On the seventh anniversary of the Gezi Park Events in Turkey and the Tamarod movement that dragged Egypt to a coup, the demonstrations expected in Turkey or in any peaceful region of the Is-lamic world broke out on U.S. streets. The protests, which spread to the entire nation in just a week and turned the U.S. into a battlefield, increasingly expanded by the day, and finally reached the gates of the White House. The demonstrations increasingly went beyond the peaceful demand for rights and justice, turning into a revolt.
The uprising has shown the strong potential for conflict, the fault lines and fury that have accumulat-ed within the U.S., a country that appears to be stable.
Through these events the fragility of the Pax-Americana, in other words the U.S. is with all its cosmo-politan diversity, has been revealed. What was keeping Pax-American, the great American political body, together all this time? As the U.S. was wreaking havoc, dividing, bombing, massacring, conduct-ing coups and brutally exploiting the world, what political integrity and power did it rely on?
The answer to this question is obvious. In world politics, empires that are involved in such actions generally receive the greatest blow from within, by neglecting their own physical health. The most important aspect that ensures a healthy political climate is nothing other than the “justice” they de-veloped among the elements that constitute society.
It appears though that this matter has been the greatest weakness of the U.S. from the very begin-ning. Perhaps temporary victories, superiorities may serve to conceal this weakness for some time, and temporary achievements may provide certain immunity against attacks or social actions; howev-er, eventually, at a time when the body is relatively weaker, even the smallest impact will lead the disease to spread through the entire body, causing fatigue and exhaustion.
The incident that triggered the whole uprising in the U.S. is the death of a black citizen in the state of Minnesota being killed as a result of a police officer’s ruthless and the out-of-proportion violence. In fact, this incident is nothing other than ordinary police procedures in the U.S. Those who know the U.S. know, hundreds of people die every year as a result of such police actions. However, the impact of most is not newsworthy. Yet, the coincidental recording of this incident by a citizen with all the details and in the heat of the moment, and it being shared on social media, revealed an indignant impact in society. This incident revealed the fury that had accumulated from all past cases which people kept silent about until now.
Meanwhile, we can also say that George Floyd’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” have brought down curses upon the U.S. There have been those who made this connection but let us repeat. We remem-ber these also being the last words of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi while he was being suffocated to death at Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul Consulate a year-and-a-half ago. Those who ignored these words could not and cannot escape a demand for justice that spread in waves. These haunt us until justice is served. The vengeance of those who were unjustly killed by being left “out of breath” cannot be avoided.
The protection U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration provided to the suspects of Khashoggi, who was suffocated to death and whose body was then dismembered, by ignoring all demands for jus-tice, is reminiscent of this incident, leaving the U.S. order and stability defenseless. The words, “I can’t breathe,” have now become one of the most important slogans in all demonstrations.
Not to be mistaken, nothing that is happening in the U.S should be approached with a revanchist mentality or mawkish attitude due to the Khashoggi matter or America’s operations in other coun-tries. All these protests, demonstrations, movements are obviously the expression of the deep rifts within the U.S., however, the violence, the pillaging and vandalism in the events are nothing to be praised. The issue is now beyond a demand for rights and justice, and an overwhelming majority of those participating in the events does not care about justice for Floyd, the violence against hundreds of black or Hispanic citizens every year, or that the U.S. establishes a fairer justice system in general. The moment mass movements get out of hand, the demands and those making them become ambig-uous, and they turn into opportunities where other injustices, such as pillaging and vandalism, run wild. Such that the wider masses start demanding a tougher order or intervention – in fact, a coup – to compensate for the instability caused by them rather than turning and lending an ear to the de-monstrators. Let us not forget how the demonstrations in France in 2005 paved the way for Sarkozy.
The demonstrations that spiraled in the U.S. are currently paving the way for Trump to activate the U.S. military and intervene in ways to deactivate state administrations.
Everybody might be expecting the opposite right now, but all these events may also be sowing the seeds of his success in the elections that are approaching at the end of this process.
When that time comes, we will ask again: For whom is America burning?
