I'm used to the saying that the last straw breaks the camel's back. Translated into the lexicon of political protest, it could mean that when oppression reaches a tipping point, even a tiny oppressive gesture can make the "camel" (/people) revolt.
As we know by now, large segments of Turkey's urban population are turning against the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan has gone dictatorial for a long time, but his recent attempt to usurp Taksim Square, Istanbul's equivalent of London's Hyde Park, or New York City's Central Park (though not half as pretty as either of these), in order to build some government-mandated structures in it, triggered off mass-protests.
However, the protesters camped in Taksim aren't using the last-straw-breaks-the-camel's-back metaphor to describe what's brought on these mass-uprisings.
They are using bottles, glasses and water. One young man says that Erdogan's latest step was like the last drop of water that a glass can no longer accommodate. Turkish populace is envisioned as a glass and the stream of oppressive measures have filled it to the brim, thus the latest drop has spilled over into chaos. Another man said that Turkey is like the bottle with the narrow neck and beyond a certain height of the bottle's neck the water being poured splashes out.
I just couldn't visualize what these young men said. New uprisings spring new metaphors, is my guess.
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