To the banging of pots and pans by disapproving housewives hanging out of kitchen windows, riot police dispersed the Gezi Park occupation with water cannons and rampaged through the surrounding streets, tear-gassing everything that moved. If there was a single image more eloquent than a thousand headlines or a million tweets, it was the picture of a young woman in a red dress, armed only with her handbag, being tear-gassed at close quarters by a policeman in full riot gear. All of a sudden, the Justice and Development Party’s economic miracle appeared to deliver precious little justice and way too much development. Erdoğan’s time will pass. In the final analysis, Turkey is much more than his crude sound bites and so much more than lazy Western clichés. Turkey is changing. Extract from Turkey Street, Jack and Liam move to Bodrum.
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