Another quiet day in my favourite city.

When the sun shines in Istanbul my mood becomes as warm as a Turkish bath. And although I generally work on Wednesday, the nervous ruling AKP party had, like their predecessors, preempted social uprising during May Day and sealed off the centre of the European side of the city by the early hours of this morning. School was therefore out of the question since commuting from the Taksim district where I live was supposedly unfeasible.

According to the media, 66 schools were closed in affected areas and much public transport closed down. In particular, all transport leading to Taksim Square was suspended for fear of allowing large numbers of demonstrators to gather. Enough riot police were present to fill a football stadium along with many amoured vehicles, a number of which were fitted with water cannons.

You need to understand that successive Turkish governments have been loathe to allow public demonstrations in Taksim Square since 1977 when a score of people were killed. Since the armed forces coup d'etat in 1980 permission has not been forthcoming for any demonstration, although from time to time I've seen gatherings, all of them peaceful and all attended by a gargantuan contingent of police.

So I spent the early afternoon playing improvised volleyball with a security guard at a neighbourhood mansion on my street corner, checking on the multitude of new feline arrivals in the area and sharing chocolate with Mert, a six year old happy not be be at primary school for the day.

Helicopters began to circle over head and the sounds of protesters came floating down the street. Several hundred moved slowly into view and managed to advance a hundred metres up the main thoroughfare of Cihangir before being blockaded by Robocops. It all seemed relatively peaceful though the crowd slowly dissipated and people moved silently on their way.

Half an hour later I decided to head to the local Carrefour supermarket. Arriving on Sıraselviler Street, a new scene opened up to me. Evidently, events had transpired less harmoniously here. Scattered across the street were the remains of heavy concrete pot planters, strewn in every direction. The pepper gas began to sting my eyes and I'm assuming that water cannons had also been used since rivulets of scarlet were running down the gutters. All bar my barber had closed for business and people sat aimlessly. Police everywhere, yet no real tension in the air.

Or at least it seemed like that to me. Often it's hard to comprehend events that take place in your adopted home since you haven't enough history in the place to fully understand what's going on. It reminded me of how the media reported several bombings in Istanbul last year of which I remained unaware until I read about them on the BBC website the day following the events. How a city can be rendered unsafe by a biased media that makes your family and friends wonder why you're living in such a dangerous place. Istanbul is so large that events can happen here to which I am oblivious for days on end. And yet it always feels so safe to me.

It also brought to mind the uncovering in Austria of a man who purportedly kept his daughter hostage in a caller for the past twenty-four years. How something so insidious and terrible can be kept hidden for so long, and yet now the country's chancellor is calling for an 'rebranding' campaign. It's easy for us to judge the entire nation by one shocking event so that we can quickly distance ourselves from the 'others' who might have implicitly allowed this to happen. I feel sorry for those people held captive as I feel sorry for the Austrian people as a whole. I hope we can all reserve our judgments and eventually realise that this crime was committed by an insane individual who could be found in any one of a number of places on the planet. And that this outrage doesn't taint the Austrian people as a whole.

Besides, I've a personal reason for not wanting hostility towards the heir-apparent of the Hapsburg dynasty. In Turkish, like in so many languages, Austria/Austrian and Australia/Australian are oft confused. I don't need that now.

Turkey still has bigger problems to face than allowing a full democracy to operate and therefore allow demonstrations during May Day in the heart of its biggest metropolis. A reported released on 29 April regarding Freedom of the Press summarises that the country still has a long way to until it allows its journalists to write openly and freely, and indeed in certain respects perhaps the situation has even worsened since changes to the penal code were introduced in 2005.

I hope very much to see a government elected one day that is worthy of the people in this wonderfully complex country which I choose to call home. And maybe there will be a time when demonstrations no longer bring out en masse pepper gas and water cannons.