Since
the July 15th coup attempt, Turkey has been struggling to deal with the
aftershock. The death toll is huge and the number of injured is pronounced with
thousands. The majority of the public have rejected the coup attempt and united
in solidarity. In the wake of the attempted coup, Turkey announced a state of
emergency and went after the Gülenists, followers of the self-exiled cleric
Fethullah Gülen, as the coup plotters were accused of being linked to him.
Concerned over the worrying reports of human rights violations, the US and the
EU were mostly preoccupied with the restrictions of freedom of expression and
urged to respect the rule of law. As a response, Ankara blamed the West for
failing to understand the severity of the situation.
Let’s
go back to that date. On the night of June 15th, in the length of just a couple
of hours, Turkey survived a coup attempt organized by a group from within the
country's military. It was as the clocks had ran backwards and we were in the
middle of a military coup d’état in the 1980s. Tanks were on the streets,
Bosporus Bridge had been blocked by army units, the entrance to Atatürk airport
in Istanbul was blocked by tanks as well, and military jets were flying low
with their scary voices. TRT, the state TV station, was broadcasting a
statement from the coup leaders declaring nationwide martial law and urged
everyone to go home.
We
were following the events with anxiety but mostly with disbelief. All the
process was too bizarre from the very beginning. Turkey have witnessed many
military coups in the past, we have experience on this issue. Military had a
traditional guardian role of democracy and secularism, and had previously
intervened to remove governments. But this one was different in many ways.
First, this coup could not have been carried out by Kemalist officers as they
had no power as before. Second, during military coups, we usually learn about
it when we wake up in the morning. But this attempt started in the middle of a
busy Friday night, at 22.00. Third, the first pictures released showed the
soldiers on the bridge; very young, inexperienced without any credibility for
this grandiose attempt. Forth, the military was not unified in this attempt.
Finally, and most importantly, the coup plotters did not have the backing of
the Turkish public.
Moreover,
we are not in the 1980s any more. It is very difficult to control the narrative
with numerous TV stations and the social media. While they were broadcasting
their announcement on TRT, it just took President Erdoğan to connect to CNNTürk
via FaceTime to urge the public to take to the streets and to revolt against
the coup attempt. Hundreds of people took to the streets and started disarming
soldiers. However, while the parliament was bombed, everyone in Turkey watched
this violent process with horror.
June
15th is a milestone in the republican history. Turkey still has many problems,
but a military coup is not the desired solution. Turkey had already witnessed
many coups and from its own experience knows that no good can come of it.
Turkey has entered a difficult new phase in its history and needed all the
support it could get from its allies. But, to Ankara’s big disappointment, this
was not the case.
The
West perceived the failed coup attempt as another destabilizing factor that
reinforces the already existing anxiety about the Middle East. Their
orientalist instincts resurfaced and in their eyes, Turkey became another
Middle Eastern country that needs West’s protection for modernization and
democratization. They just choose to underestimate Turkey’s democratic and
secular tradition, its economic and military power, that Turkey is a NATO
member and a EU candidate suffering from the consequences of the Syrian war;
refugee crisis and terrorism as much as France or Germany.
Brussels
did not lose a moment to start its endless criticism and suggestions. The EU
did not understand the severity of the situation and its possible consequences
as worst as a civil war in the country. Everything has its own time. Without
their clear support against the coup, their suggestions fell on deaf ears. They
should have shown solidarity first and then criticize.
Turkish
society is inclined toward conspiracy theories and the naked truth is sometimes
not enough. The rumors that the US was behind the coup had risen at the same
time. The already problematic relations between Turkey and the US are now stuck
to the extradition of Gülen and it will probably be the main issue during Vice
President Biden’s visit to Turkey on August 24th.
And
then came the first meeting of Erdoğan with a foreign leader after the coup
attempt. Erdoğan’s visit to St. Petersburg followed the support given by Russia
and Iran in the immediate aftermath of the attempt. However, Turkey had already
started a normalization process with Israel and Russia before the attempt.
Erdoğan-Putin meeting should be seen as a reaction to the West’s lack of
empathy and not as a possible shift of axis. In addition to that, Turkey does
not have the luxury to break its ties with the West, with the instability it
faces in its borders, the refugee crisis and the terrorist attacks. Let’s not
forget that it was Turkey’s NATO membership that protected from a retaliation
from Russia following the downing of its jet.
It has
been more than a month since the failed coup attempt. We still don’t know
accurately what was planned that night. While we try to make sense of all that
had happened, we still get confused from the contradicting data available and
the lack of credible answers. However, we can say with certainty that Turkey is
not the Turkey it used to be, and it did not become the “new Turkey” that
everybody was talking about. Turkey is in the middle of a transformation phase,
that we still don’t know the outcome. Maximum effort should be made by the West
to change their tone, to continue the dialogue and avoid feeding Ankara’s
feeling of disappointment and abandonment. The EU has to remember the dynamism
in the democratic and economic progress during the first years of AKP rule and
should try to revive it again. While Turkey is in the process of a
transformation it needs more and more the support, friendship, and assistance
of the EU and the US in order to stay in the path of democracy. The cooperation
of the West and Turkey is indispensable for the future of Turkey, Europe, and
the region; as the instability in the Middle East feeds the threat of ISIS and
results with the continuation of the war in Syria, terrorist attacks and the
flow of refugees.
Karel Valansi 15 August 2016
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