The protests that started after the detention of more than 100 people, including IBB Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, continue to grow. The protests, in which university students are at the forefront, have started to gain a militant character and become mass despite the CHP’s efforts to contain them. Although these protests started as a result of the conflict between two ruling cliques struggling for power, it is clear that the anger that has been unleashed has reasons far beyond the detention of İmamoğlu.
Today, it is no coincidence that young people, the workers of the future and the workers of today, whose future has become uncertain, many of whom have to work at the same time as studying, are at the forefront of the struggle. The anger is also a result of the increasing impoverishment of millions of people who survive by their labor, their being squeezed day by day under the economic crisis, the endless murders of women, the oppression and attack policies against LGBTI+ people, the massacres of animals, the attacks against the Kurdish people despite the so-called peace talks, and the fact that the lives of millions of people have become unbearable due to the government’s policies based on oppression and coercion. We see that this anger is directed not only against the AKP-MHP government, but also against the CHP, which for years has been supposedly oppositional, but has been the government’s stooge in every difficult moment, restraining the possibility of social explosions in every crisis and directing energy towards the elections. People have realized that elections are useless and that there is no other way for liberation except struggle. At this point, it is clear that the people taking to the streets cannot be easily stopped by repression, nor can be manipulated by CHP in line of its own agenda.
On the other hand, we need to recognize that there are limits to what these protests have become today. There is a high probability that this reaction movement, which has no class character and whose political content and demands are unclear, will remain as a tool of conflict between the ruling powers or simply fizzle out. However, it also has the potential to grow, radicalize and achieve real, lasting gains if it is linked to existing struggles in terms of demands and methods. Since the beginning of 2025, wildcat strikes and workers’ resistances in various cities, the resistance of women and LGBTI+ people despite all kinds of oppression and violence, the struggles against ecological destruction and massacres of animals living on the streets show that the spirit of resistance has been preserved in these lands despite everything. Today, it is not politicians in suits, union bureaucrats or rich tycoons who are creating this wave of struggle, but workers, children of workers and individuals who have actively participated in the struggles mentioned above.
Therefore, it is possible to strengthen the wave of struggle with class demands and discourses, and this is exactly what we need to do. We should be involved in this struggle, not as a pillar in the struggle for power, but in an organized way, with the perspective of articulating the current problems and demands of the working class, women and all those who are oppressed and discriminated against, and turning those into the demands of the movement. On the other hand, we must try to involve different sections of the working class, who are already struggling with strikes and resistances, in the struggle.
We must take this struggle from the street to our workplaces and from our workplaces to the street. We must not leave the fate of the struggle to what comes out of the mouths of a group of politicians in suits. For this, we need to create self-governing decision-making mechanisms in our workplaces, schools and neighborhoods where we can discuss our economic and political problems and determine our concrete demands. The forums that emerged in the aftermath of the Gezi Resistance were important experiences we have in this regard and we must develop and revitalize these experiences. This is the way for the struggle to be permanent and to achieve gains.
We will win by resisting!
Our strength comes from our unity!
Anarcho Queers
Anarchists from Ankara
Bilgi Gökkuşağı
Bizim Elimizde Campaign Group
Eşitlik Topluluğu
Heimatlos Kültü
Anarchists from Istanbul
Izmir Anarchy
Kuir Uşak
Autonomous Workers’ Associations
OzU LGBTIQ+
VeganEsk
