73; p.378). In this sense, government's project of standardized streets by means of governmentality can also be read as standardization and monitorization of a new way of citizenship upon the territory. That is because the AKP government already created a nonpublic while defining a public where the citizens are “faithful” to state and its mechanisms at any conditions.
Konur during Nights and Street Vendors
Lastly, I find it useful to compare how the intervention affected the night time inhabitants of the street. In this sense, around the Konur and Yьksel Streets, after 22:00 there is another life routine begins when most of the workplaces closed in the street. The street vendors selling street-food, second hand books, music records, second-hand clothes, wristbands, paintings set their tables up on the streets and there is a crowd of people who visit these places (see photos from the night time of the Konur and Yьksel Streets; figure 18, 19). Some of the street vendors are students, or some of them earn their life from their sells on this street. The prefabricated police station located next to their places where they used to open their tables up. Since I have been mentioning constant police existence, surveillance and security practices, the night times of these streets has also things to tell about the research focus.
Figure 18: Street Vendors earning their life from these sells on these streets during nights, Konur Street
Figure 19: Figure 23: Street Vendors earning their life from these sells on these streets during nights, Konur and Yьksel Streets
An online newspaper called “Gazete Duvar” interviewed some of the students earn their life from their sells on the Konur and Yьksel Streets (Цzgьr; 2018). According to the comments of the interviewees, these streets became more insecure with the police existence, because the police point scares people, and that is why most of the people do not prefer to come here for shopping. In addition to this, one of the interviewees from this newspaper's interview states that “the Konur and Yьksel Streets became like Sincan Sincan is a district of Ankara that is known as the "AKP government's castle" for winning the elections, this district is famous with its very conservative population” referring the after and with the constant police intervention time. In addition to this, the interviewee states that one of the activists were stabbed by someone and the same person was walking around the Konur and Y ьksel Streets freely, even if he stabbed someone just a day before. The same interviewee states that “normally no one can do something like this in front of a lot of camera and police, that is why I think that they are supported by someone". Considering such an event in front of a police station is quite interesting and manipulative. Besides, since the interviewees' perceptions on the people visiting the streets for shopping changed in a particular way, this situation can tell what is allowed to be seen practically and metaphorically.
Apart from this, the street-vendors consider police existence with their economic loss and also comments on how the Konur and Yьksel became like a place Sincan. Considering the cultural events, social activities and the openness of the Konur and Yьksel Street, the evaluation or the perception of the Konur street transforming into a “Sincan-like place” is meaningful to understand what kind of citizenship understanding or concept is already on the rise on these streets. In this sense, according to the interviewees, people who visit and buy goods from these people also changed very distinctively. One of the interviewees selling the portraits of different political groups' states that the customers do not buy the left political figures like before. This can be interpreted with the decrease of the customers and the visiting number of the people with the police existence however, since the interviewee also states that people are abstained because there are twenty-four-hour police watching what people do in the street. Even with constant police existence can be interpreted with what it may change in this sense. Considering all these police practices towards the inhabitants of the streets is quite functioning in terms of economic terms. The intervention of the police towards is not only felt by the activists but also by the inhabitants of the streets in this sense, because when they are involved in the accustomed social structure of the Konur and Yьksel Streets, they are being punished economically besides by police due to their activities with the activism on the streets. In this case, the police barricades are acting selective permeably again. The barricades surround the workplaces to cut their profit and make them stop to cooperate with an anti-governmental movement. In this sense, considering the visibility of representations and practices again, the visibility of a collaboration on the public spheres are also intervened, and this functioned economically mainly. However, as a result the visibility of the co-operation or solidarity between the particular actors are reduced. In the interviews (Цzgьr) conducted with these street vendors, the economic loss with the police existence and the street vendors' change on the people visiting the Konur and Yьksel Streets becomes completely different dimension here (2018). In addition to this, interviewees emphasized that this change by time on the streets, and according to the interviewees, they believe people visiting the Konur and Yьksel Streets started to be similar to the “Sincan-like profile”. Since interviewees stated such an argument, it is important to understand this concept for this research. Sincan is known as the AKP' biggest castle in the Ankara for winning the elections. Moreover, in the district of Sincan, people usually prefer to act following the morals of Sincan due to the intensive conservative population on the district. In this district, the morals can be conservative and the people's everyday lives can be questioned due to their attitudes or due to who they are. In this sense, one of my interviewees stated that
“I cannot walk alone as a woman after a while even if there is a police station on the street now, I even witnesses what I was doing on the streets at 02.00 AM once. That is unbelievable because around the Konur at least I have never experienced such thing before.”
