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The International Journal of the History of Sport

ISSN: 0952-3367 (Print) 1743-9035 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fhsp20

United in Protest: From ‘Living and Dying with OurColours’ to ‘Let All the Colours of the World Unite’

Itir Erhart

To cite this article: Itir Erhart (2014) United in Protest: From ‘Living and Dying with Our Colours’to ‘Let All the Colours of the World Unite’, The International Journal of the History of Sport,31:14, 1724-1738, DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2014.929116

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2014.929116

Published online: 18 Jun 2014.

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United in Protest: From ‘Living and Dying with Our Colours’ to‘Let All the Colours of the World Unite’

Itir Erhart*

Media and Communication Systems, Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey

Istanbul’s ‘Big Three’ football clubs, Besiktas, Fenerbahc�e and Galatasaray, dominatethe Turkish Super League. The matches between these fiercely rival teams, also knownas ‘derbies’, are often intense and culminate in the eruption of violence, which has evenbeen fatal on occasion. To many people’s surprise, the anti-government protests whichwere sparked by outrage over police action against environmental protestors in May2013 brought these eternal rivals together. Thousands of Besiktas, Fenerbahc�e andGalatasaray supporters marched arm-in-arm to Taksim Square and demanded justiceand freedom. Out of this solidarity is born Istanbul United, a seemingly new fan groupwith a new logo that combines the three rival logos. Carsı, the legendary fan group ofBesiktas, also played an important role in the protests and received the support of allfootball fans as well. This paper will focus on the politicisation of football in Turkeyduring the second half of 2013. By looking at both the political role of football fans ofthe ‘Big Three’ during and after the Gezi protests, and the ways in which mutualrespect and solidarity is born among diverse protesters, this paper discusses thepossibilities of translating this positive genre to a peaceful spectatorship in Turkishfootball.

Keywords: Gezi; Istanbul United; Turkish football; Twitter; digital activism

Introduction

In 2013, Istanbul became home to one of the biggest anti-government protests in the

history of the Turkish Republic. On May 4, a handful of protestors, mostly representatives

of Turkish and international NGOs and students, started a non-violent resistance against

the demolishing of Gezi Park, one of the few green areas in the city centre. When I arrived

at the park the next day, the only banner hanging demanded that the government got its

hands off the park, the trees and the water sources. The protestors stayed in tents in efforts

to block the bulldozers from getting into the park. The events turned into mass upheaval

when the demonstrators were violently removed from the park by riot police who used tear

gas, plastic bullets and water cannons against them and burned their tents. In reaction to

police violence, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets first of Istanbul and then in

other cities. The resistance turned into a coalition of all individuals and groups who oppose

the authoritarianism and urban policies of the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party)

and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It brought environmentalists, LGBT groups,

Kurdish people, feminists, anti-capitalist Muslims, students, lawyers, journalists and

academics together. ‘Tayyip – connecting people’ was one of the prevalent jokes.1

Soccer fans who are used to clashes with the riot police and dealing with their weapons

organised barricades in an effort to contribute to the resistance. The group leading the way

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

*Email: ierhart@bilgi.edu.tr

The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2014

Vol. 31, No. 14, 1724–1738, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2014.929116

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was Besiktas’ Carsı – the legendary, leftist group with the motto Carsı her seye karsı

(Carsı is against everything). Group members captured a TOMA (Riot Control Vehicle)

and renamed it ‘POMA’ (Police Riot Control Vehicle) carrying their creative humour and

antagonism from the stadium to the streets.

Soon after, some fans of the fiercely rival Istanbul clubs Besiktas, Fenerbahc�e and

Galatasaray formed an alliance and named it ‘Istanbul United’. The new team’s symbol

combined the three teams’ logo. Elsewhere, the fan rivalry vanished: posts such as ‘I’m a

Fenerbahc�e/Galatasaray fan but I also support Carsı’ and ‘We are all Carsı’ became

popular on Twitter during the protest. Fans also posted pictures arm in arm, shoulder to

shoulder in Istanbul United jerseys. Eternal rivals seemed to have united against the riot

police and the government.

Before the Gezi resistance if you were a Besiktas fan, then you were not, and never

would be, a Galatasaray or Fenerbahc�e fan.2 You were expected to live and die in the

colours of the team you were supporting. All this changed inside and around the urban

utopia that was the commune formed inside Gezi Park during the resistance. The

unification and solidarity messages were also shared on another public space, social

networking sites. Football was, once again, proven to be much more than just a game.

Besnier believes that ‘sport can articulate all the tensions of the contemporary world,

deepening some inequalities while exposing others’.3 As such, the sociopolitical

dimensions and impact of sports have been explored by many researchers. Yarar, for

instance, looks at how the New Right mobilised the masses around its hegemonic project

and reconstructed football in Turkey during the 1980s,4 while Ncube focuses on the

football discourse and politics during elections in Zimbabwe in July 2013 in an attempt to

reveal the relationship between football discourse and contemporary Zimbabwean

politics.5 The ways in which Berlusconi uses football metaphors to create a positive public

image for himself and his political party in Italy,6 how football has been an active site of

contestation in the cultural politics of voice in Scotland, as well as the interrelation

between the evolution of baseball and politics during the Japanese colonial period in

Taiwan,7 soccer’s impact as an instrument for peace-making, reconciliation and the

forging of national identities in Africa8 and Raul Castro sports reforms in Cuba9 have been

academically investigated.

This paper will attempt to explore the social and cultural dynamics that made Istanbul

United possible. After providing a brief history of the rivalry among the Big Three soccer

teams, Besiktas, Galatasary and Fenerbahc�e, the second section will look at the fan group

Carsı and their political past in an attempt to explain how they became a driving force

during the protests. The following section will investigate the Gezi resistance and football

fans’ involvement in it. Building on this, the formation of Istanbul United, the symbolism

used by the fans in the streets (signs, posters, slogans) and the messages and pictures

shared on two online spaces will be examined. The observed patterns of fan behaviour will

be discussed in an attempt to demonstrate that Istanbul United may actually have a lasting

and transforming effect on Turkish football spectatorship.

