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Erdogan becomes mayor of Istanbul, is imprisoned and banned from politics, but fights back and wins the election. Ten years of Erdogan's rule lead to mass protests in Istanbul.
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00:08For two decades, Turkey's been ruled by one man, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
00:16He's a political gambler.
00:19Nobody manages to stay in power for 20 years without being extremely good at what we do.
00:26He is a genius at reading his country.
00:30He's transformed Turkey and won widespread global support.
00:35There was large sympathy for him in Brussels, in London, in Washington.
00:40They also looked at Turkey and saw a great economic success story.
00:44And they wanted part of that as well.
00:50Erdogan's party were seen as the best thing since sliced bread.
00:55They were Islamist, yet moderate and pro-Western.
01:01And that was really unique.
01:03Since the 90s, Erdogan's built a base of fiercely loyal supporters at home.
01:19He's the first leader of modern Turkey to stand up to the military.
01:46But in recent years, he's seen more and more as a dictator.
01:49Ordering brutal crackdowns on the Senate.
01:55He's ruthless.
01:57And he can ally with anybody.
02:02He has no limits.
02:04He can tell people to kill people.
02:19He's still trying to run Turkey through the fact that people either fear him or respect him or both.
02:31Erdogan has even threatened the European Union for daring to criticize the assault on rights and freedoms in Turkey and
02:38his tactics in Syria.
02:50Some now fear he will do anything to remain in power.
02:55We don't know what Erdogan has hidden in the head.
02:57What kind of rabbit he's going to pull out.
02:58He's a master of political surprises.
03:00He knows very well how to undermine and defeat his opposition.
03:14Erdogan's supremacy over many arms of the state is far greater than any previous government.
03:21He's played the same game as his predecessors, but he's played it much better.
03:26And he's basically cleared the board.
03:56You found yourself facing this hellish landscape, smoke, collapsed buildings.
04:04Every other building seemed to have been destroyed.
04:09One of the proudest boasts of Erdogan and many of the people in his party is that they built Turkey.
04:17The problem is that new Turkey was clearly, in many instances, less robust than it needed to be.
04:28People were desperate because there was no help, or what little help there was was certainly not enough.
04:34They had no shovels.
04:35They had no heavy equipment.
04:37They were sifting through the rubble with their hands.
04:40Imagine that scene sort of multiplied by thousands.
04:49People always say that natural disasters are no such thing.
04:54What they reveal are shortcuts and failings by governments.
05:00On the 14th of May, Turkey will go to the polls for what's expected to be the toughest election of
05:07President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 20-year rule.
05:12You don't have free press, you don't have independent judiciary.
05:16Elections are the only meaningful checks and balances left in the Turkish system at this moment.
05:25This is not just an important and traumatic election because of this disaster.
05:31When Recep Tayyip Erdogan first entered office, liberal democracy was riding high.
05:36Today, things are very different.
05:38Today, everything is up in the air.
05:40So, the story of how this guy became the most powerful person to rule Turkey since its founder affects not
05:47just Turkey,
05:48but our understanding of much of the world and the way this century is going.
06:03The story of Erdogan's rise to power is even more extraordinary when you understand where he came from.
06:10One of Istanbul's poorest neighborhoods.
06:14Erdogan was born in Istanbul in the 1950s.
06:17His family were migrants from the Black Sea region.
06:22Men of the Black Sea are known as quick-talking, street-fighting, tough guys.
06:30Erdogan's father really kind of fit that mold.
06:33He was a sea captain in Istanbul.
06:36Erdogan, by his own accounts, had quite a hard-scrabble upbringing,
06:40very firmly from the part of Turkey that did not hold political power at that time.
06:50Erdogan's father was conservative, pious, and quite an authoritarian figure.
06:55It's still a rumor that his father perhaps beat him up.
06:59We know that Erdogan wanted to be a football player.
07:03His father said, no, you have to go and study at this religious school, and you have to be a
07:08good boy.
07:12So, a completely authoritarian figure who shaped Erdogan's life away from what Erdogan had wanted to become.
07:26Erdogan's family were religious, but modern Turkey had largely been ruled by the secular elite.
07:34So, the young Erdogan was made to feel like a second-class citizen for his faith.
07:40He felt stigmatized that he was studying at a religious school.
07:47So, I think at every stage in his upbringing, as a teenager, and in his early years, in his 20s,
07:55Erdogan felt profoundly othered in a society that was formerly secularist.
08:01And I think he has a grudge against the system to this day.
08:05When he was growing up, he was exposed to wealth and privilege,
08:08and he realized that people who had economic power were also people who promoted the idea of a secularist society.
08:18Erdogan wins his life.
08:24Driven by this sense of injustice, Erdogan joins the Islamist National Salvation Party in the mid-1970s.
08:35Many people would tell that Turkey is 90% or 80% Muslim.
08:41In our ideas, it's written Muslim, but we have a secular constitution.
08:46So there is always been a, you know, a tension between those two.
08:55By joining an Islamist party,
08:58Erdogan was pitching himself against the secular elite,
09:02who'd run the country for decades.
09:07Geography is destiny.
09:09Turkey looks like a bridge, actually,
09:11between East and West, Europe and Asia.
09:17So the identity of Turkey has always been pushed
09:22between two forces, West and East.
09:28The military have always maintained the balance of power,
09:32between the Islamist groups looking East,
09:34and the Liberals facing West.
09:53The military, traditionally, is known to be the guardian of secularism in Turkey.
09:59Whenever there was a government, right-wing government,
10:01who is getting too close to the Islamic movements,
10:05yes, it was a hand on the shoulder of the elected government.
10:13I knew that the military had some power over the government.
10:23That was a historic story that was conveyed from one prime minister to the other.
10:34Every politician who actually enters politics in Turkey has this fearful picture,
10:41a black-and-white picture, of a prime minister walking to his death, to be hacked.
10:49And he looks back at the people as if to say goodbye.
10:55In 1961, the army hung the prime minister for undermining the constitution and moving away from secularism.
11:07Turkey's military leaders seem to be in complete control tonight after their pre-dawn coup carried out apparently without bloodshed.
11:14In 1980, just as Erdogan was starting in politics, the military forced the government out, made thousands of arrests, and
11:22shut down all political parties.
11:28Erdogan grew up understanding the golden rule of Turkish politics.
11:33Never crossed the military.
11:39Three years after the coup, the military junta finally steps aside and allows the political process to resume.
11:46The Islamist party Erdogan supported before the coup is reborn as the Refra, or Welfare Party.
11:55Erdogan started out trying to build his name within Istanbul politics.
12:01And the first time that he ran for election was in the late 1980s, and he tried to get a
12:06parliamentary seat.
12:07Didn't manage to do that.
12:09But then his real breakthrough comes in the 1994 local elections here in Istanbul.
12:19Erdogan promises to represent working-class religious people in Istanbul.
12:25In 1994, the city was literally collapsing.
12:28At the time, Istanbul had no significant metro or subway network.
12:33Even trash was not collected.
12:37So people were ready just for a city that was managed well.
12:48So people were ready just for a city that was managed well.
13:00Erdogan only wins 25% of the vote, but it's enough.
13:04He becomes the new mayor of Istanbul.
13:10Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a hustler born in a poor district of Istanbul, sets to work to fix his broken city.
13:23He had an enormous impact on the infrastructure, the city itself.
13:31The garbage got picked up.
13:33Suddenly, I came one time to Istanbul, and I got on a bus, and I thought,
13:38Whoa, we don't even have these in Boston.
13:40It was a clean energy bus, and it was air-conditioned.
13:44There were all kinds of repairs that needed to be done.
13:48Things were systematized.
13:51This was taken during my first interview with Tayyip Erdogan in 1998.
13:56I presume I handed my camera to someone across the table, and they took the photo.
14:04I was actually very taken by him.
14:08It was an informal situation.
