TURKEY HAD BECOME A DARLING OF WESTERN INVESTORS AND WESTERN GOVERNMENTS, HELD UP AS AN EXAMPLE TO THE MUSLIM WORLD OF HOW DEMOCRACY COULD WORK. SO HOW DID IT COME TO A COUP?
The astonishing events that gripped Turkey and fascinated the world Friday night had not been expected.
Turkey had been in turmoil and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was at the centre of every drama. But the main international focus lately has been on how the country was reeling from a string of terrorist bombings by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an increasingly bloody civil war against Kurds in the southeast, how to manage the economic and social consequences of playing reluctant host to more than three million refugees from Syria and the political whirlwind created by the arrival in Europe of so many refugees and migrants who were using Turkey as their bridge to the West.
The economy had collapsed when Erdogan became prime minister at the beginning of 2003. His top priority at the time was to join the European Union. The International Monetary Fund gave $30 billion on fairly generous terms.
As Turkey quickly became the darling of western investors, Erdogan undertook massive infrastructure programs. Compulsory schooling was raised from Grade 5 to Grade 12 and more university places were created. Relations with the large, restive Kurdish minority were greatly improved. GDP soared.
So, how did it come to this? Coups and botched coups do not happen in a vacuum.
One of Erdogan’s early disappointments was the EU’s frosty reaction to his overtures to let Turkey join their club. Over time his government became beset by crony capitalism and corruption allegations. More recently, the Arab Spring and ISIL caused tumult along the country’s southern border and frayed relations with NATO and with Russia.
Since Erdogan was first elected as mayor of Istanbul in 1994, he has always had an authoritarian streak and a strong Islamist bent. That has never pleased the military, which regards defending secularism as a sacred national duty. Unable to get close to realizing his dream of Turkish membership in the EU, and with an increasingly difficult domestic situation complicated by the tragedies in Iraq and Syria, the president has lashed out at his critics, jailing some and dismissing others. In an about-face that the masses and the generals supported,
SO, HOW DID IT COME TO THIS? COUPS AND BOTCHED COUPS DO NOT HAPPEN IN A VACUUM.
he abruptly stopped the peace process with the Kurds after a terrorist attack. He unleashed the military on the Kurds, triggering a new round of violence that has killed 600 security forces and even more civilians.
At the same time, newspapers and television stations that opposed Erdogan were closed or new managers were brought in. Nearly 1,000 journalists and editors lost their jobs. Users of social media who criticized the president or the government landed in court.
Isolated from the country’s intellectual, business and military establishments, Erdogan came to depend even more heavily on religiously conservative Turks for support. Islamists given, for example, the right to wear head scarves at work or in school, and whose economic circumstances improved dramatically during Erdogan rule, supported him at the ballot box. Secularists decried such changes as harbingers of Islamic rule.
Protests against Erdogan’s rule grew, but, except for one hiccup early last year, he kept winning elections. Although the West has opposed his crackdown and has been uneasy about his Islamist power base, it had no choice but to oppose the coup that was launched against him.
The putsch failed for many reasons. First among them was that the mutineers did not capture the king or seize control of media outlets. Crucially, they were also unable to convince many of the senior army leadership to go along. What their role really was behind closed doors is not yet clear, but by Sunday the Turkish Adadolu Agency was reporting that 70 of Turkey’s approximately 350 generals and admirals have been arrested. This suggests the plot was wider than originally suspected and that there are deep divisions within the armed forces.
The most obvious reason that those leading the revolt failed was because Erdogan was free and able to use a cellphone app to call his followers into the street where they dared the troops to kill them. When many of the soldiers hesitated, the coup was finished.
Within hours, the repercussions began.
As happened during Egypt’s drama in Tahrir Square and other offshoots of the short-lived Arab Spring, the shortcoming of most westerners trying to understand the deep fissures in Turkish society is that they have been drawn to the urban elites who want more social and cultural freedom. Not less. In so doing, foreigners have ignored the opinions of those who inhabit Istanbul’s poorer quarters and the tens of millions of poor Turks who live far from the big cities and the tourist resorts that welcome huge numbers of tourists who make locals unhappy by drinking, partying and wearing bikinis on the beaches.
Erdogan’s backers do not regard such freedoms as being central to their wellbeing. They remember that their economic circumstances improved under Erdogan. They regard him as their only champion.
As they see it, he still is.