Methodology

The ethnographic data presented in this paper are gathered before, during and after the

Gezi protests. The fieldwork involved participant observation10 at Gezi Park, and the Gezi-

related rallies during May, June and July 2013, and at the football matches during the first

half of the 2013–2014 Turkish Super League. During these three months I visited the park

every day, systematically observed and talked to protestors who wore the jerseys of the

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‘Big Three’, and later on Istanbul United, and/or carried their flags. I documented the

photographs, banners and posters displayed by these protestors inside Gezi Park and held

up during the rallies as well as the chants and slogans they used. To develop a deeper and

more holistic understanding of the phenomenon, I have also visited two social media

platforms (Twitter and Eksi Sozluk, the largest social media site in Turkey), the online

gathering places of the Istanbul United fans, daily. I followed the official Istanbul United

account and documented all the tweets sent from this account. The data set includes all the

tweets using the hashtag #istanbulunited. I also documented all entries about Istanbul

United on Eksi Sozluk during and the six months following the protests. This paper is a

study based on ethnographic data gathered offline on the streets and online on Twitter and

Eksi Sozluk.11

The Deadly Rivalry: ‘Our Kefen12 Will Be Black and White’

Although soccer is popular and played all around Turkey, Istanbul is where its heart beats.

It is home to the so-called ‘Big Three’: Besiktas (The Black Eagles), Galatasaray (The

Lions) and Fenerbahc�e (The Yellow Canaries). In Turkey, sports has a strong connotation

with soccer and ‘the term soccer has a strong connotation with these three teams’.13 These

teams have the largest fan base among them, making up 80–85% of the country’s

population.14 They also have won most of the titles of the Turkish Super League played

since 1958 and get most of the coverage on TV and newspapers.

Tanıl Bora points out that these teams can be regarded not only as football teams, but

also as the leading confronters of Turkey’s historical evolution since they were all

established in the early 1900s, even before the foundation of the Turkish Republic.15

Besiktas was founded in 1903, followed by Galatasaray in 1905 which was formed by thestudents of the high school bearing the same name. Two years later, Fenerbahc�e was foundedby a group of players in Kadıkoy, Istanbul’s Asian side. The first derby between Galatasarayand Fenerbahc�e was played in Kadıkoy in 1909. The vicious competition between the twoteams started in 1934 when Istanbul witnessed its first football riots.16

During the last 80 years, the three teams played against each other over 1000 times and

many of these confrontations were ferocious. Galatasaray’s old stadium Ali Sami Yen was

nicknamed Cehennem (Hell) because of its intimidating, no-exit atmosphere for the other

two teams. At the derbies, offensive, homophobic chants like Fener’e Opera (Opera for

Fenerbahc�e)17 or morbid chants like Sampiyon Olmadan Olursek Eger Kefenimiz Siyah

Beyaz Olsun (if we die before we are champions, may our burial cloths be black and white)

and Olmeye, Olmeye Geldik (we are here to die with you) dominate stadia and often

continue after the match outside after the crowd fills the streets of Istanbul.

On some occasions, verbal abuse at the derbies also turns into physical violence. As

Nurhat observes, ‘war-like scenes of fog, tear gas and fans clashing with the police’18 are

very familiar to derby-goers. The federation took some measures to prevent violence, such

as allowing only home fans to attend the matches between these teams.19

The most recent incident of fan violence took place on May 12, 2013, outside the

stadium. A 20-year-old Fenerbahc�e fan, Burak Yıldırım, was stabbed to death by two fans

wearing Galatasaray shirts after the Galatasaray–Fenerbahc�e derby. After the same soccer

match, 122 fans were detained.

Only a few weeks after Burak Yıldırım’s death, these three deadly rivals united under

the same flag and logo, led by the Besiktas fan group, Carsı. In the following section, I will

focus primarily on the fan culture of Besiktas, Carsı, and the activism among football fans

leading to Gezi resistance.

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Carsı is Against Everything

For Gants andWenner, the multidimensional operations of sports fanship indicate the need

to go ‘beyond emotional involvement or identification, carving the concept along a

continuum that is made up of cognitive, affective and behavioral components . . . as a

composite of knowledge, affect and viewership’.20 Besiktas fans definitely fit this more

holistic approach to fanship.

Although nowadays the team has supporters who come from all backgrounds,

Besiktas, traditionally, has a more ‘socialist, working class and left wing fan base’.21 The

team which gets its name from a neighbourhood on Istanbul’s European side is nicknamed

halkın takımı, the ‘people’s team’. Most of the hardcore fans work as small shop owners or

shopkeepers at Besiktas’ c�arsı, ‘shopping district’. For this group, being a Besiktas fan is a

‘primary identity’.22 First they are Besiktaslı, ‘a supporter of Besiktas’, then Turkish, then

Muslim – so much so that it would not be surprising to see a Besiktas fan support the

opposing team when Fenerbahc�e is playing in UEFA or Champions’ League.

The legendary fan group, Carsı, which later on became identified with the team, has its

basis in these origins. Carsı was founded in 1982 on a leftist, anarchist ideology. The

group’s logo contains the anarchist ‘A’, and ‘its tongue-in-cheek rhyming mantra Carsı

her seye karsı (Carsı is against everything) captures its part flippant, part confrontational

stance towards neoliberal orthodoxy in Turkish society’.23 In Meri Kyto’s terms, ‘they are

the rebellious voices of the terraces’.24

From the banners they have used inside and outside the stadia, it can be observed that

Carsı is against many things including fascism, racism, animal rights abuses, capitalism,

oppression, nuclear power, the war in Iraq, domestic violence, child pornography and

global warming. Carsı has supported Barcelona’s Samuel Eto’o who was the target of

racism and subjected to monkey chants in Spain by holding out a banner Carsı ırkc�ılıga

karsı. Hepimiz Eto’yuz! (Carsı is against Racism. We’re all Eto’o). In 2006 they have

joined Greenpeace in standing against nuclear power plants and protested inside and

outside the stadium. To show their solidarity with the victims of the Van Earthquake and to

react to the lack of support those victims receive from the western provinces of Turkey,

they removed their tops at the 65th25 minute of the Galatasaray–Besiktas derby in 2011.