14:11He sat next to me.
14:14This was a thoughtful person who had all the right instincts.
14:39As a mayor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has these big projects like tunnels, bridges, airports.
14:47It was that time he got involved with the big money, you know, big business.
15:08He transformed Istanbul.
15:11It makes Erdogan wildly popular, and helps sweep the welfare party to victory in a general election.
15:20Soon, there's speculation that the job of mayor is too small for a man like Erdogan.
15:26But one day, he'll want the top job.
15:30Istanbul is like Turkey in a condensed form.
15:34So that is why, if you are the mayor of Istanbul, you are very ready to go for the premiership.
15:43A lot of people who did not vote for him, who were afraid of his ideology,
15:47realized that he is a good administrator, he provides services, and that kind of became his brand.
15:53He's efficient, he delivers good services, and also economic growth.
15:58And I would say running Istanbul well is what made Erdogan prime minister quality in the eyes of Turkey's citizens.
16:07But the military are not happy.
16:09They think the welfare party Erdogan belongs to is trying to bring religion into politics.
16:15So in February 1997, they issue an ultimatum against the government.
16:20And a few months later, the government resigns.
16:37But Erdogan doesn't go quietly.
16:40He becomes the key speaker at rallies protesting the closure.
16:44He calls for change.
16:47Not by demanding civil unrest, but by reading a poem.
17:06The poem is from the days of the Ottoman Empire praising soldiers going into battle.
17:12He became the hero of those people who felt that they were victimized by the secular state.
17:21That poem was manifestation of the fact that I am your guy, you can follow me, we're going to do
17:29this together.
17:30And yes, we are going towards the Islamic Republic.
17:33Erdogan's potent use of religious rhetoric as a political rally so alarms the authorities.
17:39They have him arrested and charged with inciting religious hatred.
17:46What do you say by the way to the revolution?
17:47There was an awful thing with the war.
17:58There was an awful thing that happened to the world.
18:04He for the war.
18:05And yes, the этому were a political discourse.
18:11But we didn't have a political discussion.
18:12Theocide sheet of the war, no matter what I had to the war, no matter what I had to the
18:14war, no matter what the war was after.
18:18I was a Muslim.
18:21I was a Muslim,
18:22and in every step I thought about the way my own self-doctoral is not a dream.
18:31My own self-doctoral position was a dream that I could not take off my own head.
18:32If I was a person who was a person that I was a part of my own self-doctoral work,
18:38my own self-doctoral history was a part of my personal history.
18:42The song is not an old song, it is not an old song.
18:47It is not an old song.
18:52There are some examples of the songs, the monks, the minarets, the religious rhetoric.
19:02There are some examples of who will be attacked by the people who are the enemy.
19:12Eventually, Erdogan is forced to resign as Istanbul's mayor.
19:15He's banned from political office and is later sentenced to 10 months in prison.
19:32Thousands of supporters turn out to line his route to jail.
20:07So in one sense, he was political history.
20:11In another sense, of course, this could very well be said to be the making of Erdogan as a politician
20:18and as a potential leader.
20:22Because being, in a certain sense, a martyr for its cause has an immense political charge.
21:02This criminal conviction sparks huge protests in support of Erdogan.
21:09Many politicians in Turkey, they spend their lives in prison.
21:14But four months of prison for Erdogan was quite profitable.
21:43Erdogan has gained huge public support, but he has a problem.
21:47By law, his conviction disqualifies him from standing as an MP.
21:54So Erdogan comes up with an audacious plan.
21:58He will form a new party with the hope it will win a majority in the next election
22:04and then get parliament to overturn his ban from holding office.
22:26The new party Erdogan forms is called the AKP.
22:30They appear to be pro-European and pro-NATO.
22:51It was very clear that this wasn't only a political party, this was a movement.
22:58And one of the biggest promises was that we are clean.
23:04They started calling it AKP, which in Turkish means white party, but also it means clean.
23:11And they were boasting about the fact that they are not from political class.
23:17We are the real people.
