Excerpted from an extensive and interesting article by MUSTAFA DIKEÇ:

“This is a revolt against state-led property development by those who are enraged by the rebuilding of cities for profit maximization with little or no democratic possibility of contestation, and definitely no consultation. This is a revolt against state-led Islamisation by those who are enraged by the increasing social pressure that seeks to impose certain moral codes on what they do, how they dress, how they behave, what they drink. This is a revolt of urban citizens who want to be considered as legitimate partners in the production of their urban spaces and maintain a way of life that is not regulated and restrained by moral codes imposed upon them by an Islamist government. Gezi Park was the last drop in growing resentment and urban resistance, as was the recent passing of a law aimed at restricting alcohol consumption; one clever graffiti in Istanbul suggested that the ban on alcohol had resulted in the sobering up of the people (the Turkish word for sobering up also means “waking up to something”). This is a revolt of citizens with political dignity, ideals, and aspirations. What unites them is their desire to affirm their political capacity, forming solidarities in urban space rather then falling back into tired divides of old. There are women in headscarves, “anti-capitalist Muslims,”[10] gays, lesbians, transsexuals, union members, football club fans, Alevis, Sunnis, Jews, Christians, atheists, Armenians, Kurds, as well as Turks. The revolts are not organised or structured around established social, cultural, gender, ethnic, religious, or political identities or affiliations. What brings the protestors together, what brings them to stasis, is their political capacity as equals and political desire to resist repression and authoritarian governance.

This is an urban stasis. This Greek word rich in meaning seems to me to characterise best the situation in Turkey’s cities.Stasis does not merely mean inertia in a negative sense. Even if it suggests stillness, it is a disruptive stillness.Stasis means “standing up against” (which might bring something to a stop, hence the more commonly known meaning of stasis; as inertia), “standing for,” and, following perhaps unsurprisingly from these two meanings, “uprising.” The protestors at Gezi Park stood up against what was yet another commercially driven project imposed on their urban spaces for private profit maximization without the slightest procedure of consultation, let alone contestation. The protestors in Turkey’s cities now stand for political ideals that reject social engineering imposing moral and religious orders, authoritarian forms of governance, and repression. The urban citizens of Turkey have stood up against authoritarian governance, standing for their right to the city and right to difference, not understood in a folkloric, exotic, or nostalgic way, but as a right to resist top-down imposition of moral and spatial orders. The urban uprising has begun, we have come to astasis. But this is not the end, just the beginning.”