I travelled to Turkey in late June to attend Global Power Shift, hosted by 350.org. It was about a month after the start of a nation-wide protest movement sparked by the proposed demolition of Gezi Park in Istanbul and I was intrigued to see what was going on. I went in with no idea about Turkish politics and little understanding of the movement. But through talking to activists and seeing it in action, I learnt a lot.

The extraordinary protests currently underway in Turkey provide an opportunity to revisit a recent debate about the relationship between symbolic and real campaigns. The argument began with Helen Razer’s much-discussed Crikey piece entitled ‘The Left has lost its way through symbolism and stupidity’.