23:19We are not dirty like them, the political elite.
23:24They also came up with the logo, the light bulb.
23:27And that was meant to be the sort of symbol of, you know, hope in dark times,
23:32some kind of light lighting the darkness.
23:37Tayyip Bey'in bir yasağı vardı.
23:40Yani milletvekili olamaz, milletvekil kriterlerini ve engeli vardı o hapisten dolayı.
23:51So, we worked together with the election campaign, and we joined the election campaign, and we did talk to him
24:00as a party leader, and I did talk to him everywhere.
24:08Erdogan, the man who is not allowed to become an MP, let alone Prime Minister, is now arguably the most
24:13popular politician in Turkey.
24:15So, if Erdogan can't be Prime Minister if his party win, who will be?
24:19Someone.
24:20Someone?
24:21From us.
24:22Someone from you?
24:23Yes.
24:24Yourself?
24:25Someone from the party, of course.
24:28On the campaign trail, he promises to speak for all the different colours of Turkey.
24:36To the Liberals, he was saying the strong hand of military should be removed from politics.
24:41To women, he was promising a more prosperous life.
24:46And, you know, he was making crowd-pleasing promises to everyone.
24:50They wanted to believe in someone.
24:53People like him, who came up with working-class background, who felt that they didn't get their fair share in
24:59secularist Turkey, both politically and economically,
25:01they now had a leader to look up to, and that is Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
25:06Erdogan had this almost moral power for having been imprisoned.
25:10That was a badge of honour.
25:13So, when these elections took place, it was clear that although he could not legally be on the ballot, he
25:20was the leader of his party.
25:26With the support of the opposition, his party votes to change the law, overturning his ban from politics.
25:34Erdogan is then elected to parliament in a by-election.
25:38The leader of the party, Abdullah Gull, now stands aside.
25:44Recep Tayyip Erdogan is finally Turkey's Prime Minister.
25:47Sayın Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
25:59Sayın Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
26:03Büyük Türk Milleti önünde namusum ve şerefim üzerine ant içeride.
26:21under Erdogan Turkey boomed unemployment and inflation dropped and living standards soared
26:41Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in very good relationship with the business world and so on so he presented
26:48himself as the person who would open the way for Turkey and bring Turkey to the place where she
26:56deserves there was large sympathy for him in Brussels in London in Washington people in the
27:04west they also looked at Turkey and saw a great economic success story and they wanted part of
27:09that as well Erdogan's party were seen as the best thing since sliced bread they were Islamist yet
27:24moderate and pro-western and that was really unique Erdogan is hugely popular at home and abroad
27:33but the military are still incredibly influential and if they continue to control the levers of power
27:40then Erdogan can never feel safe in office in 2005 the European Union agrees to start negotiations on
27:49Turkey's membership but to join the club Turkey is expected to strengthen its democracy this gives
27:57Erdogan an excuse to try and take power away from the military and while the military doesn't like
28:04it they know that joining the EU is such a popular idea they can't stand in the way of it
28:10Okha tutti
28:13señor
28:14Meclis Başkanım dönemki en uzun dönemdir ama en çileli dönemdir karşımıza kuvvet komutanı konuşuyor bu
28:22gericiler bu yobazlar hala başörtüsünün peşinden koşanlar bu yomative okulları
28:31They didn't care about me, Abdullah Bey and Tayyip Bey.
28:36They came to the government with a very strong power.
28:39If they come, if they come, if they come, if they fall,
28:41they will be broken.
28:47Erdogan decides to confront the military.
28:51He nominates Abdullah Gul to be the country's president.
29:12Abdullah Gul's wife, Hayri Nisa, wears a headscarf.
29:18In Turkey, so much about political Islam boils down to one issue, the headscarf.
29:50The military's memorandum is a clear threat.
29:53They will force him out if he pushes ahead with Abdullah Gul's appointment.
30:03They will be the government's force of the military.
30:04In Turkey the government, the government should protect them and protect them.
30:12They have a rule for the military.
30:14They have to do this.