Van is a predominantly Kurdish city and through such actions they signify that they side

with groups like Kurds who ‘victimised, marginalised, and disaffected by the Sunni

Muslim, neoliberal orthodoxy in Turkey, encapsulated most recently by Prime Minister

Erdogan and his AKP’.26 On a similar note, they marched with an ‘Ahparig27 Hrant Dink’

banner during the 2013 commemorative walk for the Turkish-Armenian journalist, human

rights activist Hrant Dink who was assassinated in 2007.

Another symbol associated with Carsı is Che Guevara. The members of the group

often attend May Day demonstrations wearing Che Guevara scarves and carrying

banners which read Halkın Takımı Seni Unutmayacak (The People’s Team Will Never

Forget You). The Che connection was also evident during the Gezi protests which I will

discuss in detail in the following section. The members of the group I talked to at the

park made reference to Che Guevara’s socialist struggle and likened it to their own

struggle against what they described as ‘the Islamic, neoliberal hegemony of the AKP’.

They also hung part-Che part-Carsı posters to symbolise the likeness of the two

struggles.

The phrase Tek Yol Devrim, ‘The Only Way Is Revolution’, is also a slogan and

philosophy associated with Carsı.28 The iconography, Che Guevara and Deniz Gezmis – a

Marxist-Leninist Turkish Revolutionary of the 1968 movement – and the slogans of

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revolution, Tek Yol Devrim (The OnlyWay Is Revolution) and Tek Yok Besiktas (The Only

Way Is Besiktas), often came together on Carsı banners.

Given their anarchist past and political stance on social issues in Turkey, it is no

surprise that Carsı stood against what they saw as the neoliberal urban policies leading to

the destruction of Gezi Park and the resulting police violence during the protests and

became the driving force of the fan group Istanbul United. In what follows, I will focus on

the Gezi protests and the utopian commune which was created inside the park in order to

shed light on the unification of the deadly rivals.

The Gezi Protests: ‘Together We Stand, Divided We Fall’

When I arrived at Taksim by metro a few hours after the police raid on the protestors

sleeping in their tents, I saw that Gezi exit was closed. Leaving the station, I smelled tear gas

in the air and saw empty canisters all around the square. On approaching Gezi on foot, I

noticed that all the gates of the park were being guarded by hundreds of riot police. One of

the protestors I met that morning told me that he remembers going to sleep in his tent and

waking up somewhere on Taksim square, half-conscious.When such stories and the images

of police violence began to circulate on social media sites, masses started pouring in.

Atak suggests that the ‘the antagonistic nature of the protests is rooted in the resistance

to the authoritarianism of the government, its political leadership and coercive state

apparatuses’.29 It can be argued that the crowds came together against what they called a

fascist rule and what Atak notes as ‘concerns for detrimental urban policies and for the

environment’.30 Crowds took to the streets first in and around the city centre in Istanbul

and then in other cities like Ankara and Eskisehir.

The slogans we frequently heard were Fasizme Karsı Omuz Omuza (Shoulder to

Shoulder against Fascism),Diren Gezi! (Resist Gezi!) andHer yer Taksim, her yer direnis!

(Everywhere Taksim, everywhere resistance!). Once the park was taken back from the riot

police, a commune was formed by groups whose only common denominator was the wish

to protect the park and resist Erdogan and his riot police. Musicians, academics, lawyers,

labour unions, representatives of political parties, blue- and white-collar workers as well

as LGBT, feminist, socialist, communist, anarchist and anti-capitalist Muslim groups

joined forces for the first time in the republic’s 90-year-old history for this common cause.

For two weeks,31 they camped at the park, played music, distributed fliers, collected

garbage, organised workshops for children and adults, treated stray animals that were

affected by tear gas, grew vegetables and founded a library with donations from the

visitors. The implied message seemed to be ‘Together we stand, divided we fall’.

Prime Minister Erdogan characterised the protests and the commune formed inside the

park as the work of a handful of Capulcu (looters, vandals). The protestors immediately

claimed the term and formed a verb out of it, chapulling.32 Gezi Park, where the chapulcu

resided, became Capulcuistan (the land of the Capulcu) and the live-stream online channel

founded by the protestors, in reaction to mainstream media, inside the park came to be

called Chapul TV. The academics who joined the protests carried banners which read

‘Prof. Chapulcu’ and joined the crowd singing the song of the resistance: ‘Everyday I’m

chapuling’, sung to the tune of ‘Everyday I’m Shuffling’ (Party Rock Anthem), the first

single released by LMFAO from their album ‘Sorry for Party Rocking’ in 2011.

After the humorous endorsement of the term chapulcu by the protestors, the

government started framing the protesters as outsiders and terrorists. ‘Erdogan said, for

example, that terror groups were manipulating what had started as an environmental

campaign, and he added that seven foreigners were among those arrested’.33

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Such allegations are not foreign to a certain crowd: football fans ‘have regularly been

characterised as such: an aimless lumpen crowd, lowlifes with nothing in life but a

senseless obsession with football’.34 This discourse has often been used by politicians and

federations in an attempt to legitimise police intervention and the use of tear gas during the

matches. As expert protesters, and the most political of Turkish fan clubs, Carsı has been

very active since the first days of the resistance, organising barricades to defend Taksim

and their own neighbourhood, Besiktas. In line with their history of supporting the Other,

they also vowed ‘to represent the people, justice, and fairness’.35 While camping inside

Gezi Park with the other protestors to show their reaction to police violence, they

confiscated heavy machinery, TOMA (Riot Control Vehicle), and turning it into a POMA

(Police Riot Control Vehicle). This stunt was very significant because it represented a

symbolic point scored against the riot police and hence the government. Emre, Coban and

Sener rightfully observe that following this stunt the group gained a high profile in

mainstream and social media. They also paved the way for a multi-area struggle against

the authority with its tweet ‘Anyone who knows how to fly a helicopter?’ All in all, Carsı

fan club’s sense of humour enabled legitimisation of social protests, though considered an

offence by the authority, and furthermore ‘increased the public participation in and support

for these protests by overcoming the fear’.36

Posts like ‘I’m a Fenerbahc�e fan but I support Carsı’, ‘I don’t support any team, but I

support Carsı’ and ‘We are all Carsı now’ became popular tweets after the strong Carsı

presence at Gezi.37 These tweets, which signal a significant change in fan behaviour, could

be interpreted as the first signs of the unification with Carsı leading the way.

Now There is Only One ‘Big’ Team: Istanbul United

During the Gezi Park resistance, several unlikely alliances were formed. Feminist groups

organised a protest to condemn the harassments targeting women in headscarves. They

wanted to show that no one can decide what women can and cannot wear in public,

including inside the park. This marked the beginning of the end of a long divide between

the state feminists and the Islamist feminists who joined forces at the park against the

common enemy: the oppressive and patriarchal state. Nationalist and Kurdish groups,

socialist and anti-capitalist Muslim groups, and white-collar and blue-collar workers, too,

formed similar alliances which, if they last, may have a transformative effect on Turkish

society.

Bonds such as the one between Carsı and the LGBT group Lambdaistanbul, which

have a potential to change the whole Turkish football culture, were also witnessed.

Homophobia and hypermasculinity is still very prevalent inside Turkish football stadia.

Turkish fans, like many football fans around the world, distance themselves from

homosexuality and insult the enemy by attributing to them sexual weakness and

stereotypically gay qualities.38 Members of Carsı were no exception. However, when

LGBT and feminist groups challenged the language of the protests and asked the

protestors to take a moment before they insult women, ‘fags’ and ‘whores’ who are

resisting with them, Carsı members visited the Lambdaistanbul tent. A member of the

group told me that they brought flowers and apologised for their use of sexist and

homophobic language inside the stadia as well as in the park and for ‘unintentionally

insulting them’.

On day three, the most unexpected bond was formed between three sworn enemies,

Besiktas, Fenerbahc�e and Galatasaray. Izzy Finkel observes that ‘baiting the police into

nightly games of cat and mouse, they forgot their differences in a haze of gas and tears’.39

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Those fans who were supporters of Gezi joined against this common enemy and founded a

new team. This newly founded team was called Istanbul United – a soccer team that does

not have any players, a coach or a stadium but thousands of fans. The supporters of

Istanbul United gathered under a new flag which combined the colours of all three teams:

black and white; yellow and indigo; yellow and red. At the centre of the flag was a new

logo that combined the logos of the ‘Big Three’. The founding date was announced as May

31, 2013 – the day when riot police entered the park with tear gas and water cannons and

dismantled the protestors’ tents.

Led by Carsı, and supported by left-wing and left-leaning fan groups, such as

Fenerbahc�e’s Sol Ac�ık (Left Open [Terrace]), Vamos Bien and Galatasaray’s Tek Yumruk

(One Fist), the fans of Istanbul United put on their Fenerbahc�e, Galatasaray and Besiktas

jerseys, and marched and chanted arm in arm in Besiktas. They carried a banner which

read ‘Tayyip, do you know Istanbul United? Since May 31, 2013’. When I asked the

members of the group what the aim of the banner was, the answer was simple: ‘To

challenge and intimidate the Prime Minister whose Istanbul offices are also located in the

same neighborhood’. Another banner held up during the march paid homage to Carsı

through the sacrifice discourse of fandom: ‘Carsı, we would sacrifice everything for you.

Signed: The Chappulcu of Fenerbahc�e’.

The chant often employed by the group was: ‘Go on spray, go on spray, spray your

pepper gas. Take off your helmets, put down your truncheons and let’s see who the tough

guy is’. They implied that the riot police which is used to taking on only one group at a

time will have a hard time confronting them all at once. The hypermasculine discourse of

the stadia was employed against the authorities. The fans, who were immune to pepper

gas, were marching into the battle with their unprotected bodies, ready to face the riot

police who are hiding under their helmets and behind their truncheons. In the battle for

masculinity, Istanbul United fans were ahead.

Humour, which was one of the hallmarks of the protests, was also evident in the

group’s discourse. Galatasaray’s Ivorian striker, Didier Drogba, was called for help and

Fenerbahc�e goalkeeper Volkan was asked to reason with Erdogan.40 It was reflected in

graffiti on the park’s walls as well: ‘So you said Besiktas’ defense was no good’, ‘Even

Alex41 is gone, what makes you [Erdogan] think you’ll stay?’

Istanbul United’s daring, challenging, unifying but at the same time humorous form of

resistance and efforts to help other protestors who are not as versed in survival techniques

during confrontations with the police, minimising the effects of the chemicals used, won

them a lot of support. Many fans responded to their ‘you can join in your own jersey,

carrying your own flag’ call by showing up in their Fenerbahc�e jerseys, Besiktas scarves

and Galatasaray hats and carrying Istanbul United flags. These seeming anomalies we

observed signalled the changing construction of fans groups.

