Turkey: activities ahead of 1st of May
Activists have carried out a mobilization campaign for the 1st of May in various working-class areas of Istanbul. They have put up posters with the slogans “Not to the ballot boxes, but to the streets! Unity, Struggle and Victory! We are on the streets on May 1!”, calling to the election boycott of 14th of May. The activists also distributed leaflets in cafes and shops in Gazi. The police has persecuted the activists, but they have continued the work despite this, and vow to keep on working until May 1st despite all obstacles. Four activists were detained and charged with a fine in Kartal, despite the police not being in the legal authority to write such fines. Two were detained in Sarıgazi. The activists continued their work immediately after being released.
The union of working migrants in Europe (AGEB) has issued a call for May Day in Turkish, German and French.
“The 1st of May is for the class conscious proletariat with an internationalist spirit, the day of the struggle for unity, solidarity and liberation from oppression and exploitation in the whole world.
The 1st of May is the day of struggle of the peoples of the world and of the oppressed nations, who produce every day, who daily create life anew through their sweat, who are subjected to the exploitation of the imperialist capitalist system.”
They write that it is necessary to expose and take the streets from the yellow unions, who support the bourgeoisie, and the elements which try to turn the day of struggle and revolution into a festival.
“We need to transform this 1st of May into a 1st of May on which we reject all revisionist opportunist sections, which are parliamentary and see the elections as liberation, who lull the class and the people with dreams of improvements and try to mislead the class, in order to hide the fact that the true liberation of the working class can be realized through their own might and the proletarian power can only be reached through the revolutionary struggle.”
AGEB also demands that on May Day, a strong stand is taken against the politics of the governments, which try to split the common struggle of the workers through racism and hatred against immigrants and refugees. “Let us arm ourselves against all this with the spirit of class solidarity and proletarian internationalism”, they declare.
Multiple revolutionary and democratic organizations in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, have signed a joint statement for a revolutionary May Day.
The statement highlights that this year the May Day demonstration in Ankara focuses to the Maraş-centered earthquake and to demanding justice to the victims. “May Day should be organized with a view that will hold accountable this order, which has given millions nothing but death and exploitation”, the organizations declare. They continue, saying “In the spiral of intertwined economic and political crises, the current demands of the working class should express themselves most strongly in the field on May Day.”
Regarding the upcoming elections, they take a position against them and write: “May 1 should be a day when the belief and determination on the struggle is reflected, not the expectation of a change that will take place with the elections.” They declare that “all actors of bourgeois politics are open or covert supporters of the exploitation and war order”, which was shown in the unanimous vote for the NATO-membership of Finland, and that these policies of war and hostility to the oppressed peoples should be clearly and firmly denounced.
“Long speeches and empty speeches should be put to an end at the 1st of May, and the platform should belong to the struggling workers. The program arrangement of the May Day demonstration should be in accordance with the meaning and content of May Day, and the podium speeches to be made on May 1 should not be made by the union leaders, but by the resisting and struggling workers to be determined by the joint decision of the organizing institutions.”
Additionally, the principles take a determined stance to resist any attempt to harass or prevent the march from taking place, as as happened in many previous years.