30:16They have to shoot their weapons.
30:19They shoot their heads, they will receive their orders.
30:27But Erdogan did not do what previous leaders had done in Turkey.
30:31He did not step down, he did not say, oh sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.
30:35He stood up. You know, he spoke against the military's tutelage
30:39and he basically said, I'm not going to stand down.
30:45Jussie said No, you guys are not going to stand.
30:48We know we Pass wichtig of hack and its advantage.
30:53If you ask any charges, maybe you'd use them all of them
31:04and they should be violent.
31:06What is this, do you know what it is?
31:09This is a knife to democracy.
31:16Erdogan is throwing down a gauntlet to the military.
31:19Confident that his popularity makes him untouchable.
31:27Erdogan proved to the whole world that the sky doesn't fall when you don't listen to the military.
31:32Hell doesn't freeze over. The military is a paper tiger.
31:36That was the beginning of the end of the military's power in Turkey.
31:40It's clear that you're talking about a man who had enormous self-confidence.
31:46Enormous ability to convoke a movement.
31:50But also, who is fully aware that at that point, the tide is running in his favour.
31:56And it's clear that organisations like the EU very much support him in facing the military down.
32:03But also, in terms of the support in Turkey.
32:28When the military backs down, Erdogan seizes the moment and calls a snap election.
32:33The AKP wins in a landslide victory.
32:39It was the starting point of Erdogan turning into who he is today.
32:45The amazing results for AKP in that election made him delusional.
32:52Erdogan now has a massive mandate from the people.
32:56But he's still convinced the military will try to get rid of him.
33:00To take them on, he decides to exploit Turkish people's fear of what is known as the Deep State.
33:17The phrase Deep State entered the English language from the Turkish.
33:23Deep State was not just the way Trump uses it to oppose any kind of bureaucratic resilience.
33:32Deep State was actually Deep State that did nasty things.
33:36And mostly using tentacles.
33:40Whether it be mafia or various far-right or ultra-nationalist groups.
33:45And there is a long history of this.
33:50It was revealed to most Turks in 1996 by a car accident near the town of Susaluk.
34:02A Mercedes crashed into a truck, killing all but one of the passengers.
34:07It was a very important war.
34:10It was a very important war.
34:10Because all of the Turkish people in the country was a strong state.
34:15It was a strong state.
34:17It was a strong state.
34:18Inside the car were Istanbul's deputy chief of police.
34:22A beauty queen.
34:23A nationalist MP in charge of a private army in the Kurdish region.
34:28And a mafia kingpin.
34:52The crash revealed that government figures were using the mafia to do its dirty work.
34:58In a war against Kurdish separatists in the southeast of Turkey.
35:11And he was a poor man.
35:15They were used to war against the Allies.
35:15In the military war against the assaults of the Korean government.
35:19They were used to be killed by wars.
35:20And a war against the enemy in the army.
35:21And a soldier.
35:25Now, Erdogan uses this association to go after his enemies in the military.
