What is it about?

The İstanbul Gezi Park protest (June 2013) was the first multiculturalist and humorous youth uprising in Turkish history. It was a large leaderless forum to express suppressed feelings and thoughts about human rights, criticise the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s (Now the President) restrictive and uncompromising acts by slogans, humorous graffiti and music. This article gives an identity profile of the protesting youth through their humorous messages and mainly concentrates on how Erdogan rationalizes authority and power to maintain his power, thwart the democratic demands of the protestors and manipulate his supporters.

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Why is it important?

If the judiciary, education, media systems of a country are structured on authoritarian, religious, conservative cognitions, unprivileged or less educated sections of society can take it for granted (common sense theory), whether or not they are realistic and just.

Perspectives

"Public policies rests on the beliefs and perceptions of those who help make them, whether or not those cognitions are accurate” (Edelman,1977:9).

Professor Sermin Tekinalp
İstanbul Esenyurt University

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This page is a summary of: Rationalization of contradictory cognitive dichotomies versus democracy demands: Istanbul Gezi Park protests, Rationality and Society, January 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1043463115621518.
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