Seeing such events on the most open public place of Ankara is a crucial change as the interviewees stated too. Accordingly, the actors related to this public sphere observed this social change on the streets like that. In this sense, I think it is possible to consider this change with the visibility of citizenship forms again. In this new form of the state-led citizenship arising upon the Konur and Yьksel Streets, women's visibility on the public spheres during nights is questioned by the actors who started show up on the social entity after the constant police existence. Accordingly, this is the place where the civilians also became a part of this regulation of roles on the streets. Considering the conservative roots in the ideological bases of AKP, the practices of displacing women from the city centers and considering them at home also raise the gender aspect for this research. This again brings the question of being subject to political power on the streets. In this case, such actors intervening into people's life styles appearing on the streets are allowed to be on the streets, since there is also sexual harassments and verbal harassment towards LGBTI-Q individuals and women are reported to me on the interviews. In this case, these interviewees also stated that they are facing an everyday life violence since such people started to show up in the streets more. The point here should be understood by considering the change with the dominance of different visibilities upon the streets. In this sense, according to the interviewees, so many things changed as I mentioned since the constant police existence on the Konur and Y ьksel Streets. In that case as Genel (2006) stated too, means of governmentality becomes a biopower and open a place for the state-led citizenship where the alternative voices are suppressed, in this sense, the state led form of the citizenship starts to act like state mechanisms as biopower (p.45). Accordingly, being subject to a political power representation becomes the pre-condition of being allowed on the streets considering the Ong's (1996) concept of citizenship where he describes it as the subject formation. That is why, the visibility of the suppressed form of citizenship is under a siege of practical and metaphorical state-led citizenship practically and theoretically. In addition to this, referring to Foucault again, the subjectification is handled by means of governmentality and the visibility of actors together as a part of the public sphere became the trap for them (Foucault, 1977, p.76; Foucault, 2007, p.378; Foucault, 1982, p.782; Foucault, 1991, p.89; Raco & Mike, 2003, p.79). Thus, the disciplinary mechanisms would be actively reducing the actors' visibility from the public sphere with various practices.
Considering the Taksim Square's closure on the particular days too, there is a common practice of standardization where there is not any protest against the government. In this case, when I look at what happened in the Diyarbakir case as I mentioned above chapters, the police stand with the activists in the streets against a strong opposition party. This picturesque clearly tells how the standardization also functions in these public spheres where conservative family morals are raised, and the eternity of state is practiced by the new actors of the streets too. By looking at how these punitive practices, and the allowance of the visibility of different actors function towards, it seems like there is a particular way of being an activist or a political/social mobilization in the streets or a neighborhood, and this only way of being is related with non-opposition to the government scheme. I find pretty important this standardization in terms of research focus since the activists who do not oppose to the government and its mechanisms are considered as the public in this case.
6.6 Seeing what not to do today in the streets
Apart from these perspectives, what Wilson (2012) and Ulrich & Knopp (2018) concluded as video counter-surveillance towards the police can be considered in this analysis. As a counter-surveillance towards the constant police watch over the public sphere, the activists record every single public declaration, and the conflicts between the police in the Konur and Y ьksel Streets. One of the interviewees stated that the videos can be considered as a documentation of repression towards the ones who do not be with the government. This kind of interpretation towards this documentation of constant violence between the actors is interesting in terms of this research, because this also pictures how disciplinary mechanisms of the AKP government functions or functions towards whom in which ways. In this case, the activists or the other actors are not only recording the events because they can be useful in terms of legislative terms if there is an unlawful situation, but also to document how the way they exist in the public spheres are repressed by the police. Since police as the new part of this city architecture that is constantly visible in the streets, their functioning towards the particular actors are being documented with different motivations. In this sense, I approach these disciplinary exercises of the means of governmentality as a promotion of a particularly using the streets as an actor, which means that only the citizens who pay homage to state and its offices will be allowed in the streets. However, before concluding this in detail, I also find it useful to describe the change in the videos of the FOSEM that broadcasted a live feed on their social media accounts. With the constant police existence, the culture of resistance was quite intense and the quantity of the activists were high. Even if this can be considered normal that by time the number of the supporters may decrease or change in a different way, the only point of the comparing the quantity is not limited to interpreting the numbers here. Considering this, the recent days in the Konur and Yьksel Streets, the maximum numbers of the activists are three, and they are not even allowed to enter the streets anymore. The police prevent them come closer to the monument of human rights and to the streets, that is why the activists have to speak of their declarations out of the streets that I have been mentioning all the time in this study. In this case, even if the decreasing number of the activists showing up in the streets do not say a lot of things about the research focus, the relationship between the actors can be considered. Some of the bars put a clear distancing with the activists after these three years of constant policing which is still continuing.
