Five Years Later: How the Gezi Park Protests of 2013 Sparked a NeoBeat Culture Among Turkey's Youth

Note: On October 26th, I sat down with one of the founding members of the first NeoBeat consortium in Istanbul, Turkey. Although the organization moved away from anonymity in 2017, for safety concerns, his nom de guerre, ‘Tom Bombadil’, will be used throughout the article.

ISTANBUL, 26/10/2018: In May of 2013, protestors organized a sit-in against a government announced plan to turn Gezi Park, a small park in the popular Taksim neighborhood, into a shopping center. What began as a protest against concerns of overdevelopment by the state turned into a national, modern Occupy movement that lasted for nearly a month. When the government responded with violence against the initial protestors, it sparked subsequent protests that lasted until the end of June and turned the city of Istanbul ablaze. While the protests succeeded in overturning the urbanization project, they also addressed larger concerns regarding freedom of assembly, press, and speech.

“I showed up for weeks to protest” says Tom Bombadil, a 24 year old Master’s student and a founding member of the NeoBeat society in Turkey. At the time, the formal organization of a NeoBeat culture was not yet conceptualized, however during the protests, a group of like-minded individuals found each other and recognized the significant turning point of the moment for Turkey’s constitutionally protected freedoms.  

Since the 2013 protests and following the 2016 coup d’etat, Turkey has seen a consolidation of power under President Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey has been in a state of emergency since July of 2016, and President Erdogan has essentially turned the country into a dictatorship through crackdowns on political rivals and social movements. According to a report released by Amnesty International, 4,900 people were detained by the end of the Gezi Park protests. Today, there remains roughly 50,000 imprisoned individuals still awaiting trial since July of 2016, according to BBC reports.

"You can’t protest now,” says Bombadil. “If you protest now like we did 5 years ago, you’ll be arrested and thrown in prison.”

Bombadil was 19 when the Gezi Park protests occurred. An undergraduate student at the time studying Economics, Bombadil says he grew up with an interest in alternative culture and culminating a fascination with the beatnik musicians and writers of the 1960s. During our interview he had a collection of anti-establishment rock music spinning on vinyl from his living room. The spacious room filled with sunlight and smoke as he rolled his third cigarette of the morning, sunlight streaming into his ground floor apartment. Taking a puff and leaning against his kitchen counter, Bombadil explained how a revival of an American anti-establishment culture emerged from the violence in Istanbul.

It began when his mother first introduced him to the psychedelic rock music of Pink Floyd’s pivotal album, The Wall. During his undergraduate years Bombadil was exposed to the films, philosophy, and authors of Beatnik artists, where he grew especially fond of Jack Kerouac and the concept of The Road.

“I had a fight with existing. I needed to produce something in this world,” Bombadil shared. As an undergraduate at the time of the Gezi Park protests and influenced by the Arab Spring across Middle Eastern and North African countries, he saw a space where the beatnik philosophy fit within the modern struggle in Turkey. “The idea was born from a societal depression, the revolutions and fake revolutions of the Middle East, the wars, and the suppression by the government,” says Bombadil. Despite the suppressive nature of Turkey’s media services at the time - Twitter was completely shut down during the protests, and Wikipedia is still banned in the country - Bombadil and other founding members took to social media to organize online meetings and materials to spread their message.

And what exactly is there message?

“Neobeat offers real freedom, not liberal or individual freedom. The ultimate vision is no government, no world order, just people. Just freedom across the world,” according to Bombadil.

The first NeoBeat collective began in Ankara, the Turkish capital, in 2014. In its founding year, there were just a handful of members, however the message quickly spread through online platforms. Beginning under the guise of anonymity, the group was able to communicate across Twitter, Facebook, and their own website, Beatkusagi, reaching audiences across Turkey, especially in Istanbul, and internationally in Germany, Russia, and the United States.

“It’s a total social media movement,” says Bombadil. Their current twitter page, Neo-Beat World, run by the NeoBeat collective in Greenwich Village, New York, has amassed a following of almost 10,000 users. Since founding the movement, Bombadil and other NeoBeat members have written and published two books on the subject, The Literature of NeoBeat and Stories for Assimilation. Despite his accomplishment in assisting in the founding of a now world-wide movement, and the publication of two books, Bombadil says he doesn’t have time to be proud. In fact, he doesn’t even keep a copy of his books at home. “We must go forward with our past experience,” he shared.

And what’s next for the young revolutionary? Despite its birth from political upheaval, Bombadil rejects any plans to form a political party around the NeoBeat culture. “Hippies and beatniks were able to rely solely on societal and cultural revolutions to bring change,” says Bombadil. He hopes the same methods will work for the NeoBeat society as they continue to spread their influence to more and more young people around the world.  

“We want the world and we want it now” has become a battle cry for the NeoBeat movement, but especially for Bombadil. As he finishes his Masters he hopes to continue his efforts in promoting the NeoBeat message, continuing to write, and encouraging change in his home country and abroad.      

You can visit the NeoBeat website in the link below to learn more.