Caught in the Cloud: The Biopolitics of Teargas Warfare

On June 12, 2013, a two-and-a-half minute amateur recording titled “Taksim’de Gaz saldırısının içinde kalan Kadının acı çığlıkları” was up-loaded on YouTube. It shows what appears to be a sudden as well as massive tear gas assault being conducted against a large crowd gathered somewhere in the vicinity of Istanbul’s Taksim square, where people have been protesting against the planed demolition of Taksim Gezi Park since May.This video, however, is striking in a number of ways. The speed at which the gas completely fills the whole area where the large crowd is assembled is astonishing. Forty seconds after the impact of the first cartridges, the sky is not visible anymore: a yellowish and dense smoke fills the entire frame of the image. Then, the camera turns its attention to a young woman nearby.1 Like the author of the video, she finds herself caught in the chemical cloud, on top of an immo-bilized bus, apparently unable to flee. The rudimentary respiratory mask she’s wearing over her mouth is clearly unable to protect her adequately in this situation. The incapacitating effects of the gas are dramatically illustrated by the acute distress she quickly finds herself in: the video shows her as she falls on her knees, screaming. The ex-perience must be terrifying. In her precarious position, the only thing she could do to avoid breathing the gas would be not to breathe at all which, in turn, would mean death. As Sloterdijk once observed, her body is coerced into collaborating to its own demise. It has no choice but to interface with the chemical agent filling the atmosphere