25 Examples Of The Best Street Humour From Istanbul, Gezi Park (#occupygezi) Protests

In the past week, the peaceful sit-in protest against the demolition of Gezi Park for the construction of a shopping mall in Istanbul has quickly turned into anti-government protests throughout Turkey as the police started and continued to use excessive force (lots and lots of tear gas and water cannons) against the initial and later-joining protesters. It is, of course, a challenging time for the Turkish citizens and many unfortune things like people getting killed and seriously injured have happened. The international media is covering these events extensively. The thing not so much covered, however, is the gallows humour that goes along with the protests. Various websites show different amounts of this humour. I took the liberty to gather a few of those and translate them roughly to English for your convenience. So, here are some of the most creative street writings from the Istanbul, Gezi Park protests. #occupygezi, #direngezi, #direnankara, #direnizmir, #bubirsivildirenis, http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/

1. Enough! I'm calling the police.

2. Dear Police, You're literally bringing tears to our eyes.

3. We take that gas in a single hit bro.

4. Winter is coming (well, self explanatory)

5. Pepper gas makes the skin healthy.

6. At first everything was a gas cloud. Then life began!

7. You banned alcohol, the people sobered up!

Referring to the time ban on alcohol recently implemented by the parliment.

8. You're messing with the generation that beats cops in GTA.

9. Dude, don't be scared. It's us. The people.

10. You shouldn't have banned that last beer.

11. I asked God what to do. He replied #direngezi. (twitter tag of the movement)

12. Police! Help! Oh nevermind, I guess you're busy.

13. Tell me more Tayyip. It's fascinating.

14. You can't scare a people who checks for gas leakage with a lighter by using tear gas!

The title is for the one on the left. This is for the one on the right:

We are a generation that ran after insect fumigation trucks. What is gas to us?

15. Even Edison has regrets.

Reference to the governing party's lightbulb logo

16. It's six stars now. Now the tanks will come.

17. We are already emotional kids, no need for tear gas!

18. Come here a minute. We've got something to tell you.

During the protests a group of people captured an earth digger and chased the water cannon panzer of the police. Incidentally the panzers of the police are called "TOMA" in short, meaning "Public Incident Intervention Vehicle". The protesters called the digger "POMA" as in "Police Incident Intervention Vehicle"

19. Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth day, at dawn look to the east. What do you know? Maybe he'll come.

After days of relentless tear gas and water cannon fire people look for support.

20. Antarctica is resisting.

Referring to almost all Turkish news/tv channels, which didn't broadcast any of the unrest during the first days of the protests and instead broadcasted trivial stuff with the most famous one being the penguin documentary that CNNTurk broadcasted while CNN International was covering the protests in Istanbul.

21. If I can't find a park, I'll shit in the shopping mall.

22. Football fans founded a united team.

As the protests escalated the fans of long standing rival football teams Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray and Beşiktaş united and joined the protests.

23. Interclass Istanbul Gas Festival.

24. I'm neither a leftist or a rightist, but a chapullist (or chapuller)

"A few Çapulcu" is what the PM called the protesters in his speech.For further and detailed information on chapuller and chapulling please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapulling. It's important.

25. Everyday I'm Çapuling.