Abstract
During the 2013 Gezi protests in Turkey, volunteering health professionals provided on-site medical assistance to protesters faced with police violence characterized by the extensive use of riot control agents. This led to a government crackdown on the medical community and the criminalization of “unauthorized” first aid amidst international criticisms over violations of medical neutrality. Drawing from ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews with health care professionals, and archival research, this article ethnographically analyzes the polarized encounter between the Turkish government and medical professionals aligned with social protest. I demonstrate how the context of “atmospheric violence”—the extensive use of riot control agents like tear gas—brings about new politico-ethical spaces and dilemmas for healthcare professionals. I then analyze how Turkish health professionals framed their provision of health services to protestors in the language of medical humanitarianism, and how the state dismissed their claims to humanitarian neutrality by criminalizing emergency care. Exploring the vexed role that health workers and medical organizations played in the Gezi protests and the consequent political contestations over doctors’ ethical, professional, and political responsibilities, this article examines challenges to medical humanitarianism and neutrality at times of social protest in and beyond the Middle East.
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Notes
Although the empirical scope of this paper is limited to Turkey, it is important to note that similar processes have been taking place in different contexts, ranging from the anti-austerity protests in Europe to the Occupy movements in North America. I use the term “authoritarian neoliberal” to precisely highlight this global role of atmospheric violence in the projects of economic and spatial reorganization associated with neoliberalization and to distance my analysis from parochializing understandings of Middle Eastern authoritarianism. The neoliberal urbanism practiced at Gezi Park that aimed to forcefully “transform use values embedded in an urban commons into exchange values through the construction of a shopping mall in the park’s stead” (Kuymulu 2013:276) is a critical example of how urban spaces have globally become increasingly important terrains of social struggle (Brenner and Theodore 2002; Bruff 2014; Davis 2005; Davis 2006).
The Turkish police’s use of high velocity tear gas canisters as live bullets has been well documented in all the medical and human rights reports cited in this article and “Ban Tear Gas Initiative” has been archiving all tear gas-related deaths in Turkey on their website at http://bibergaziyasaklansin.net. The limited research shows that exposure to riot control agents may produce significant toxic effects even when they are used in accordance with instructions. See Olajos and Salem (2001) for a toxicological perspective.
The US military has historically allowed the use of riot control agents, placing the United States outside the international norms regulating chemical weapons. For the international legal status of riot control agents and the US exceptionalism, see Giovanello (2012).
For the Turkish PM Erdoğan’s speeches, see Jose Calatayud, “'Just a few looters’: Turkish PM Erdogan dismisses protests as thousands occupy Istanbul's Taksim Square,” June 2, 2013, (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/just-a-few-looters-turkish-pm-erdogan-dismisses-protests-as-thousands-occupy-istanbuls-taksim-square-8641336.html); “'Patience has its limits,' Turkish PM Erdoğan tells Taksim Gezi Park demonstrators,” Hurriyet Daily News, June 9, 2013 (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/patience-has-its-limits-turkish-pm-erdogan-tells-taksim-gezi-park-demonstrators.aspx?pageID=238&nID=48516&NewsCatID=338).
For a concise discussion of these grievances, see Savcı 2013.
For an analysis of the Gezi Uprising in relation to Occupy movements and the Arab Uprisings see Tuğal (2013).
Sumud is an Arabic term meaning steadfastness and perseverance that have come to symbolize the Palestinian resistance to occupation. Although the contexts are very different, the Palestinian notion of sumud as the “infrapolitics of the weak” and “stubborn dignity” (Khalili 2007:748) is very useful to understand the resistant agency described in this article.
All names are pseudonyms, and identifying information has been changed to protect the anonymity of participants.
During the 2011 protests in Bahrain, the government launched a systematic attack on medical staff. The military organized incursions into hospitals and doctors who treated protestors were abused and arrested and even went missing. For a detailed account of the Bahraini case, see Friedrich (2012).
Following the objections from the opposition in the parliament, the following sentence was added to the legislation: “In extraordinary circumstances, those who are authorized to conduct their profession will be kept exempt from such restriction while providing first aid and until the authorized emergency medical aid providers arrive at the scene” (quoted in Daloglu 2014).
For a discussion of the cultural and political implications of Erdoğan’s remarks, see Umut Ozkirimli, “The odour of Gezi: On the dangers of crass populism,” Al Jazeera, June 24, 2013 (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/201362495929920667.html).
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Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the health professionals who shared their experiences with me. I thank the participants of the 2014 RHWG Annual Meeting where I shared an earlier draft of this paper. A later version of this paper was presented in May 2014 in the Clinic in Crisis Symposium at Brown University. I am grateful to all the symposium participants, especially to the organizers Sherine Hamdy, Adia Benton, Soha Bayoumi, and Sa’ed Atshan, and to the discussant Mary-Jo Delvecchio Good, for their feedback and support. I would also like to thank Zeynep Korkman, Ruken Şengül, and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and Scott Webel for his editorial suggestions. This research has been reviewed and granted ethics approval by the Institutional Review Board (1409497939, 2014–2015) at the University of Arizona.
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Salih Can Aciksoz declares that he has no conflict of interest.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Aciksoz, S.C. Medical Humanitarianism Under Atmospheric Violence: Health Professionals in the 2013 Gezi Protests in Turkey. Cult Med Psychiatry 40, 198–222 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-015-9467-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-015-9467-2