35:33He enlists the help of a controversial cleric
35:36called Fethullah Gulen
35:42Erdogan and Gulen got to know each other in the 90s
35:47Like Erdogan, Gulen wanted to challenge the secular elite
35:51and make Turkey more Islamic
35:56For decades, Gulen had run a network of religious schools
36:00offering tuition to poorer students
36:03Graduates from his schools were then encouraged to get jobs in the police
36:08the army and the judiciary
36:11The first time in the 1960s, Fethullah Gulen
36:48Erdogan knows he needs allies in the upper ranks of the Soviet Union
36:52security services and the judiciary
36:55And Fethullah Gulen is looking for a political partner to take on the secular elite
37:01So they make a deal
37:05In 2007, Tanjay Uzkan was working as a journalist
37:10investigating the extent to which followers of Fethullah Gulen or Gulenists
37:16had infiltrated all the different branches of government
37:21And that was the first time in the 90s
37:22And that was the first time in the 90s
37:24And that was the first time in the 90s
37:24And that was the first time in the 90s
37:25Paralel bir devlet yapısı oluşturuyorlar
37:26Hukuk var, hukuka paralel bir hukuk var
37:30Polis var, bir de Fethullahçı polisler var
37:33Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı var, bir de Fethullah'ın Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı var
37:39Ve AK Parti, Türkiye'de bu kadroların Fethullah Gulen tarafından ele geçirilmesine onay verdi
37:50It was a marriage of convenience
37:52One side had the political charisma in following
37:56The other side had the economic power and also bureaucracy
38:00So it was the perfect match
38:05Gulen once was an Erdoğan ally
38:08For almost a decade, Gulen helped Erdoğan build the walls of a republic of fear
38:14Through what is called the Ergenekon case
38:17Judges, prosecutors and cops built a court case
38:21Alleging that there was a coup plot against Erdoğan
38:24Carried out by the so-called deep state
38:34Ergenekon is claimed to be the name of a secret network of military officers and judges
38:39Who are all plotting to get rid of Erdoğan
38:42In 2007, Erdoğan set about arresting hundreds of people
39:13Ergenekon, ergenekon, ergenekon, ergenekon diye bir suç mu var?
39:17Yes, there is such an organization there, and you are the great of that organization
39:23Arriving in court, some of the suspects in an incredible sounding plot
39:28The mass trial of 86 suspects is being held inside this high-security prison, where the
39:35judge will hear evidence about an alleged ultranationalist gang known as Ergenikon.
39:40It created an incredibly powerful political atmosphere, especially during the Ergenikon
39:46trials, that you couldn't actually criticise these cases being unlawful.
39:54They were unlawful.
39:56If you weren't part of the Fetulangular movement, if you weren't supporting Erdogan, that meant
40:02that you're against democracy.
40:04That meant that you are supporting a military coup.
40:08You are a fascist.
40:12Ahmet Schick was writing a book about how the Gulen network gathered intelligence.
40:18But before he could finish it, his house was raided and Schick was accused of being part
40:23of Ergenikon.
40:25I gave a number of customers to him.
40:28I told him, and then I got one other.
40:31I told him...
40:36I told him, and I told him,
40:38I told him,
40:39I told him...
40:39I told him...
40:44I told him,
40:50I told him,
40:54A lot of the witch hunt during the Ergunna Khan case unfortunately went even unseen even
41:00in the outside world the world was so mesmerized by Erdogan you know this leader who represented
41:05the antidote to jihadism and Al-Qaeda and also a leader under whom Turkey has finally
41:10found economic stability and the leader who was quite an internationalist figure so I
41:16think the brand he had at home was that he was fighting the deep state
41:20and this is this one who you need to fix the damgası over the turkey yi darbe yoluyla yok
41:32etmeye çalışan insanlar olarak gösterildi suçlandım ve 630 in hapis cezasına çarptırıldım
41:45much of the evidence presented in the Ergunna Khan trials is now believed to have been
41:49made up by Gulenists but nearly 300 members of the military state bureaucracy and judiciary
41:57were sent to jail and most replaced by Gulen's followers
42:12Ergenekon, bürokrasi, asker, sivil, ortadan kaldırma, toplumun aydın kesimlerini kendilerine karşı çıkan herkese yok etme çabasının ilk hukuki adımıdır
42:47Erdogan has brought the state bureaucracy to heel now he turns his attention to the media
43:17Erdoğan
43:18Erdoğan
43:18Erdoğan
43:18Erdoğan
43:19Erdoğan
43:19Erdoğan
43:19Erdoğan
43:20Erdoğan
43:20Erdoğan
43:21Erdoğan
43:22Erdoğan
43:22Erdoğan
43:22Erdoğan
43:22Erdoğan
43:23Erdoğan
43:23Erdoğan
43:24By 2013, the economy had started to falter,
43:29and Turkey's role in the conflict in neighbouring Syria
43:32was straining international relations.
43:39Erdogan had bet on the Assad regime falling
43:42and was now counting on Obama's support
43:44for Turkish military operations in Syria.
