By Nazlan Ertan
In Turkish, the word yumruk means “fist” and yumruk atmak is to “punch.” But like many Turkish words with physical origins, it punches well above its weight in metaphor.
Yumruk gibi hava is air that hits like a fist — describing an oppressive, suffocating heat or tension. Politically, it has been used to symbolize both resistance and oppression. Protesters raise clenched fists for solidarity (yumruk havaya), while authoritarian figures are said to “rule with an iron fist” (demir yumruk). In sports and nationalist rhetoric, yumruk is often associated with unity and power — as in tek yumruk (a single fist), implying a strong, unbreakable front.
Fists rise everywhere—on podiums, in picket lines, and sometimes in vintage posters. From the gloved salutes of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics to the rolled-up sleeve in the “We Can Do It!” poster, the clenched hand travels easily between protest and propaganda. In Turkey, too, the raised fist has its place—at rallies, in graffiti, in the vocabulary of defiance. But here, its cousin, the real, unscripted punch, tends to show up more often than the symbolic one.
OPEN-HANDED SLAP
So when Özgür Özel, the chair of Turkey's main opposition party CHP, was slapped across the face on May 3, the nation blinked twice. The moment, caught on camera and shared widely, unfolded with eerie choreography: Özel, leaving the Atatürk Cultural Center after a memorial for Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a much-loved Kurdish politician and playwright, is intercepted by 66-year-old Selçuk Tengioğlu. The man had blended in with the crowd, then delivered an open-handed slap with theatrical precision. A second later, he was pinned to the ground by security.
According to press reports, Tengioğlu has a criminal history, including a conviction for the 2004 murder of his two children, for which he received a life sentence. He was released on parole in 2020. The footage of the punch went viral. So did the outrage. Supporters condemned the assault. Özel himself, after recovering from the shock, made a calm but pointed statement, warning those who think they can intimidate the CHP and its leadership with violence that they are gravely mistaken—even if their tools are fists, bullets, tanks, or guns. Government officials, in a rare moment of bipartisan decorum, also issued statements of disapproval—though some were quicker than others to respond. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya condemned the attack and assured the public that the assailant would face legal consequences. Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç added, “There is no place for violence in democratic politics. The rule of law will prevail.”
SLAP IN TURKISH TRADITION
Still, the slap has already joined a long and bruised tradition.
Turkish politics, after all, has a history of mixing discourse with a jab or two. In April 2010, Ahmet Türk, then co-leader of the pro-Kurdish DTP, was punched in the face outside a courthouse in Samsun. His assailant—a young nationalist—broke Türk’s nose and then posed for cameras. Just a week later, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız took a fist to the face at a martyr's funeral; a physical education teacher did the honours, reportedly enraged at government policy.
And then, of course, there’s Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. The former CHP chair has taken enough punches to earn a medal in political pugilism. In 2014, he was attacked inside the corridors of parliament by a man who later said, “I see him as a traitor.” In 2019, he was again assaulted—this time at a funeral of a fallen soldier—where he had to be whisked into a nearby house for protection as the crowd shouted threats. In the aftermath of these incidents, the opposition repeatedly argued that such attacks were not isolated outbursts but made possible by the government's inflammatory rhetoric and the normalization of hostility toward dissenting voices.
Ironically, the ruling party uses the same arguments: In 2013, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ was punched during the Hacı Bektaş Veli commemorations in Nevşehir. In a pointed speech afterward, Bozdağ criticized not only the opposition's silence but the judiciary’s leniency in releasing the attacker. Four months after the attack, Bozdağ became justice minister and served three separate terms. Under his tenure, critics argue, the judiciary shed any pretense of independence and increasingly aligned itself with the executive—a shift that gave fresh meaning to the phrase “justice served” and ensured that no deed against the government, real or imagined, goes unpunished.