As the images of solidarity were circulated and received media interest, sports writers

also started showing their support in their columns. Football writer Ugur Vardan called the

team ‘United Colours of Istanbul’ and thanked the fans for demonstrating the possibility of

another world.42 On a similar note, sports commentator and writer Bagıs Erten wrote ‘We

have seen that football fans can actually get together, when the need arises . . . Gezi Park

(protests) is the beginning of peace in football’.43

United on Twitter

Especially during the first days, those who turned to Turkish mainstream media for news

on the protests witnessed a complete blackout. Due to the government control and top-

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down and self-imposed censorship of the Turkish media, the news channels ran with every

other story but the Gezi protests. During the hottest hours of the resistance when riot police

clashed with the protestors and cars were overturned and burned at Istanbul’s centre,

Taksim, CNNTurk chose to air Spy in the Huddle, a documentary on penguins. Frustrated

and angry viewers signed up for Twitter accounts to get updates from the streets. The

number of active users rose from 1.8 million to 9.5 million in a week.44 As in other –

Iranian, Tunisian, Egyptian45 – contemporary political protests, Twitter ‘became the key

forum for the spread of information, rumours and political posturing about the protests’.46

The Gezi protestors utilised social media to organise and facilitate action on the streets –

‘to recruit and mobilise protesters to coordinate the movement without the infrastructure

of formal organizations’.47 NGOs showed their support by tweeting the mobile phone

numbers of lawyers who volunteered to provide legal assistance to arrested protestors;

hotels and cafes close to Taksim tweeted that they were opening their doors to protesters;

local businesses and residents posted the passwords for their personal wireless internet

connections to help protesters stay online. In response, the target of the protests, PM

Erdogan, called Twitter ‘the worst menace to society’.48

Observing that the Gezi protests will not be televised but they will be tweeted, some

members of Istanbul United opened a Twitter account on the same day it was founded.

They used this account to communicate with, as well as to coordinate and mobilise, over

6000 followers. They shared pictures and videos of Besiktas, Fenerbahc�e and Galatasaray

fans resisting together to reinforce their core message of solidarity. In a few days,

alongside their strong presence in the streets and on sports columns, the group gained

popularity on this online platform as well. The group’s slogan, ‘Tayyip, do you know

Istanbul United?’, dominated this communication space during the first week of June.

Retweeting the slogan was significant in that it increased visibility but also ‘played an

important role in forming group (team) solidarity and making a symbolic expression as a

political act’.49

The followers of Istanbul United used Twitter to disseminate information on where the

group was gathering and to express their personal views. They tweeted that they were

‘taking everything they said about the rivals teams back’, that they no longer ‘believed in

any of the teams they have screamed our heads off for in the past’ and they only supported

one big team, ‘Istanbul United’, now. These tweets signalled a change of discourse in

Turkish football culture from ‘born a Besiktas/Fenerbahc�e/Galatasaray fan and will die as

one’ to ‘the rivalry is all behind us today – aswe stand against the common enemy’. Another

significant shift can be observed in the redefinition of masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity

which was commonly produced through homophobia, sexism, racism, violent behaviour

and toughness in language, chants and gestures was being redefined in terms of solidarity:

Fenerbahc�e fans who protected the Galatasaray Store in Kadıkoy, you are the Men, you areReal Men! Long live @istanbulunited

Fenerbahc�e fans achieved the status of ‘Real Men’ not because they were good fighters but

because they stood next to their old enemy and defended their store against intruders.

Thus, solidarity became the ultimate masculine value for Turkish football fans during the

protests. The Istanbul United Twitter community employed various online strategies to

form group identity around solidarity and to organise and mobilise people.

As Penney and Dadas observe, in political protests, Twitter is used for the

‘strengthening of personal ties between members of the movement; interacting informally

with other like-minded activists, and gaining a sense of community, solidarity, and group

identity’.50 Fans employed this function of Twitter in tweets like ‘resistance has no

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colour’, ‘Football is brotherhood’, ‘Istanbul United is not only a fan solidarity group;

Istanbul United is the spirit of brotherhood’, ‘let all the colours of the world unite’ and ‘the

team of those who are rivals on the field, brothers off the field: Istanbul United! All comes

to an end; brotherhood lasts a lifetime’, all using the hashtag #istanbulunited.

Since ‘the growth of digitally born protests depends on the strategic deployment of

preexisting networks and on the ability to capitalise on the visibility of the best-connected

actors’,51 Istanbul United reached out to Istanbul clubs and other fan groups to mobilise

active members for collective action:

@Besiktas @Fenerbahc�e @GalatasaraySK ¼ ISTANBUL UNITED @istanbulunited

Mutual expressions of solidarity and cooperation extended beyond Turkey:

From Taksim to Lice, Sao Paulo, Tahrir,52 We are All Blood Brothers. RESIST

@Claas_Weinmann Istanbul United: In den Farben getrennt, in der Sache vereint (Separatein colours, united in cause)

@Hoffrock @istanbulunited What you are doing is just unbelievably great!

Twitter was also used to facilitate and share information about offline protest actions. The

letter addressed to Carsı by a father and son, Emin Yeniacun and Deniz Yeniacun, and

tweeted as a picture file was a very good example of this:

I would never have imagined that I would like to belong to a different fan group: Thank youfor this. Please contact the fan groups of all three teams and invite them to design a flag and t-shirt. The t-shirt should have Fenerbahc�e, Besiktas, Galatasaray and, above all, Carsı on it.Sell them at all the fan stores. The money raised should go to social responsibility projectssupporting young people who will carry the flag of democracy and freedom.

The father and son used this online platform to invite the authorities to offline action:

designing T-shirts, selling them and using the money raised to improve football culture in

Turkey. Soon Istanbul United shirts were made available and distributed to supporters

through Twitter messages.