Since the FOSEM and the activists on the Konur and Yьksel Streets hold a record of everything visually, this video and photo archive has been something like a book called “what not to do in the streets today”. When I look at the videos in detail, there are interesting practices of the police. For instance, when someone comes closer to the monument of the human rights and start to talk about their motivations, the very first action of the police is to surround the area and higher their police-shields against the people who try to see what is going on or try to record a movie of the current conflict on the public sphere. The second action, is to inform the activists they are not allowed to make a declaration even if they have a right to do legislatively. Then, they pull the banners of the activists and a police car comes closer to the activists so that the police are able to put the activists to the police car to remove them from the public sphere by detaining them. Since this has been an everyday routine of these streets for more than 3 years today, the activists also started to behave in the same way every time when they are forced to get in to the police car. In the second year of these protests, the activists were punching the police car while they are inside and they were shouting their slogans, and the people were looking at what is going on in the street, however this recent year, this has become a 18:30 routine of the street for the inhabitants of the street. The reaction and curiosity of looking at what is going on in the streets observably reduced to zero in three years. Especially in these recent years, these activists are not even allowed to enter to these streets by police. Also, with the coronavirus pandemic, their protest is also completely removed from the environment of the monument of human rights. In the recent videos, the police do not let the activists but lead them to an empty street to make their political statements loudly. One of the interviewees stated that “what we always stand against before became a routine in this street, every day I pass by this street and only thing I see is the arrests of the activists and the aggression between the police and street inhabitants. It is really like people do not see or hear the screams of the activists."
Considering this statement, there may be various explanations related to the change in these streets. In this case, it shows that a new routine emerged where the alternative voices arising on the streets became invisible. This invisibility can be explained by the actors' distancing to each other, in addition to this, with the constant intervention to this public sphere, people already know what is going on the streets, since they see the same practice every day. According to most of the interviewees too, the people started to hear this intervention as a part of the street. What unusual for the street became a usual display and routine today. According to the interviewees' statements, such police interventions used to be opposed by every actor related to this social entity collectively with different practices. However, today the visibility of this collectiveness reduced to zero since the means of governmentality opened a space for the state-led citizenship practices and form.
6.7 Broadening Surveillance upon Ankara
On the 1285th day (16th May 2020) video records from the fields s, there is not a particular police car, or a uniformed police officer or a military equipment on the streets.
However, there is a crowd next to the monument of human rights where a lot of civil police officers are waiting to intervene to the possible political statements can take place on the streets. Even if the police barricades around the monument is removed, the borders remained still, besides as I observed from the 1285th day videos went direct from the political activists' social media accounts, police started to wait next to the political activists' house. Accordingly, it also becomes clear that the borders that was located on the Konur and Yьksel Streets broadened. This broadening police barricades illustrates how the intervention is also broadened into the other forms of citizenship.
For instance, when the one is leaving their home to reach to the Konur street, the police basically took them to the police car. Also, one of the interviewees stated that since some of the activists have been `famous' among police any police seeing him/her around tries to mob them and ask their identity cards constantly wherever they are. This picturesque illustrates that even if the standardization of the public spheres by suppressing the anti-governmental but supporting the governmental political declarations in the public streets functioned at some point, only the ties between the actors are weakened at some point. That can also be heard from the interviewees like this; “before, people used to look out what is going on outside, but today there is an interesting group of people who just watch the arrests while they are passing by, no one even looks at from their windows, because we got used to this everyday arrests and fights between these people."
Apart from this, some interviewees who have been a part of the social fabric of the Konur and Yьksel Streets explicitly states that they do no visit these streets anymore because of this constant conflictive situation. Many of them do not visit because they find this annoying, however, they also state that when this is over that they will be there again as a part of the city and social fabric. This proves that even if there is such an intense constant intervention upon the public spheres, people are only displaced and alienated from the streets instead of they adopt to a new way of citizenship where the one is imagined as faithful to its state and government so that the lasting of the state can be ensured according to the very popular security discourse in Turkey for justifying such interventions.
