Tencere Tava Havasi / Sound of Pots and Pans

In Istanbul the clock strikes nine again and the silent protests turn into an uproarious fellowship movement. Since the beginning of June a new style of protesting has evolved in Turkey, the Tencere Tava Havasi (Sound of Pots and Pans).

 

The clock strikes nine exactly. I am sitting in the living room, waiting for the voice of unrest. And again the persistent protestors all over the city of Istanbul grab their crockery and spread the echoing sound of pot and pans from their balconies and windows – strident and impossible to miss. In accordance with this peal of liberty, people symbolically switch the lights on and off, so that everybody can likewise see their call for democracy.

This form of raising a hue and cry is not only a way to show solidarity with those who keep protesting in the streets and parks of Istanbul, but to demonstrate a nationwide dissatisfaction with the government’s current political policies and Erdogan’s image of society. People do not want to quietly withdraw into their private lives, as the AKP government is expecting and what their amendments are aiming at. The occupation of Gezi Park, the still standing of man and woman at the Taksim-Square as well as the kitchenware-protests across Istanbul are primarily a defense of public space.

 

Inspiring uprising

The artistic spirit of the Gezi-Park movement is just phenomenous. Ignoring ethnic backgrounds, political views and even football-team preferences, people are protesting in concert and creating in common.

 

The latest innovation of some of the Capullars can be downloaded on ITunes and prevents unwitting cookware demolition. Attending the Capulcu-Tencere App the producers state: 'If we can’t be with you, than you should at least carry us with you.'

 

 

 

Another impressing arrangement is a musical street work by Turkish and Kurdish artists, created for the protestors. Using kitchenware only, they are performing their song in an alley in Istanbul. The sound is just gripping.

 

TENCERE TAVA HAVASI (Sound of Pots and Pans) / Kardeş Türküler

And for those, who are tired in the evenings from a daylong protest and want to spent their time inside (not because Erdogan tells them too, but because they just feel like it), why not try the Capulmator.

Even if the Turkish government closes their eyes to the fact that many people keep silently protesting on the Taksim Square, every day at 9 o’clock in the evening, we can hear the reality of thousands. It is impossible to ignore the cutting clatter of cookware all over the city, which keeps reminding us that people are very loudly upset, upset about the authoritarian style of prime minister Erdogan and his political party.

 

Subway Saturday June 8 at midnight in Istanbul