43:48He saw a visit to the US in May that year
43:51as of crucial importance.
43:55It is a great pleasure to welcome my friend,
43:59Prime Minister Erdogan, back to the White House.
44:04What actually happened was that Obama told him
44:08that Turkey needed to play a role in sorting out ISIS.
44:12A lot of the foreign fighters were joining ISIS
44:15by coming through Turkey, going across the border,
44:18what would later be known as the Jihadi Highway.
44:22So, Erdogan comes back from Washington
44:25feeling really disgruntled
44:28and starting to wonder
44:30whether the Obama administration
44:34are really his friends.
44:38Now, within a few days of him getting back to Turkey,
44:41the protests kick off in Gezi Park in Istanbul.
44:56Gezi Park is in the centre of Istanbul.
45:02You can consider Taksim like Piccadilly Square or Times Square in New York,
45:07like it's the centre point of Istanbul.
45:13The Gezi Park has always had a very significant place in neo-Turkish history.
45:22Ever since his time as mayor, Erdogan has planned to demolish the park,
45:26one of the last green spaces in Istanbul,
45:29and replace it with a shopping mall,
45:31built in the style of an Ottoman barracks.
45:33What's the name?
45:36There was no way to the local house,
45:41and the other young people in the building was working.
45:46They came here, a lot of police machines.
45:55We went to the park and the locals stopped the destruction.
46:05It was a very difficult time to get out of bed.
46:16My involvement with Gezi Park was when we started seeing the tweets by our friends
46:21that trees were to be removed from the park.
46:25The first intervention by the police in the afternoon of the 28th,
46:29when there were like literally 50-100 people
46:31and police started teasing people from this distance.
46:36That is when the famous woman in red photo was taken.
46:45I went to the park and there were probably barely 500 people there.
47:04It was a very very peaceful protest.
47:26Please enter the park in the early hours of the morning.
47:29and used tear gas to force protesters to leave.
47:57I was very 못
47:58would react like harshly, but probably no one was expecting the levels that they escalated it.
48:09I've been involved with political movements since the beginning of 2000.
48:15So for me, it wasn't a surprise.
48:18But for many people, it was the first time when police was almost the enemy now.
48:23What?
48:25It's amazing that when we were in the basement, we were so honest.
48:31That created the big escalation.
48:34So from about nearly 5,000 people, the next day it was more than 10,000 people.
48:41Like the place was packed with people.
48:47I was thinking about making this decision.
48:50And the people who want office owners, the people, the government, the officer, the police, the public, the police, thestrokes
48:55etc.
48:57They could help, there is no place for a wooden construction construction.
49:03I don't understand that they were so honest.
49:04I don't have any doubt about who they are.
49:10If we don't want AVM here...
49:13...we don't want to blow the gas...
49:15...we want to do this here...
49:17...you are mistaken.
49:18The truth is this...
49:20...and I personally believe that...
49:22...we don't want AVM.
49:28On the 30th, that's when I sent...
49:32...a notorious tweet of mine...
49:35...basically...
49:36...the matter is not just Gezi Park.
49:39Haven't you realised my friend?
49:42Come...
49:43...hashtag...
49:44...resist Gezi Park.
49:45That's the tweet.
49:56In the early mornings of the 31st...
49:59...this time a massive police raid happened.
50:03And this time people were injured...
50:06...they fell off the stairs...
50:08...and that was massive.
50:11In the morning...
50:12...we started to go to emergency services...
50:15...to see whether there were any other casualties.
50:17And that was massive...
50:19...like people spread all around Taksim.
50:21Taksim Square was now closed.
50:24You couldn't go inside.
50:25That was the turn of events.
50:27That night probably hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people...
50:31...marched towards Taksim Square...
50:35...from all around Istanbul.
51:00But by this point...
51:02...the protests are more about Erdogan himself...
51:04...than Gezi Park.
51:09It was a protest against Erdogan and to the mentality that he represents, this totalitarianism,
51:17authoritarianism.
