My first experience with tear gas took place last Tuesday in a rundown bar off of Istanbul’s İstiklal Street where my friend and I had come after visiting Gezi Park.

The Turkish prime minister’s hallucinatory depiction of the composition of the anti-government protests had left me half-expecting to find the park populated by oversized Lithuanian lepers on unicorns. My friend and I detected no such “marginal groups,” however, and the foreign terrorist alcoholic looters alleged to be fueling domestic unrest had apparently succeeded in disguising themselves as civilian non-drunks tranquilly sharing food, conversation, books, and music.

A few minutes after we had relocated from park to bar, riot police attacked the area with water cannons and tear gas, causing protesters to flee down İstiklal and surrounding arteries. Erdoğan has justified tear gas bombardments as the police’s “en doğal hakkı” or “most natural right.”