The revolution will not be televised

A few days ago, I was interviewing an applicant to the Fourth Amsterdam International Feldenkrais Teacher Training who lives in Turkey. She happened to mention that she lives on Taksim Square in Istanbul.

You may heard of this Turkish square on the news recently. At the end of May, a small protest started against the government’s plans to turn the square and adjacent Ghezi Park, one of the last remaining green spaces in the city, into a shopping mall. After the brutal police response, the numbers of protesters grew and the demonstrations spread throughout the country. The protest then turned against the authoritarian aspects of Prime Minister’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. Though a court had ruled this redevelopment project illegal and stated that it should be halted immediately, Erdogan responded by saying “I have made my decision,’ declaring that the park’s demolition would proceed anyway.

The government influence on the media is so strong that instead of reporting on the initial protests, television networks broadcast shows about penguins and cooking. That’s why the penguin has become a symbol for the protesters. According to The FairObserver, Turkey has more journalists in jail than any other country in the world!

If the media didn’t report on the protests, how did the word spread? Via Facebook and Twitter. When cellular service was interrupted in the areas where the protests were happening, local residents made their WiFi networks available. This is just one example of the grassroots nature of the protests. The protesters have also showed incredible ingenuity at undermining the government’s attempts to portray them as atheists and thugs.

Given what little coverage the protests have received here, I was fascinated by the eyewitness-to-history account offered by our Turkish trainee (she was accepted into the program after our interview). She spoke of her excitement at the participation of members all sections of society coming together in the protest and her hopefulness for things getting better. It was clear from her enthusiasm that the widespread protests were not simply fueled by dissatisfaction with the government, but by a growing optimism about the possibility for change.

It is this sense – that change is possible – that connects the political changes bubbling up since last spring throughout the Arab world with what happens after a first Feldenkrais lesson. Once we get a hint that the old order – a longstanding political regime or a way of moving that we’ve been stuck in for years – is neither all-powerful nor permanent, we understand, from the inside out, that it is not necessary. That lived experience and the resulting felt sense that things can be different – as compared to the relative weakness of an abstract idea – is a powerful catalyst that instead of being underestimated, should be cultivated.

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