As I type these final words, there is still rubble on the ground from the two powerful earthquakes that hit south-eastern Turkey in February 2023, claiming more than 50,000 lives and leaving millions without an inhabitable home. This catastrophe of biblical proportions came at the tail end of a global pandemic, which brought the world to a halt for almost three years and made millions perish. Yet even before all this, an ever-intensifying suspicion, if not pessimism, had already been settling in among those who were dreaming of and fighting for a better Turkey and world, after having mobilised for an inclusive and democratic political community in Taksim Square, Gezi Park and numerous neighbourhoods and other places. When bombs began to explode, when the armed conflict with Kurdish guerillas began to escalate and when the failed coup attempt provided the pretext for a constitutional change that turned the country’s political system into a neo-sultanate, the word ‘Gezi’ became synonymous with crime and terrorism in official mouths. Prominent civil society leaders such as Osman Kavala, Mücella Yapıcı, Can Atalay and others were convicted with unsubstantiated charges and grave disregard for even the most basic principles of justice. Could it really be that we were all too naïve when we thought we saw the dawn of a new Turkey in Gezi Park in June 2013?