United on Eksi Sozluk – The Sour Dictionary

Founded in 1999, Eksi Sozluk53 is a satirical, hypertext, online dictionary and a social

networking site with an ironic motto: ‘the sacred source of knowledge’. Around 50,000,

mostly anonymous, contributors create dictionary-like entries on any topic: historical or

current events, people – including but not limited to politicians, celebrities, professors,

doctors – groups, political issues, places, quotations, etc. The entries are never moderated

for factual correctness since the founder Sedat Kapanoglu believes that ‘anything is

information’.54 Eksi Sozluk is also the largest social media site in Turkey with over 14

million visitors a month.55 According to sociologist Zeynep Tufekc�i, it is ‘Wikipedia, a

social network, and Reddit rolled into one’.56 It can also be considered a public space since

the contributors often respond to each other’s entries and debate sociopolitical issues on

the pages of this unconventional dictionary.

During the Gezi Park protests, like in many other instances, Eksi Sozluk was used as a

political platform where contributors shared and discussed their views. The foundation of

Istanbul United also resulted in heavy activity on Eksi Sozluk. The first Istanbul United

entry was made anonymously on June 2, two days after the group was founded and the last,

213th, was made on December 13. The unity, solidarity and brotherhood discourse and the

excitement, prevalent in the tweets, dominated these 213 Eksi Sozluk entries as well:

The intersection point of Istanbul Teams. (June 2, 2013)

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The team I’ll support forever. (June 2, 2013)

The only team I can support, along with the national team. (June 2, 2013)

The best team in the world. Gives me the shivers every time I see it. Unity and brotherhood arepriceless. (June 5, 2013)

I put on my Galatasaray jersey, Besiktas scarf, Fenerbahc�e hat and hit the road. On my way toGezi Park. (June 9, 2013)

Eksi Sozluk became yet another platform for digital protest during the resistance, and the

entries on Istanbul United were mostly political acts since, alongside celebrating the

unification, they also targeted the government.

United against injustice and cruelty. It will persist. We are fans and we can protect our clubs.(June 25, 2013)

The most sincere embodiment of resistance. (June 26, 2013)

The contributors also shared their strong emotional reactions and personal views on future

implications of this new development:

I can’t help but cry. I saw this. I have hope for the future now. (June 2, 2013)

They need to design jerseys. If they do, I will watch every game in that jersey.

(June 5, 2013)

If, as a Fenerbahc�e fan, I could get up and join in the chants of Carsı, just when I was about tofall asleep, I can safely say that something has changed within me. It must be true of everyonewho’s been there [at Gezi] and experienced similar things. (June 26, 2013)

The last entry on Istanbul United did not display any of these emotions. It was bitter and

resentful. As the entries were becoming scarce, the writer was complaining that the same

supporters were not faithful enough that they were ‘letting our hearts dry up’. Whether this

anonymous Eksi Sozluk writer is justified in his concerns – whether the unification is

sustainable and whether it can be carried from the streets and online platforms into the

stadia – compels us researchers to look beyond the Gezi protests.

Beyond Gezi: Football is Not Only ‘Football’

As discussed above, the unification of Besiktas, Galatasaray and Fenerbahc�e – the teams

who have defined themselves in terms of rivalry and hatred for over 100 years – on all

public stages signals a change of discourse in Turkish football. However, whether what the

supporters call ‘the Istanbul United spirit’ will have a lasting, pervasive effect on fan

culture remains to be seen. In this section, it will be argued that there still are serious

challenges to peace in Turkish football.

The Gezi protests took place off-season. During the resistance, which led to the

foundation of Istanbul United, football became more political than ever. Fan groups joined

in anti-government chants in their jerseys and formed barricades to block off the riot

police. They united against the common enemy – Prime Minister Erdogan and his ruling

AKP. On the banners they carried, in their tweets and Eksi Sozluk entries they stated that

united they posed a bigger threat for the government.

To avoid similar political acts creeping into the stadia, the government and the Turkish

Football Federation took preventative measures. On July 30, before the season started,

Interior Minister Muammer Guler announced that political and ideological slogans were

banned during the games. The ban was to be enforced through control methods like

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undercover policemen and the newly installed security cameras. Besiktas management, in

agreement with the government’s decision, made the fans acquiring season tickets sign a

form stating they will not shout political slogans during the games and disobeying the rule

could result in the cancellation of the tickets.57

Furthermore, the ban on away fans at derbies – the matches between the Besiktas,

Galatasaray and Fenerbahc�e where the Istanbul United spirit was most likely to surface –

was still in effect. These ‘risk matches’58 – which were getting increasing interest after

Gezi protests – were only open to home fans. When the new season opened, football fans,

writers as well as Gezi supporters wondered whether they would see signs of Istanbul

United inside the stadia, despite these bans. With these questions in mind all eyes were

turned to the first Istanbul derby of the season which was to be played between Fenerbahc�e

and Besiktas at Fenerbahc�e’s Rustu Sarac�oglu Stadium.

Izzy Finkel observes:

One specific rumor suggested fans would use the 34th minute to flout the ban on politicalslogans in the stadium. 34 is the car registration number for Istanbul, and acts as a symbol ofthe city . . . Any sort of uproar in the crowd at the 34th minute would be, in a subtle butundeniable way, a signal that the politicization of Turkish football had continued.59

A hashtag was created to make the protest more visible on social networking sites,

especially Twitter:

@istanbulunited #Dakika34teHerYerTaksimHerYerDirenis.60

However, defying our expectations, loud voices were not heard during the 34th minute.

