ISTANBUL — There were hundreds of pairs of swim goggles for sale in the heart of Istanbul this past week, but while the goggles gave the bustling streets a certain sporty air, this was not good news at last for the city’s Olympic bid.
The goggles were being snapped up for protection against the possibility of more tear gas in Taksim Square and the adjoining Gezi Park as the standoff between protesters and the Turkish police continued.
Other gear for sale in the zone included plastic construction helmets, gas masks, surgical masks and all manner of souvenirs, like figurines of Turkey’s founder, Kemal Ataturk, and Che Guevara and Occupy Taksim T-shirts.
The mood was unexpectedly upbeat on Thursday. There was an ad hoc evening piano concert in the square, and the only serious smoke was from roasting chestnuts and kebabs. But the timing of all this has hardly been a Turkish delight for those who hope Istanbul’s fifth bid for the Olympic Games will finally be the winning bid. Tokyo and Madrid are the other candidates.
“It is potentially a pity, since my impression, from what I hear, is that the 2020 race may be Istanbul’s to lose,” said Dick Pound, the longtime International Olympic Committee member from Canada, in an e-mail message.
Istanbul, if stable, is indeed potential catnip to the I.O.C. It is new and symbolic Olympic territory, a historic and contemporary bridge between Asia and Europe with a largely Muslim nation and a secular government, even if those latter distinctions have been getting a bit too blurry for many Turks’ comfort.
Pound is not yet picking his favorite publicly, but the I.O.C. will do just that on Sept. 7 when it selects the 2020 host city by secret ballot in Buenos Aires. The vote is still nearly three months away, which means there is still time for Istanbul to put some meaningful space between the past week’s violent clashes in Taksim Square and the decision.
As Pound rightly points out, “We might have the same concerns in any country that hosts the G-8 or G-20 conferences, and the seemingly mandatory riots.” But as Pound also points out, “the Western phobia about Islamic countries and ‘stability’ — however defined — makes it much worse.”
But damage has clearly been done already.
“I believe in the young people of Turkey; I believe so much,” Hasan Arat, the chairman of Istanbul’s bidding committee, said in a telephone interview from Lausanne, Switzerland. “We will be stronger than before after these things finish with the peaceful solution.”
That naturally remains debatable. But the situation does indeed need to be resolved — presumably peacefully — if the I.O.C. is not to lose much more faith in the judgment of Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the country’s political leadership.
“It’s going to be quite a roller-coaster ride for everybody involved in the bid up until September,” said Michael Payne, the former I.O.C. marketing director who is now a consultant and, on occasion, an informal bid adviser. “I agree that September is some time in the future, but there will have to be some acceptable resolution of the situation that involves engaging with those who are not simply visiting anarchists.”
A visit to Gezi Park and its hundreds of tents made the breadth of the movement clear. There was everything from tap-dancing to card-playing under the trees on Thursday; even people browsing through a uniquely independent bookstore that had been set up under a canopy with cinder blocks and planks providing the bookshelves.
There was a range of ages and socioeconomic classes in evidence. Some of the park’s occupants on Thursday looked like they might actually spend their lives in tents; others looked like they might be more at home in the tented camps of southern Africa, sundowners and dinner jackets de rigueur.
But what was clear, in conversations behind the smoldering truck tires and the barricades of overturned cars, is that this will now be a very tricky situation to defuse and forget. The Olympics are hardly at the forefront of the debate, with the focus, above all, on preserving the park, a rare stretch of green in central Istanbul, from redevelopment.
“We don’t care about Olympics too much; we just want our freedom,” said one 21-year-old university student who declined to give his name for fear of reprisal from the government.
“We want to save the environment; we want to save the green,” he continued. “They are destroying everything around the city, not only here in this park in Istanbul. All Turkey.”
Asked if he was aware these protests could negatively affect the city’s Olympic bid, the student nodded.
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