A little after 7 P.M. on May 30th, Kevin Neish, a retired mechanic from Vancouver, stood on the inner stairwell of Turkey’s Mavi Marmara passenger ferry. “This was the hospital,” he said, gesturing to the dull green linoleum landing in front of the ship’s information desk. “It was full of bodies. I counted them.”
Two years earlier, nine activists—eight Turks and one Turkish-American—had been killed when Israeli forces raided the boat as it carried aid to Gaza. (Israel has said it will not make a formal apology, despite Turkish demands, but it has reportedly offered compensation to the families of the dead.) Like the hundreds of visitors who surrounded him, Neish had returned to Turkey to mark the anniversary by spending the night on board. The boat has been docked in Istanbul for repairs, and it is mostly refurbished. Tan couches stained with blood have been replaced with rows of red and blue chairs. The wooden decks have been scrubbed clean. But remnants of the violence remain. On a wall beside doors to the upper deck, someone had circled the gray scuffs from bullets in red ink. “It sounds like a cliché from a novel, but there was blood on the bannister right over there,” Neish said, pointing to the polished wood. On the wall, there was a photo of the blood-covered bannister. “I won’t sleep tonight.”
The boat that night served both as a museum and a court room, stocked with evidence meant to re-create the raid. It was part of a campaign organized by the Turkish aid organization I.H.H. (in English, Humanitarian Relief Foundation), which, along with the Free Gaza Movement, also organized the 2010 “freedom flotilla.” A giant banner with portraits of the dead covered one side of the ship. Inside, photos from the journey were propped up on tripods. Video stills from the raid were hanging on the walls, placed there to counter claims that the activists who’d been aboard were armed. Two years ago, the Mavi Marmara, along with five other ships, sailed from Antalya, Turkey, toward Gaza. The goals were to deliver aid and to draw attention to the Israeli blockade of the area. The activists failed to achieve that first goal. The boats were stopped in international waters, those aboard arrested, and the cargo confiscated. In bringing attention to Gaza, though, the Mavi Marmara surpassed expectations. After the raid, all eyes were on the flotilla and the blockade, and the Israeli Army was resoundingly criticized for its response. Relations between Turkey and Israel were damaged, perhaps irreparably.
The relationship between the two countries, once allies, began deteriorating in early 2009, when Turkey loudly condemned Israel for its conduct in Gaza. The criticism was both emotional and tactical. The Turkish government had been focussed for some time on raising its prestige within the Middle East, and solidarity with the Palestinians was a key element in building good relations with Arab countries. “There was a great euphoria when Erdogan bashed Israel,” Ekrem Eddy Guzeldere, a political analyst based in Istanbul, told me. “Turkey, in its efforts to become a regional player, wants to be more influential among Arab states, and the easiest and most emotional way to do this is to criticize Israel and become a hero on the Arab street. After the Mavi Marmara, this was the main strategy.” Now, Guzeldere said, Turkey’s relationship with Israel has hit “the bottom,” but there are reasons that Turkey might want détente; the economic bond between the two countries remains strong.
But two years on, the Mavi Marmara is still standing in the way. Only a few days before the second anniversary of the attack, Turkey announced that it was formally indicting four Israeli officials for their role in the raid. A march to mark the anniversary was buoyed by an extensive advertising campaign—all over the city, large banners displayed a photo of the Mavi Marmara next to a photo of doves circling the dome of a mosque with the words “We Are Walking” and “Free Jerusalem” over it. The night before the event itself, a van plastered with the poster drove through Istanbul, blasting information about the march from speakers propped on its roof. It worked. On Thursday evening, Istanbul’s Taksim Square swelled with thousands of people walking in support of the Mavi Marmara. The demonstration—winding as it did through Taksim, a thoroughly Westernized area—could also be read as a symbol of the acceptance of the wider influence of Islam on Turkish society. I.H.H. is a religious organization, a fact that has alienated it from mainstream activism in the past, and cast suspicion upon it. I.H.H. employees have been accused of terrorism and religious fundamentalism. In the case of the Mavi Marmara, detractors said that the activists had provoked the army, and held up their religion as proof that they were eager to fight. But when the Mavi Marmara became a symbol of Turkish solidarity with Palestine, so did I.H.H. Religious conservatism once seemed contrary to activism in Turkey; in this case, it is steering it.
“We have never concealed our religious feelings,” Bulent Yildirim, I.H.H.’s president, told me. “According to Islam we should take action where there is torture.” He credits the Mavi Marmara with easing the passage of I.H.H. into the greater activist community in Turkey. “There is increased trust between the I.H.H. and the secular activists now,” Yildirim said.
Turkey has repeatedly called for Israel to apologize for the raid on the Mavi Marmara, as though the only thing standing in the way of strong political ties between the two countries is two magic words. Yildirim claims that I.H.H. wants the same thing, for the raid and also for what was said about his organization. “They accused us of being terrorists, of being Al Qaeda, of being influenced by the Iranians,” he said. “But we took a poll, and ninety-five per cent of Turks agree with what we did. Even if they don’t like what we look like, they like what we do.”
Throughout the event, Yildirim walked through the boat shaking hands and kissing cheeks like a mayor seeking reëlection. It’s thanks to the Mavi Marmara that I.H.H. has seen an increase in participation and funding, which they say comes mostly from private donors. They have gained authority, become bolder, and more immune to criticism. They have had to defend their religious ideology less. They have become much more visible—their name is forever linked to the famous ship, which they still own.
At sunset last Wednesday, with the call to prayer reverberating on the event’s loudspeakers, men unfurled large prayer mats on the concrete dock beside the boat. Women laid down their own mats behind the men. While Istanbul’s many mosques echoed across the city, the hundreds of activists prayed together in the direction of Mecca, just to the left of the Mavi Marmara’s bow.
