Strong Bodies, Dirty Shoes: An Ode to the Resistance
ROAR Magazine
▻https://roarmag.org/essays/gezi-spirit-poetry-art-resistance
Love was hypnotic in Gezi. It brushed away the rational. It left you naked, vulnerable, happy. It surprised us all — and had a transformative effect.
Author Cagla Aykac
In Gezi, you first met with yourself. There was a specific moment when you came face to face with who you are and what you fear. Then, you also had to take a look at what you believe in; how you relate to your body, to authority, to justice, to knowledge; and ultimately, of course, to freedom. After this first check-up came the sensations. Feeling Gezi came before thinking it. Sensations ran along the soft core, because it is through bodies — rushing up hills, hidden in staircases and in each breath — that desires stretched into force. Gezi started with a joyful display of real anger against the assemblages of capitalism, urban pillage, environmental destruction, conservative morals, body policing, selective justice, and whirling injustices. Gezi was just the beginning — the struggle continues. Freedom has a price and hope its joys.