Repression and control seemed to have prevented political acts at the stadia. Journalist

Ugur Vardan suggested that had Besiktas fans been allowed inside the stadium the

atmosphere would have been completely different. The day after the quiet derby, he wrote:

How long can you prevent this? The fire has been lit. No one can put it out. I’m sure they willchant in front of their TV sets. Football and the league are marathons. Let us focus on thederby matches ahead and let us be certain that the ‘Istanbul United’ will live on these lands fora long time, and flourish.61

As Almedia62 theorised and football analysts like Ugur Vardan expected, repression

became a grievance that catalysed mobilisation and reinforced the Istanbul United

identity. A few months later, Fenerbahc�e fans took to the terraces to sing the march they

devoted to Ali Ismail Korkmaz, a 19-year-old student protester and Fenerbahc�e fan, who

died 38 days after being beaten by a group of officers and civilians during the Gezi protests

in Eskisehir. During the Fenerbahc�e–Kayserispor match at Fenerbahc�e’s Rustu Sarac�oglu

Stadium, Fenerbahc�e fans chanted Hırsız Tayyip Erdogan (Thief Tayyip Erdogan), Her

Yer Rusvet, Her Yer Yolsuzluk (Everywhere Corruption, Everywhere Bribery) in reference

to the corruption scandal and investigation which led to the detention of high-profile

businesspeople close to the government as well as three ministers’ sons. One of the fans I

talked to said he was there to ask the prime minister and the government to resign.

Fenerbahc�e President Aziz Yildirim came out in support of the fans’s right to sing the

march for Ali Ismail Korkmaz63 and chant Gezi-related slogans at the 34th minute of the

matches.64 On February 16, he himself joined the rally organised by the lawyers attended

by 300,000 Fenerbahc�e, Galatasaray and Besiktas fans, retired football players from the

‘Big Three’ and Korkmaz’ family. The rally ended at Rustu Sarac�oglu Stadium where the

Fenerbahc�e–Kasimpasa match was played. On the 34th minute the fans chanted Her Yer

Futbol, Her Yer Direnis (Everywhere football, everywhere resistance), Ali Ismail

Korkmaz, Fenerbahc�e Yıkılmaz (Ali Ismail Korkmaz,65 Fenerbahc�e Cannot Be

Destroyed). The next day mainstream media showed its support by printing photos of

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peace and solidarity from the rally. The rally was significant in that it reflected a strong

collective identity grounded in challenging dominant Turkish soccer fan behaviour.

Months after the Gezi protests, the fans had gathered for a political cause – for democracy

and solidarity – despite the efforts of the authorities to keep them apart.

Conclusion

Turkish football history is a story of ‘us’ and ‘them’, the rivalry among the ‘Big Three’

teams. For over a hundred years, the fan identities were constructed in mutual rivalry, in

opposition to the ‘Other’. During the Gezi protests, ‘us’ and ‘them’ changed. ‘Us’ became

Istanbul United – the fans of the Big Three, and ‘them’ the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip

Erdogan and his AKP. The exact number not being possible to determine, thousands of

fans united against the common ‘Other’, demanding direct democracy and justice. This

alliance, thought unimaginable before the summer of 2013, can mark the beginning of

social change and the transformation of Turkish football culture. The data used in this

research suggest that, in the long run, fan violence could decrease and even disappear from

the homes of the ‘Big Three’.

The change of discourse from ‘Born a Fenerbahc�e fan, will die a Fenerhahc�e fan’ to

‘I support Fenerbahc�e, but my rising sign is Carsı’ and ‘let all the colours of the world unite’

during and following theGezi protests could represent a changeofmind.Theantagonistic and

hostile chats could be removed from the fan’s playlists. Hypermasculinity and aggression

could give way to friendly rivalry and solidarity. We could even see the fans of these teams

watching the games next to each other. Istanbul United could potentially turn into a club and

defend the rights of football fans against the federation and the government not only on the

streets and via social media sites but also, professionally, in institutions and courthouses.

It would also be interesting to see if these findings are replicated in future situations,

when faced with other political dynamics and conflicts in other parts of the world. Farid

Eslam, the director of the upcoming documentary on Istanbul United, says:

When we first heard of this alliance we knew we had to capture this unique moment. If thesepeople can overcome their deeply rooted mutual hate to fight for a common cause, it must besomething fundamental, because their clubs are their religion. We want to tell their story,because it’s a story of overcoming one’s own limitations, beliefs and resentments to be part ofsomething bigger; to make things better. We feel that today this is a global issue.66

As Eslam suggests, politicisation and unification of Turkish football fans, led by the most

political of all fans groups in the country against the government, could inspire similar

movements in other countries.

Future research can benefit from the findings and implications of this study and explore

the effects of Istanbul United on fan culture outside Turkey. I, on the other hand, will be

observing fans of the ‘Big Three’ inside the stadia and the pubs where the derby matches

are shown for signs of change during the years to come. I will be focusing on the extent of

Carsı, Gezi and Istanbul United related change in discourse and practices inside and

outside the homes of these mega teams and in online spaces.

Notes on Contributor

Itir Erhart is an Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Istanbul BilgiUniversity where she teaches courses on gender, human rights and sports. She is the author of severalarticles on football and gender including ‘Ladies of Besiktas: Dismantling of Male Hegemony at theInonu Stadium’.

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Notes

1. Bilal and Nahrwold, “Urban Utopia,” 92.2. McManus, “Been There.”3. Nico Besnier, “Sports: Translation,” Fieldsights – Field Notes, Cultural Anthropology Online,

February 18, 2014, http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/491-sports-translation (accessed May 7,2014).

4. Yarar, “Hegemonic Struggle.”5. Ncube, “Bhora Mugedhi.”6. Semino and Masci, “Politics Is Football.”7. Lin and Lee, “Sport as a Medium.”8. Easton, More Than Just a Game.9. Benjamin Eastman, “Sports: Integration,” Fieldsights – Field Notes, Cultural Anthropology

Online, March 10, 2014, http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/496-sports-integration (accessedMay 7, 2014).

10. DeWalt and DeWalt, Participant Observation.11. The entries, messages, tweets, chants and slogans were almost entirely Turkish and were

translated into English by the researcher.12. In Islam, kefen is a white cloth – shroud – used to wrap the body for burial.13. Berument, Ince and Yucel, “Success in Soccer,” 263.14. Turkish Statistical Institute, “Demographic Statistics of Turkey.” Another survey reveals that

35% of the Turkish population supports team Galatasaray, 30% supports Fenerbahc�e and 20%supports Besiktas. See NTVMSNBC, “Turkiye’de taraftar anketi.”

