18-06-2013, 07:43 PM
06.18.13 - 2:17 PM
Standing Is Not A Crime
by Abby Zimet
![[Image: erdem-gunduz-standing-man-protests-turkey-istanbul.jpg]](http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/erdem-gunduz-standing-man-protests-turkey-istanbul.jpg)
Testimony to the power of one: Turkish performance artist Erdem Gunduz - who very soon became, on social media, Standing Man - stood silently for eight hours in Istanbul's Taksim Square, facing a portrait of secular Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk, to protest violent repression by police. He was soon joined by hundreds of others, some of whom police eventually arrested. By then, Gunduz was gone. He had explained, "I'm nothing...The idea is important: why people resist the government."
"Standing does not constitute a crime by any means...Humanity cannot find a more democratic type of protest." - Union of Turkish Bar Association head Metin FeyzioÄŸlu
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/06/18-5
![[Image: turkey-more_standing-man-protests-istanbul-1.jpg]](http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/turkey-more_standing-man-protests-istanbul-1.jpg)
Standing Is Not A Crime
by Abby Zimet
Testimony to the power of one: Turkish performance artist Erdem Gunduz - who very soon became, on social media, Standing Man - stood silently for eight hours in Istanbul's Taksim Square, facing a portrait of secular Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk, to protest violent repression by police. He was soon joined by hundreds of others, some of whom police eventually arrested. By then, Gunduz was gone. He had explained, "I'm nothing...The idea is important: why people resist the government."
"Standing does not constitute a crime by any means...Humanity cannot find a more democratic type of protest." - Union of Turkish Bar Association head Metin FeyzioÄŸlu
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/06/18-5
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller