Hope & Solidarity

What remains: Hope, Solidarity & Determination after the new regime in Turkey and the Covid-19 crisis

Covid-19 has influenced social and political life significantly in the past months.

It has put political agendas on hold, enforced the radical anti-democratization in a number of places worldwide and put people’s lives at risk – often not due to the virus, but due to political shifts. At the same time, the time of so-called ‘physical distancing’ has enabled deeper digital connections, interconnection of political struggles and networking. 

But not only Covid-19 crisis, but also authoritarian regimes, precarization, economical crisis, poverty, wars and climate crisis have enforced radical anti-democratization and targeted solidarity and hope all around the world. In times of crisis and change, people find numerous ways for enabling and creating resistance and solidarity. In the 21st century, we have witnessed lots of protest movements and solidarity all over the world. Turkey was one important case in this matter because it was one of the first countries that experienced neoliberal authoritarianism which opened the way to a regime change. The last years of Turkey was very unstable (both politically and economically) and filled with lots of crisis. But in the meantime, resistance movements and solidarity have never stopped. In June 2013, the Gezi resistance, one of the biggest resistances in Turkey’s history, has shown the world the authoritarian face of AKP’s Islamic neoliberalism. 

Gezi Park protests in 2013 have been associated with the global wave of 21. century protests and saluted and discussed from its connectedness with these global protests. Now after 8 years of Gezi resistance, it is possible to see that resistance movements and solidarity are not over yet, in spite of the oppression, threats and persecution of the authoritarian regime or the crisis like Covid-19 that was used as an excuse for more oppression by the authoritarian governments. 

In this workshop, we will discuss Turkey after the new regime and Covid-19 crisis as a very vivid example of solidarity and hope. 

Venue: Iwalewahaus/University of Bayreuth Wölfelstraße 2 95444 Bayreuth


Coordinators: Eylem Çamuroğlu Çığ &

Partners: