Still, a smaller scale intervention than the 2016 made-up coup. Almost “surgical”, you could say.
Edit: Thanks to all the commenters for the additional info, it’s allowed me to expand my understanding of Turkish politics!
I see that what appeared to me as a “surgical coup”, guided by a government with ulterior motives, appeared so because of the very rapid and accurate response of the government - and of the people.
I still remember that appeal by Erdogan to the people via video call: within one minute, he divested the coup of any legitimacy, and motivated the Turkish people to defend their democracy.
This still doesn’t justify Erdogan’s subsequent pogrom, but it was really a superb live moment of political genius, with immediate popular response.
Erdogan definitely took advantage of the aftermath of the coup to purge the military but the coup was not “made up”.
This was mostly a theory thrown around by western journalists who first tried to claim that a coup against Erdogan would be a good thing, a “liberal coup”. Followed by them pushing the idea it was fake.
I dislike Erdogan but hearing from my family’s experiences during the last coup in Turkiye I’ll take a democratically elected government I dislike over another military dictatorship.
I’m really disappointed in the media here in the west and the ideas they were pushing during that time.
Edit
Two extra points:
1. Turkiye has an extensive history of coups and general military intervention in politics which sets a precedent for this kind of coup attempt.
2. These sorts of claims are really akin to claiming 9/11 was an inside job. For some reason when it’s Turkiye being discussed what should be rightly identified as conspiracy theories become socially acceptable and viable in people’s minds.
Good thing or not, coups in Turkey were a feature of their democratic system. One of the problems they had to contend with was a continuing push to religious governments - a sort of "majority dictatorship", because probably well over half the population leans religious, but voting politicians by this criteria will end democracy pretty quick. So Ataturk left the military as guardian dogs, with a more or less official mandate to bring down any overly Islamic governments and restore democracy. And it worked, for quite a long time.
I'm not saying coups were nice, or civilized. I can easily take your word that they were brutal. I'm just saying they were part of the system, and when they stopped working the system failed.
I would argue that the although the military like to paint themselves as guardians of democracy they don’t exactly have a great track record.
The 1980 coup banned all political parties, all trade unions and the Kurdish language. They then “democratised” the country by only allowing parties that were junta approved, two of which were established directly by the junta themselves, to participate in elections.
This is not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people arrested, hundreds of thousands denied passports, tens of thousands killed either directly, in custody or through capital punishment.
Turkiye today does not have a “failed system” because there are no coups they have a system which is recovering from coups.
I’m not an Islamist, I don’t support Erdogan. A large number of Turks don’t.
But the paternalist idea that Turks are unable to govern themselves without violent takeovers and reprisals for the crime of voting for politicians they agree with is not good for the country and is not democratic.
Edit
“Dictatorship by majority” as you describe it is the definition of a democracy. The majority dictate the policy of the country. Unless my definition is wrong.
Edit 2
Claiming coups “were a feature of their democratic system” is an oxymoron and something I’m almost shocked to hear in a non satirical sense.
Until you can convince me that locusts are a feature for crops you won’t convince me that coups can be a feature of democracy.
> I'm just saying they were part of the system, and when they stopped working the system failed.
No, when the last one finally succeeded in what it intended to, the system failed.
The last coup in Turkey hanged 10,000 left wing politicians, intellectuals, activists, trade union leaders, and basically anyone who opposed neoliberal wave that was sweeping the west. The ones not hanged were either jailed for decades, or banned from politics.
The result was a totally far-right slanted landscape in everything - from economics to nationalism to religion. In this environment the Islamist factions prospered because the coup government and its successors used Islam as a 'counterbalance' to those pesky left wing ideas that hampered corporate profits. It didnt take ~20 years before all of these resulted in a hellscape in which poor people had only Islamist organizations to get any support from because practically the entire country was privatized, labor protections loosened, wages bottomed and social services were gutted for tax breaks. The result is the Turkey you see now.
In all respects, the current government of Turkey can be considered much more representative of the poor majority than all the post-1980 governments of Turkey since with all its problems, this government at least does something for the poor majority - either through the scarce social programs that are left, through its municipal governments, or through the Islamist organizations that are associated with it. Financial aid, food aid, education scholarships etd - all of which are described as 'bribes' by the secular minority - things that they took away from those people in the post-coup period neoliberal craze, leaving the these segments were left to rot. Which is the reason why those segments will never let go of Erdogan and his party and vote for any competitor.
...
Think of the last coup in Turkey like the Chilean coup against Allende.
Yep, you’re right, and I’d say your two extra points are spot on. I’m not a Turk myself, but I have Turkish friends who’re perhaps more on the secular/modernist side, hence my potential bias.
Re: the 2016 coup, I’m still not certain that it was a “legitimate” one, ie not sure that Erdogan wasn’t aware of it in its infancy, and decided to allow it to go through.
