Gezi Park, Istanbul, Turkey

The following sentences are memorial of the death of Berkin Elvan a 15 year old Turkish boy who was struck by a teargas canister shot by police who were sent to disperse protesters of the building of a mall in Gezi Park. Berkin was on his way to the store to buy bread for his family.

What are malls but assassination halls of culture and indigenous peoples. Why are the assassins but the corporate powerful and their political friends the greasers who facilitate the assassinations along with their clubs the police, the ones with batons and pepper spray and teargas canisters. They facilitate the movement of citizens from the proposed mall space so the bulldozers can begin to uproot the century old trees from the Taxim Gezi Park where this additional mall is to be built. 

It’s as though the politicians hadn’t expected opposition to their approval of the mall, and other building packed with stores and merchandise well known by the penurious citizens who have all they require for a happy life, what with bastardized Quranic excerpts and reference that justify the destruction and disruption in Istanbul.

Occupy Gezi has spread around the world for it represents another attempt by lowly citizens to reclaim their world from real estate developers, from those who know best what’s good for us all yet who neglect to pass the “best” on to those who need it. More greed at the mall. Soon we will all be greeding, shedding what shreds of decency and proportion we have left. The mall the merrier, ain’t we got fun? In the meantime our systems cleanse us of pepper spray and teargas and all the other executive deterrents that drive a citizen’s rights away.

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