It is useful in some cases to look carefully into the consequences and impact of events in order to find answers. The event at hand is the coup attempt in Turkey, which took place on July 15, 2016, effectively shaping and defining Turkey as it is today.
The background of the botched coup is, and remains, ambiguous and blurred. Looking into some rational analysis of the chain of key events take us as far back as the turmoil of the Gezi Park protests in mid-2013, when the “democratic nature” of Erdoğan government was tested from top to bottom and seen as a key moment of Erdoğan, who from that point on pivoted towards a one-man rule.
The break-up of the two key allies in power, the “National View” represented by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Gülen Movement, in the autumn of that year and the emergence of two huge corruption probes, accelerated Erdoğan’s speed – forcing him into a new power alliance with his former enemies: nationalists and militarists. A final key moment arrived in the summer of 2015, when the challenged Erdoğan, who to many of his reformist critics had cut “a deal with the devil”, abruptly terminated the Peace process he had initiated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), soon after he had lost his power base in Parliament in the elections in June. That summer ended, following an wave of acts of terror, with what he called “repeat elections”, which forged the new alliance he had built.
Some argued then that a “moment of rupture” involving the top echelons of the state seemed inevitable, because “the new allies,” who had seen their top enemy, the Gülenists, did not seem to block their sense of vengeance. As the post-coup attempt period clearly showed, the wave of measures employed revealed a new Turkey, one which was drifting away slowly and firmly from the West, and attempting with full force to reverse all the political, social, legal and economic reforms back into the country’s repressive default settings. The state of emergency rule that immediately followed the attempted coup had given Erdoğan and his “new allies” a carte-blanche to clampdown on all that was seen as a challenge to the new order. As a consequence, a decree regime was established and “legitimized” less than a year after, by a referendum that changed the nature of the Turkish Republic into an autocratic rule.
What really lied beneath the military uprising in July 2016, we do not know. One theory is that the Gülenist officers with up to one-star generals and below had the lead role in the uprising, but the purge that followed was far beyond the culprits.
The rest is a blur. That a massive inquiry initiated by all parties in Parliament having ended nowhere is rather telling. The so-called “Coup Inquiry Commission”, consisting of all parties represented in Parliament had to end its work, soon after a warning by Erdoğan to do so. Until now, the report, which saw dissent of some opposition parties, remains entirely covered up.
So, the only data at hand is what happened after July 15, 2016. Who were the targets selected by Erdoğan and his allies? During the state of emergency rule and the seemingly endless series of trials, the post-coup regime not only targeted the putschists, but extended its iron fist onto judiciary members, academics, journalists, public servants and civil society figures.
One impact has been that the once-mighty army of Turkey undoubtedly has seen huge changes in its staff and structure. A recent statement to Russia’s Sputnik channel by Doğu Perinçek, an ultranationalist, Machiavellian political figure and a de-facto ally of the AKP government is quite telling.
“Look, I will talk about a fact now,” Perinçek said. “There are NATO generals in Turkish prisons now. Namely, NATO is imprisoned here. So, if as Erdoğan says NATO must expand into the East, why did he then take a stand against these NATO generals in July 15? Why did he throw them into jail? We throw these generals, 24,000 (military) officers, 30,000 police officers, 4,000 judges and prosecutors into jails and still praise NATO. Turkey is combatting NATO.”
After a nightmarish six years, the dark spectre of the horrendous coup in July 2016, is seen as a “God’s gift” by Erdoğan, as it keeps Turkey in shackles by way of its repercussions.
The country remains, seemingly indefinitely, in a state of total eclipse. Despite everything, its people try to remain hopeful, but the massive corruption, near-bankruptcy of the economy, collapse of the separation of powers, wreckage of the rule of law, and the prisons filled with tens of thousands of political prisons (symbolized by the country’s high-profile inmates of Osman Kavala and Selahattin Demirtaş) leave no reason to celebrate the anniversary of the thwarted coup attempt.
July 15 and its aftermath remains but a tragedy for Turkey.
Ahval