In addition to this, as some of the interviewees stated and I also witnessed it, there are people sometimes appearing on the street to “help police to get the activists to the car” or “to make them stop shouting their political statements”. This is an important aspect for this research since I have been mentioning about the conflictive contestant structure between different forms of citizenship models' visibility upon the public spheres.
According to some of the interviewees, the people coming here to watch or help police are not being intervened even if their attitudes are problematic in terms of legal conditions too.
“There are people showed up once upon a time, and those people were just there to shout at us and help police, these people were drinking raki sometimes next to the police corner, and they were trying to `do something' about us and them for the police."
It is quite interesting to see that some groups of people who are new to this public sphere according to the interviewees showed up on the streets and they started to help police suppress the activism. In this case, since their attitudes are not intervened by police, and considering their functionality towards the social entity of the Konur and Yьksel Streets, it illustrates that civilians also started to started to act like the state on the public spheres. The intervention, legitimacy and the otherization of the groups can be considered as its outcome. At this point, the closure of public spheres transformed into a closure of cities, and the AKP-led citizenship started to practice as means of governmentality at some point.
In this sense, what does an arrest of a monument has to tell about these concepts comes to surface more than ever. As it is seen, even if the physical borders are removed from the street, they just became invisible. However, their functionality towards the other forms of citizenship is still suprressive. Accordingly, even if some of the actors' visibility are displaced from the public sphere, their resistance of culture continues at some point. On the other hand, the police' practice such as intervening the actor's everyday life practices even if they are not on these particular streets for a political demonstration illustrate that the borders are broadened. In this sense, the understanding of citizenship erected by means of governmentality now work on a bigger project on Ankara after the Monument of Human Rights' arrest.
At the end of this picturesque, all these public spheres of Turkey I have been mentioning is transformed into a place like the figure 26 where there is a mosque, and police constructed against the secular monuments or political movements that can be considered with their democratic demands on the public spheres. One of the interviewees stated that
“When I just walk into the Taksim Square these recent years, the only thing I see police, and mosque, but it used to give another feeling where the different cultural groups, art appear, it gives me an empty feeling now to see Taksim Square like this".
In this case the new display of the public spheres where the construction of security and religion appear on the streets with the intervention. The public spheres of Turkey experiencing one of the most intense ideological transformation metaphorically and practically. In this case, the new displays of the politically charged public spheres consisting of means of governmentality and their significant relationship with the state- led citizenship practices of people in civilian attires became the ideological power representation place of the AKP government. Besides, the legitimacy of this cultural construction upon the public spheres is grounded by the mechanisms of the state by making them visible against the `threats' for the eternity. In this case, these ideological mechanisms taking a regulatory role on the streets are the platform ticket controller of the ideological train of the AKP government. The pre-condition of being visible on the streets are being subjected to the political power representations on the public spheres, otherwise, depending on the social and historical contexts the other way of visibilities is reduced by means of these disciplinary mechanisms.
Figure 20: Closure of the Taksim Square, Police Barricades are Surrounding the monument in Taksim Square, Istanbul (Photo Taken from News: cnnturk.com (2020))
These field researches also tell the experience of the Turkey with the Islam after the secular revolution. Today, the AKP government as a mйlange of the neoliberal and Islamic understanding ideological bases can be observed practically in the public spheres physically with this study. Economically, socially and legislatively, the means of governmentality function towards promoting a citizenship model where there is a conservative understanding is dominant in the public spheres. Paying homage to the state is essential in this project of the citizenship as it is proved in this research. Asking the question what is allowed to be seen or heard in the public spaces brings all these analyses together to understand what kind of visibility is allowed. In this sense, visibility should not only be considered as being on the streets as an actor, what these actors represent and how they are treated is essential to understand what kind of being is repressed and which one is being promoted in the public spheres. In this sense, it is possible to say that being a particular way of visible in the streets are displaced from the public spheres that they are entitled to in a way. This also concludes the same issue about how the AKP government's cultural citizenship project is promoted in the public spheres by means of governmentality. This displacement revived the visibility of Turkish flags specifically which puts a nation state roof upon the public spheres, and mosques where the secular Turkey is represented before that are quite entitled with the AKP's political motivations, and also the means of governmentality as an everyday life routine in the streets.
Apart from this increasing visibility of the ideological representations of the government on the public spheres, I also find interesting to see where the alternative political figures and the street art has gone with the intervention. One of the interviewees stated that “No-one distributes any kind of political declaration, newspaper, or notice papers on the streets anymore, because the police do not allow anyone, but, inside the buildings all the walls are painted with the political figures, and also the information boards of some workplaces have the banners and the declarations of different groups still."