51:19Yes, Turkey was trying to get rid of that leash that is put around her neck by Erdogan.
51:27Oh!
51:32Gezi was a 100% reaction to the AKP's rule in Turkey, which after 2010 started to become even more
51:42divisive.
51:43It wasn't only about Gezi Park now, it was about free speech, it was about expressing yourself,
51:48it was about all the matters that were disturbing people because they felt like they were always being told off
51:56by a father figure.
51:59Buna kimse orada işgalde bulunamaz.
52:05Dolayısıyla artık biz bu sabrımızı şu ana kadar devam ettirdik.
52:11Ama artık sabrın sonuna geldik.
52:16Ben bu uyarımı son bir defa daha yapıyorum.
52:20ve diyorum ki anneler, babalar lütfen yavrularınıza sahip çıkın.
52:39Gezi was a resistance movement against that sentence that Erdogan said in his election victory speech in 2007.
52:52He said, those who didn't vote for us are the other colours of this country in 2007.
52:59And gradually, that perspective on people, like there are first class people, there are second class citizens.
53:16Erdogan's rhetoric has often been us and them, but it became more palpable with Gezi.
53:21Er, this was very much the city in which he made his name, it was the heart of a city
53:28in which he made its name,
53:29and therefore to see other people occupy this terrain, I think, and from a very different political movement,
53:36was really quite an affront to him.
53:43At one point, I thought it might result in the downfall of the government.
53:49But that was a very, very short moment, of course.
53:52But that was the time, first and the last time probably Erdogan was really afraid.
53:59He was terrified.
54:09I think Gezi was the moment where Erdogan threw out any last pretenses of being a consensus politician.
54:18I think he probably thought that these protests were going to die down on their own.
54:25And as soon as he realised that they weren't, his tone quickly became very harsh, very confrontational.
54:46My tweet was then used by pro-government media, and also Prime Minister himself,
54:55to claim that this was not an innocent environmental protest, but it was a civil coup attempt,
55:03and my tweet was the proof of that.
55:06Now, Taksim olaylarının başında sözüm ona bir sanatçı çıktı, bir tweet attı.
55:17Diyor ki, mesele sadece Gezi Park'ı değil arkadaş.
55:25Eğer bu ülkede hukuk varsa, sana bunun hesabını soracağız.
55:33Nitekim, CHP'nin milletvekili de çıkıyor.
55:38Mesele diyor Gezi Park'ı değil, anlamadın mı?
55:42Neymiş mesele?
55:43AK Parti iktidarını devirmek.
55:52He started really playing into this narrative that people who are maybe getting some kind of support
55:58from foreign governments in order to unsettle Turkey, to destabilize Turkey.
56:06There's this saying in Turkey, you know,
56:09Turkey is surrounded by water on three sides and enemies on four.
56:14And it's very, very easy for politicians to play on that.
56:22Erdoğan's handling of Gezi revealed that he has no limits.
56:28He can tell people to kill people, which happened.
56:33Like, you know, civilians killed young people during Gezi.
56:40I think he revealed his terrifying face.
56:56Erdoğan continues to insist the Gezi Park protests were a foreign-backed plot to overthrow his government.
57:03There's been no credible evidence to support this.
57:08It was a well-known thing that he once said democracy is a train and we have to get on
57:14it to get to where we want to go.
57:17You ride it until the end and then you get off.
57:23People I spoke to at the time thought that that meant that you get off and you make it into
57:29an Islamic state.
57:31I remember thinking it's the autocracy that I had seen.
57:36That's got to be it. He gets off the tram and then there's no more democracy.
57:48Next time, Erdoğan faces a real coup attempt by potters determined to overthrow the government and capture or kill the
57:57president.
57:57This was a man who had seen how politics could become life and death.
58:20That day on, I think, Erdoğan's republic was born.
58:31That's tomorrow at 9 on BBC2, or watch now on iPlayer, just press red.
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58:55Transcription by CastingWords
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