It began with trees. A few dozen people, tents, and the simple, physical act of occupying a patch of ground in central Istanbul. Gezi Park was a sliver of green slated for demolition, to be replaced by a replica Ottoman-era barracks and a mall. The police came at dawn on May 28, with tear gas and water cannons, to clear them. They burned the tents. The smell of acrid smoke mixed with the scent of watered earth and linden trees.
That smell carried. It carried to the side streets where people coughed and rubbed their eyes. It carried, via pixelated phone footage, to screens across the country. By evening, it was no longer about the park. It was about the burn. The violent clearing of a peaceful sit-in became a perfect, tangible metaphor for a gathering sense of suffocation. The protest was a spark thrown into a room thick with unseen vapor.
Within days, Taksim Square was a carnival of resistance and chaos. The air was a permanent cocktail of gas, smoke from street fires, and the chalky dust of broken pavement. You heard the constant hiss of gas canisters, the rhythmic banging of pots and pans from apartment windows in solidarity, the chants that rose and fell like waves. It was hot, confusing, and profoundly alive. For the people there, it was less about a grand political theory and more about the immediate reality of shared space, contested ground, and the raw, stinging feeling of standing your ground.