Turkey
-
Crossing from Idlib to Turkey, Fall 2017
Even once you’ve made it across the border from Syria, you’re still a long way from safety. Turkish border police are hunting migrants all over the border region. And they do what they want with those they catch. Continue reading
-
“This place is hell and it cannot be fixed.”
As we were leaving the camp, locals confronted us, asking why we were helping the Syrians. They did not know about the three-month-old baby who had died right next door to them. Continue reading
-
Politics in Turkey: the Elites and the Streets
The more allies Erdoğan loses in his state apparatus, the more he has to rely on radical groups on the street to secure his power. Continue reading
-
An Appeal to Practical Solidarity
Protests and provocations help to undermine the legitimacy of Erdoğan’s regime, revealing its authoritarianism and making it harder for the EU and US to avert their gaze. Continue reading
-
Nowhere Is Safe
A brief, though rich, glance into a Yezidi refugee camp near Diyarbakir in early 2016. Continue reading
-
Silopi in Ruins
When we told the two co-mayors how shocked we were at the destruction in Cudi, they laughed bitterly: “Cudi? That’s nothing compared to Zap, Basak, and Barbaros.” Continue reading
-
Life Is Beautiful
“What we experienced in Bakur, how it feels and how it will change us, has to do with real people and their stories.” Continue reading
-
Rojava Caught Between Fronts
It is conceivable that any movement towards Russia would sharply reduce sympathy in the West for Rojava, without anything about its political and social project having changed. Continue reading
-
Suruç: The AKP and the Turkish “Deep State” Are Also Guilty
“Both reactionary forces–Daesh and Turkish fascism–have to be combated in order to hope for a radical change in Turkey.” Continue reading
-
Comparing Emancipatory Struggles in North and West Kurdistan
It is not easy to overturn the influence of 500 years of Turkish authority during which people have been marginalized, isolated and treated with utter disrespect. To change all of this requires a lot of work on the ground, and on the individual level as well. But what is promising is the zeal and determination… Continue reading
-
“Berkin was our heart, our brother, our comrade.”
AntiNote: The following interview was conducted by phone in the final hour of last month’s hostage situation in Istanbul by Ahmet Şik, a prominent Turkish opposition journalist who has been jailed for his writing in the past, with the two hostage-takers themselves. Earlier in the day, a photo began circulating in social media showing one… Continue reading
-
Fighting the Violent Patriarchy in Turkey
Note from the LeftEast editors: The attempted rape, murder, and burning of 20-year-old university student Özgecan Aslan on Feb. 11th touched a nerve in a society where male-on-female violence has been a chronic problem. Massive demonstrations throughout Turkey followed soon after, but what will it take to stem the surge in femicide over the last… Continue reading
-
The False Friends of Rojava
AntiNote: This article first appeared in Jacobin Magazine. Reprinted with permission. All parties to the collaboration which brought this article to English-language readers were conscious and wary of the anti-imperialist/anti-anti-imperialist sideshow currently preoccupying parts of the Western Left, and we expected to hear from these quarters. We were not disappointed. Some of the article’s critics,… Continue reading
-
After Gezi: Erdoğan And Political Struggle In Turkey
Political struggles over the future of Turkey have left the country profoundly divided. Former Prime Minister, now President, Tayyip Erdogan, has fueled growing polarization through his authoritarian response to protests, his large-scale urban development projects, his religious social conservatism, and most recently, through his complicity in the Islamic State’s war against the Kurdish people in… Continue reading
-
The Woman in Red Speaks
Originally posted on translatingtaksim: Using the influence of a symbolic photograph is not a sign of justice The woman in red (Ceyda Sungur) is not satisfied that the police officer who sprayed her is being prosecuted (http://translatingtaksim.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/policeman-who-sprayed-tear-gas-to-woman-in-red-faces-three-years-in-jail/) In an article she wrote in Radikal (http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/kirmizili_kadin_radikal_icin_yazdi_o_polisin_yargilanmasi_yetmez-1171207), she says: I didn’t want to speak till now as… Continue reading
MANIFESTO
The Antidote Writers Collective seeks to resist and counteract the poisons that course through the veins of our politics, our cultures, our movements, our relationships, ourselves.
We believe that a strong collective immune system is built through knowledge and understanding and that the struggle against division and repression requires building a new culture of discussion that goes beyond flat definitions, brittle ideologies, stubborn dogmas, idle preconceptions, and petty rivalries.
We will share knowledge with each other, aiming to build empathy, and in turn enable the emergence of genuine solidarity—one which does not demand uniformity across contexts, one which does not “include” you, but in which you include yourself.
In this spirit, we will provide a platform for a diverse set of voices, especially for those otherwise silenced or ignored in “mainstream” discussions. We want to hear from people engaged in radical struggles all over the world. We seek neither agreement nor conflict, but rather to identify issues at their roots, and to consider different radical approaches to their resolution. And though we at the Antidote Writers Collective have voices—and we will use them—we will not presume to speak for anybody.
On the contrary, we invite you to offer us new ways of thinking, new ways of seeing. It’s not about establishing a space for comfy ideological self-indulgence, but for questions, for a true diversity of voices and viewpoints, and for turning all of this into action.
One World. One Struggle.
TOPICS & VOICES
Alternative Structures Anarchism Anti-capitalism Autonomy Bureaucracy Climate Change Colonialism Corruption Countermedia Culture of Resistance Deutsch Ecocide Ecodefense Ed Sutton Education Greece Housing Justice Insurrection Islamophobia Kurdistan LeftEast Minneapolis Mutual Aid Neoliberalism No One Is Illegal No Pasarán! One World One Struggle Palaces & Vaults Police & Prisons Political Prisoners Post-Socialism Post-work Propaganda & Disinformation Que Se Vayan Todos Racism Rojava Russia Russian Reader Self Defense & Non/Violence Smash the Patriarchy Solidarity Squats & Occupations States & Borders Street Movements Switzerland Syria This is Hell! Transcripts Translations Turkey Ukraine United States of America War & Empire Work & Wage
ARCHIVES
“… in the midst of putative peace, you could, like me, be unfortunate enough to stumble on a silent war. The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.” – Arundhati Roy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.