Who wants what in Turkish protests?

The first reason that ignited the protests was 12 trees being uprooted to build a shopping mall in the only green space in Taksim. And the apparent reason why the protests spread and clashes started was the police trying to remove the tents and harassing the young peaceful protestors. This will be investigated as many officials apologized and promised to pursue allegations of police brutality. However the composition of the rioting groups is more diverse as well as their motives. It is important to discriminate between people with good intentions and genuine feelings. First of all, the majority of the protestors are people who have demands from the government, and they have reasonable criticisms and expectations that the government has to listen and find a way to hear different voices and open platforms to consult them before proceeding with their plans. As a matter of fact, just recently PM Erdogan called for a meeting with the representatives of the protestors. If I don't write about the critics of protestors in detail, it does not mean that I don't give them their due. Since everybody writes about that side of the story, I feel responsible to give emphasis to the other side which has not been reflected in the international mainstream media; which is the provocateurs' hijacking a beautiful, democratic movement and turning it to a battlefield. The cost of the destruction according to the first week's official numbers was 28,000,000 euro; this is not a level damage that ordinary people can do. The level of vandalism is astonishing; arson attacks against buildings, damaging broadcast trucks, destroying public and private property intentionally... Those who use terror and aggression are some communists who are following these methods as a necessity of their ideologies. As the experts will know what I am talking about, this kind of mass movements does not happen spontaneously. They are well-planned in detail, and there is always a willpower behind this kind of events that guides the masses in a certain direction and exploits their genuine feelings. The communist parties have such organizational power and they have the knowledge of how to manipulate these crowds. So what we have is a multi-layered picture. For me the message of the resistance of peaceful, educated youth is clear; they want a modern, joyful, dynamic, vivid society rather than a cold, gray one restrained by norms. Their resistance is bright, fair and they will only help Turkey to become a more cheerful, fresh and modern country. And they want an ultra-modern Islam without bigotry. On the other hand, there are communists; not all but there are some opportunists who are quite content to misuse this crowd for their "revolutionary" dreams. And some are wishing the army to proclaim a state of siege and invalidate the ongoing big cases that are Turkey's reckoning with the deep government. And some others like the terrorist, separatist PKK want turmoil so that the state loses power and they can separate the southeastern part of Turkey for their Marxist-Leninist establishment which the Turkish people would never allow under ordinary circumstances. If we leave aside the evil intentions that have tried to hijack the protests in Turkey, we can say that Turkish public in general do not want our leaders to take decisions without consulting them; they don't want any interference in their personal lives and they want a more inclusive democracy, where they can express themselves more freely. And I am with them in their cause. As the protests also showed us, democracy is not just about obtaining the majority of votes. Democracy also requires plurality; to provide both minority rights as well as majority rights. It is important to provide freedom of expression for all opinions. Only then will the quality of democracy increase. Sinem Tezyapar is a political analyst. https://twitter.com/SinemTezyapar The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.