Shouting and shoe tossing

Residents in the Harbiye-Taksim area had no choice. They live there. They probably all took a deep sigh of relief when it was all over.

For some residents, the scenes on the streets may have been like flashbacks to when violence was common in the streets in the late 1970s.

On the first day, thousands of protestors were in the streets. Police had gone around the area and recommended that shopkeepers not let protestors or innocent passersby into buildings and to not open their shutters. This is also often the case in Kadıköy when protests are scheduled. Despite the warnings, a large number of stores in the area were the victims of misdirected anger and were damaged.

Even before the actual event really got started, a protester who was obviously disgusted and angry threw his shoe at IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn during a question-and-answer session hosted at a university. Nearly a hundred demonstrators were arrested for becoming violent. Protestors threw paving stones and Molotov cocktails and carried out acts of vandalism on nearby stores. Commuters using the Taksim metro were affected by tear gas.

Those of us who did not have to go near the district didn't.

Avoidance was appropriate.

The focus of the 2009 annual meetings was on money

The individuals in attendance came to discuss money issues, but from different perspectives -- the world economic outlook, the eradication of poverty, economic development and the effectiveness of aid.

After all the lectures and debates involving tens of thousands of people concluded, the next day the world revolved as usual.

However, many newspaper headlines were positive. A USA Today headline read “World economy recovering faster than expected.” The article explained the risks of the premature withdrawal of stimulus efforts. In the article, it said, “The positive report card was likely to feed a cautious but widespread relief that -- despite continuing unemployment woes and halting efforts to improve regulation of financial markets -- the downturn is easing and may prove less devastating than initially feared.” I imagine reading such articles either made many readers either laugh or it angered them.

During this economic downturn people are tense and anger rises easily.

A friend of mine who goes to a sports club regularly for a swim had finished her exercise and was in the shower shampooing her hair when she heard a Turkish woman yelling outside her stall about the white towel on the floor and the floor being dirty. The lady shouting about the towel on the floor did not even give my friend a chance to explain.

What's ironic is that both parties were concerned about the same issue -- cleanliness.

They were coming from different angles. The Turkish woman communicated by shouting. The foreigner did not have a chance to explain that she had the towel on the floor so she could step on it with her clean bare feet rather than on the rubber mat on the floor. After all you could wash the towel. That raises another problem as Westerners tend to use boiling hot water to clean the floor and many Turks use cold water.

Perhaps you may have noticed that Turks are less likely to place their handbag on the floor because they are extra-cautious about it becoming dirty.

Who knows what was really behind this rather extreme irate scolding over a towel on the floor or the violent outbreak on the streets. Financial stress could have been a factor. Trouble-makers and instigators are not helpful in conflict. Styles of communicating are important. More role models who are peacemakers and negotiators are needed.