Gezi Park’s Soccer Fanatics
Sean David Hobbs
November 04, 2013
Protests in Gezi Park continue to be a powerful symbol against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (or AKP). In weekly demonstrations across Turkey activists chant, “Resistance is everywhere!” The most important example of this continuing resistance is weekend park meetings organized by protestors in neighborhood parks across Turkey. These park meetings are popular, animated with the feeling that the Gezi Park movement endures and has propelled hundreds of smaller meetings. Attendees talk about challenging the AKP in the 2014 municipal and 2015 national elections. Beyond party politics, park meeting attendees openly discuss the creation of a new society. However, few outside of Turkey know that the “hooligan” soccer fans of Istanbul were instrumental in the first days of the Gezi Park occupation and protest.
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