The groups that the interviewee refer to is the ones who have been a part of the social entity at some point with their practical existence. In this sense, as Conklin's (2012) study illustrated the visibility of political figures and street art is dependent on the ideological state's tolerance in cities, the intolerance towards the street art representing the political figures of Turkey are removed from the streets, however they found their place inside the buildings. In this case, even if these figures, newspapers sell, banners, politic figure representations are not visible outside, they became more visible inside the particular buildings that has been a part of the social entity evolved around the Konur and Y ьksel Streets. The intolerance of the AKP government towards the Gezi Park protests or any kind of protests is practiced as the removal of the political figures like in the figure 25 (below). In this sense, the political representations started to emerge inside the buildings, however, the visibility of these politics of visibility is reduced outside on the streets.
Figure 21: On the left, the political figure is inside the buildings after the outside version of the graffiti (right) was removed Ethem Sarisьlьk who was killed by police shot during the Gezi Park Protests in Ankara
6.8 Practical Bureau of the Citizenship on Public Spaces
In this chapter, I try to gather the analysis parts together to make a more concentrated part which will allow me to conclude this study without going far away from the research focus. I have been discussing the actor's interactions and how the police as a political power representation became a justified constant bureau of discipline in the public spheres functioned towards different actors. While they were standing with the political activists, which is against one of the opposition political party that also has been a big actor in the Kurdish issue in Diyarbakir, they have been repressing the political activism in Ankara and Istanbul since they have been formed up with an alternative understanding. In this sense, the AKP government triggered a change in the understanding of the citizenship in the public spheres by punishing collectivism and removing the other ways of being in the public spheres. The visibility of the non-public that the AKP denied as their citizen reduced and removed from the particular spheres. The justification of blaming the political activism went through flagging the territory and claiming it for the citizens that the AKP government defined when they were defining the non-public consciously or unconsciously as Ate§ (2017) stated too. Thus, the disciplinary mechanisms and power representations can be interpreted as the new bureau of the Citizenship where the practices of being an AKP government citizen is distributed over a population upon a public sphere. In this sense, the disciplinary mechanisms functioned economically and legislatively towards the alternative forms of citizenship models, and the state-led citizenship is promoted while the alternatives are displaced. Even if some of the actors became subjected to political power on the streets as a result of the economic disciplining practice, the social entity still exists as an alternative voice of their citizenship.
In this case study, it became clear that police as an ideological power representation of the AKP government imposed a cultural citizenship upon the public spheres by discrediting and disciplining the other ways of being in the public spheres apart from the one that the AKP government promoted under the roof of conservativeness, faithfulness of individuals to their states. The practices of the means of governmentality re-defined the territory and population by erecting power representations and also opening a space for the state-led citizenship practices on the Konur and Yьksel Streets that only existed with the alternative forms of citizenship models before. In this metaphorical and practical intervention, the arrest of a monument had an important point since it has become a symbolic power representation of the different forms of citizenship models apart from its own meaning and architectural design referring to the bill of the rights. In this case, it is clear that this symbolism evolved upon this monument is interpreted by the actors of these streets and the social/political practices evolved around it. Since this place became an intense public sphere in terms of these different voices, the monument has become a roof for the actors. That is why, the arrest of the monument was already the way of expression of the state that there is no place for such kind of forms that the government related them as `threats to the eternity of state' or `threats to the moral values of the Turkish nation'. Since this intervention triggered a change in the understanding of the citizenship, it only functioned with the economic intervention. In this sense, considering the AKP governments' contents, being a neoliberal subject is also a part of the picturesque, and as this research proved that the only change in the understanding of citizenship functioned as a result of economic sanctions of the state. In this case, even if not all the actors became a part of this subjectification picturesque, some of them are subjected to political power where they claim their economic benefits back. That is why, some of the cafes, bars are checking everyone while they let people inside their bars, because they do not want to let police inside even if they are with in civilian attires. However, some of the cafes became a frequent destination for the police where they take their refreshments or break time. In this sense, considering this separation, it seems that the police intervention sharpened the borders of citizenship forms, and the everyday life practices of the actors started to be dependent on these distinctions. While some of the actors are still with the culture of resistance emerging on the street, some of them preferred to stand with the means of governmentality. In addition to this, considering police on such politically charged public spheres becomes a dimension where they can be interpreted as a bureau of citizenship since they are suppressing the alternatives and promoting the state-led citizenship of the AKP government.
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