15. Bora, “Turkiye’de Futbol ve Milliyetc�ilik.”16. See http://www.theguideistanbul.com/news/view/546/ (accessed January 24, 2014).17. McManus, “Been There,” 20.18. Yagmur Nurhat, “Fans at the Forefront of Occupy Gezi,” Ballesterer, July 29, 2013, http://

www.ballesterer.at/aktuell/football-fans-at-the-forefront-of-occupy-gezi.html (accessedJanuary 30, 2014).

19. This ban is in place since November 2011.20. Gantz and Wenner, “Fanship and the Television,” 59.21. John McManus, “Turkish Protests: Look at Football Match Policing for an Explanation,” The

Guardian, June 4, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/04/turkish-protests-football-match-policing (accessed January 25, 2014).

22. McManus, “Been There,” 4.23. Ibid., 7.24. Kyto, “We Are the Rebellious Voice.”25. The license plate number for Van is 65.26. McManus, “Been There,” 7.27. Ahparig is an Armenian word meaning ‘brother’. ‘We are here Ahparig’ is a slogan used by a

group self-identified as ‘Friends of Hrant’ to draw attention to the shortcomings of the trialprocess.

28. McManus, “Been There,” 14.29. Atak, “From Malls to Barricades.”30. Ibid., 19.31. The park and the square were cleared by the riot police on June 15.32. The verb came to mean ‘fighting for your rights’, ‘demanding justice’. See Ogun, Coban and

Sener, “Humorous Form of Protest.”33. Prime Minister Erdogan warned the Gezi protesters about his limited patience. See BBC News,

June 9, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22834678 (accessed January 30,2014).

34. Yagmur Nurhat, “Fans at the Forefront.”35. Ibid.36. Ogun, Coban and Sener, “Humorous Form of Protest.”37. Izzy Finkel, “Soccer and the Streets in Istanbul,” Roads and Kingdoms, 2013, http://roads

andkingdoms.com/2013/soccer-and-the-street-in-istanbul/ (accessed January 30, 2014).38. See Erhart, “Ladies of Besiktas.”39. Finkel, “Soccer.”40. Nurhat, “Fans at the Forefront.”

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41. Alex de Souza who served Fenerbahc�e for eight straight years.42. Ugur Vardan, “United Colors of Istanbul,” Hurriyet, June 19, 2013, http://www.hurriyet.com.

tr/yazarlar/23538422.asp (accessed February 1, 2014).43. Bagıs Erten, “Tam Umudu Kesmisken,” Radikal, June 4, 2013, http://www.radikal.com.tr/

yazarlar/bagis_erten/tam_umudu_kesmisken-1136171 (accessed February 2, 2014).44. Serdar Kuzuluoglu, “Gezi Parkı eylemlerinin sosyal medya karnesi,” Radikal, June 6, 2013,

http://www.radikal.com.tr/yazarlar/m_serdar_kuzuloglu/gezi_parki_eylemlerinin_sosyal_medya_karnesi-1138146 (accessed February 5, 2014).

45. Choi and Park, “An Exploratory Approach.”46. Finkel, “Soccer.”47. Henry Farrell, “The Dynamics of Information Diffusion in the Turkish Protests,” The Monkey

Cage, June 9, 2013, http://themonkeycage.org/2013/06/09/30822/ (accessed February 6, 2014).48. Constanze Letsch, “Social Media and Opposition to Blame for Protests, says Turkish PM,” The

Guardian, June 3, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/02/turkish-protesters-control-istanbul-square (accessed February 6, 2014).

49. Choi and Park, “An Exploratory Approach.”50. Penney and Dadas, “(Re)Tweeting.”51. Gonzalez-Bailon, Borge-Holthoefer and Moreno, “Broadcasters and Hidden Influentials.”52. The Sao Paolo reference refers to the protests in 2013 in Brazil over the increases in public

transportation tickets; the Tahrir reference refers to the Egyptian revolution against HosniMubarak in 2011 and the Lice reference refers to the Kurdish town in the south-easternprovince of Diyarbakır, Turkey. In 1993, Turkish soldiers carried out a military operation inLice in an attempt to intimidate the Kurdish population.

53. https://eksisozluk.com/54. See Forbes, “How the Founder of Turkey’s Original Social Network Explained It to His

Microsoft Co-Workers,” July 7, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkantrowitz/2013/07/10/how-the-founder-of-turkeys-original-social-network-explained-it-to-his-microsoft-co-workers/ (accessed February 11, 2014).

55. Ibid.56. Ibid.57. Finkel, “Soccer.”58. Braun and Vliegenthart, “The Contentious Fans,” 807.59. Finkel, “Soccer.”60. ‘On the 34th inute, everywhere Taksim, everywhere resistance’.61. Ugur Vardan, “Derbide kazanan Istanbul United olsun!” Radikal, November 30, 2013, http://

www.radikal.com.tr/spor/derbide_kazanan_istanbul_united_olsun-1163753 (accessedFebruary 17, 2014).

62. Almeida, “Opportunity Organizations.”63. ‘Just at 19, a free world in his dreams, the striped jersey that he kissed will live on in his

memory. Ali Ismail Korkmaz, Fenerbahc�e will not be destroyed’.64. “Fenerbahc�e’s Yıldırım Calls on Fans to Attend Protest,” Cihan Beta, February 13, 2014,

http://en.cihan.com.tr/news/Fenerbahc�e-s-Yildirim-calls-on-fans-to-attend-protest_0077-CHMTM2MDA3Ny8y (accessed February 18, 2014).

65. There is a pun on ‘Korkmaz’, as the name means ‘Cannot be scared off’.66. Farid Eslam, Istanbul United, http://www.istanbulunitedthemovie.com/film.html (accessed

February 21, 2014).

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