As others have said, coups are embedded within Turkish democratic history in one sense (though a coup still cannot be a democratic device), so maybe Erdogan has the political acumen to plan ahead including potential coup attempts.
His utilization of the 2016 coup to strengthen his control was astounding in its speed and accuracy. Perhaps this is what enabled western media to think of it as a planned event on the part of the government?
With the precedent for coups in Turkey I don’t think there’s that much planning involved for the strengthening of control afterwards. Erdogan purged the army ruthlessly and declared a state of emergency, pretty par for the course after an attempted coup.
He definitely widened the net of his purge and take out some political enemies, but I don’t think Erdogan reacting fairly predictably to an attempted coup is proof that he knew of it before hand, or planned it.
>Erdogan wasn’t aware of it in its infancy, and decided to allow it to go through
It's not impossible, but when you go through the details (e.g. how much everything, including Erdogan's early morning nationally broadcast FaceTime(!)[0], hinged on Türksat remaining operational) it's clear how huge of a gamble that would be on his part.
As someone who spent a very long night in the middle of Beyoğlu during the coup (e.g., small arms fire, sonic booms that shattered windows, run on ATMs) and extremely tense weeks that followed (e.g., gangs of men patrolling the streets, shouting takbir, and threatening less conservative citizens), it certainly felt real. I personally think the truth lies not in either binary option, but somewhere in between. A political event can both be organic in nature and carefully exploited by and for the benefit of the other side.
Follow the source, and do research on the different protagonists, it's quite obvious, it's quite similar with a recent event in Iran, there were legitimate protests against an evil regime, i don't deny that and i support the protests, Iranians deserve a better future and an independent sovereign revolution, but there were help from the west, one of them, France, got caught [1], they probably have been tortured and manipulated to lie, but their presence there is already suspicious
It's similar to the position in Ukraine, officially Israel is not there, but when you dig through the propaganda, you find some gems [2]
What are your sources on the coup being made-up ?
I don't know much about it but it does seem credible given the turkish military coup history. Especially since traditionaly, the army has taken the side of the CHP, oppposing Erdogan.
coup is not made-up. They killed more than 250 people live on air. corpses are in the middle. they shot at the citizen with snipers. Those who resisted the coup were screened by helicopters. They all have camera footage.
Yes, potentially everything could be something else than what it appears to be... The question is : Is it reasonnable to think so ? Does it make more sense than the coup being just another coup (failed this time) in turkish history ? What does the evidence suggest ?
I think at that time it was reasoned that it was fake because they could have shot down Erdogan's plane he was on. They didn't and ended up executed. Occam's razor begs the question - why wouldn't they do it unless it wasn't a genuine attempt?
They weren't sure it was him. Puts it in perspective that the military pilots would be averse to shooting down a civilian passenger jet. See here:
>TC-ATA [Erdogan's jet] used a callsign THY 8456 to disguise as a Turkish Airlines airplane (Turkish’s callsign is THY) [0]
>The jets didn’t fire after the presidential plane’s pilot told the fighter jet pilots over the radio that it was a Turkish Airlines flight, a senior counter-terrorism official told the Guardian. [1]
If I remember correctly the coup was rushed by its organisers because the authorities had caught wind of it and were beginning an investigation.
Generally coups take place in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep. This was during rush hour.
Usually coups involve taking over key administrative buildings as quickly as possible. They took over one of the busiest bridges in Istanbul.
The attempted coup also lacked the majority support of the military it requires to be successful.
97% of the Turkish Armed Forces ranking officers weren’t involved in the coup.
66% of the military's top leadership weren't involved in the coup.
They only had 35 jets and 37 helicopters.
During a coup the military should not be fighting itself whilst also attempting to take control. In this case the coups forces were smaller and worse equipped than the governments military.
> I think at that time it was reasoned that it was fake because they could have shot down Erdogan's plane he was on.
They should have been able to shoot it down. However that they werent able to do so and encountered problems with their aircraft suggests outside intervention. Erdogan being aware that his location was being targeted by the coup's special forces and swiftly moving away from there is another indicator to that end. Which are likely reasons why Turkey is quite friendly with Russia at the moment - the only power that has enough intelligence strength and the means to jam equipments of aircraft.
Edit: Thanks to all the commenters for the additional info, it’s allowed me to expand my understanding of Turkish politics!
I see that what appeared to me as a “surgical coup”, guided by a government with ulterior motives, appeared so because of the very rapid and accurate response of the government - and of the people.
I still remember that appeal by Erdogan to the people via video call: within one minute, he divested the coup of any legitimacy, and motivated the Turkish people to defend their democracy.
This still doesn’t justify Erdogan’s subsequent pogrom, but it was really a superb live moment of political genius, with immediate popular response.