Public space in Turkey is central to the government’s power grab

EARLIER this year large electronic screens started popping up on street corners in Istanbul. Set up by the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, they display a newsreel dominated since the coup attempt of July 15th by anti-coup advertisements, images of pro-democracy rallies and the slogan “Hakimiyet Milletindir” (“sovereignty belongs to the nation”). Not everyone is impressed by them. “It’s absurd,” shrugs a waiter in Nevizade, a street filled with bars, tea houses and hostels.

Since the economic liberalisation of the 1980s, Istanbul has been the site of almost-constant redevelopment and construction. Across the road from Nevizade is Tarlabasi, the site of a redevelopment scheme which has seen buildings destroyed and families displaced. Similar projects have removed thousands of Istanbul’s citizens from the centre of the city to new housing in far-flung areas. The AK news screen at the intersection of these two neighbourhoods is a reminder of the devlet baba (the “daddy state”) and its capacity to reach into the daily lives of citizens.

Intervening in and changing public space is central to the Turkish government’s vision of a “new Turkey”. As an aesthetic project, the idea draws on the country’s Ottoman and Seljuk past. It is best expressed in highly visible projects such as the Camlica Mosque and the stalled redevelopment of Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, both of which have sparked fierce debate among the city’s residents, architects and urban planners. After the failed coup, one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s first announcements was that plans to bury Taksim’s Gezi Park under a replica Ottoman barracks would be pushed through. That scheme triggered nationwide protests in 2013—an event that some think marked Mr Erdogan’s turn to authoritarianism.

By contrast, projects such as the Camlica Mosque are more likely to be popular, thinks Yasar Adanali, an urbanist. This is particularly true among the government’s support base of previously marginalised conservative Muslims. “They see a country that is modernising, being powerful,” he says. Projects such as the mosque take the transformation of Istanbul, central to successive governments’ economic policies, and give it a new, Islamic face. When it is complete (due in 2018) the mosque will be able to accommodate 37,500 worshippers, and will come with a library, shops and parking space for 3,500 cars.

Decades of redevelopment have significantly altered the character of the city, says Murat Cemal Yalcintan, an urban-planning expert at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. It was once a place where “poor neighbourhoods and rich ones stood shoulder to shoulder”. But now inner-city residents have been moved to the outskirts, protected areas developed and mega-projects favoured over more sensible bits of urban planning. More subtle changes are also taking place. Organised iftar meals in public squares during Ramadan and restrictions on alcohol sales are transforming the use of public space to fit the AK’s “conservative and Islamic discourse”, says Mr Yalcintan.

In a place where much political and social activity happens outside, controlling the streets and squares is of vital importance. Since July 15th Turkey’s squares have been occupied nightly by pro-democracy protesters, bearing both national and Islamist flags. Their efforts culminated in a vast rally in the Yenikapi district on August 7th. Although the crowds have been predominantly pro-AK, opposition parties have participated in the protests too. (The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party has not been invited, but holds its own meetings.) Warmer relations between the AK and the opposition suggest that the secularist and Islamist factions of parliament may start working together more closely—a hopeful sign in unpredictable times. But this seems unlikely to alter the symbolic project the AK party has already started, one which brings a particular interpretation of the Ottoman past to the fore, and which will not go uncontested.