In response to the Turkish military coup that happened this weekend, all I have to say is this: I’m not surprised.
Turkey has an awful tradition of having a military coup every ten years starting back in the 1960s. For those of you that are saying how awful the Turkish military is, or “pray for Turkey,” read this so that you know why these coups keep happening and why they will continue to happen.
The first thing you need to know to better understand the situation in Turkey is that it is divided between two types of people: the Islamists and the Kemalists. Back in 1923, an esteemed WWI military officer named Kemal Mustafa Atatürk led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, which was then ruled by Sultan Mehmet VI. At the time, the Ottoman Empire was slowly crumbling apart, and Atatürk believed that Turkey needed to become a more modern nation in order to keep up with the rest of the world. After he defeated the Ottoman Empire, he established the Republic of Turkey and became the first president of Turkey.
Under his leadership, he began the process of westernizing Turkey so that it may become a more modern nation. In order to do this, he had to make sure that religion had no say in government matters and the justice system, so he abolished the Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire. During the reign of Sultan Mehmet VI, Turkey was still practicing Sharia law, giving religion a powerful edge in government matters and the justice system. By abolishing the Caliphate, Atatürk made sure that the government had full control over the nation and so that people can be introduced to new, western ideologies. He even went further into this by outlawing polygamy, wearing fezzes and hijabs, and religious convents and Dervish lodges. This had rippling consequences in Turkey and the Middle East, but we’ll get to that later.
With the Caliphate and the Sharia law no longer in the way of Turkish democracy, he was able to promote further reforms in order to modernize Turkey. He adopted a new Turkish alphabet, which includes Latin letters instead of Arabic ones, which greatly improved the literacy rate in Turkey (he even traveled the countryside to teach people how to pronounce the new letters). He also decreed that everyone must have a surname in the new Turkish language.
In one of his most influential reforms, he allowed women to have full political rights, such as voting, running businesses, etc. He decreed that men and women must be seen as equal and be treated as such. He also ordered that all girls must attend school.
Though Atatürk and his reforms were discussed a lot, it is important to understand the Turkey that he created. The Turkey he created was based on secular, democratic principles so that Turkey may become modernized and advance as a society. The Turkish military still follow his practices closely, defending his secularist laws and making sure that the citizens of Turkey abide by them. After Atatürk died, the modernization progress slowly declined due to leaders not being as innovative as Atatürk’s. Eventually, Islamist leaders started to try and make changes to Atatürk’s reforms to bring the country back to its traditional roots, which caused the Turkish military to step in. And thus, the coups started happening.
The first Turkish military coup happened in 1960 after the Turkish Prime Minister, Adnan Menderes, was trying to fix Turkey’s sociopolitical and economic hardships by reaching out to the U.S.S.R, a communist nation. Upon hearing this, the military had to step in to defend the democratic principles that Turkey was founded by. So, on May 27th, 1960, Colonel Türkeş led a coup to overthow Menderes in order to bring the country back on the path of democracy.
This would be the first of many political coups. İn 1971, 1980, and again in 1997, the military had to intervene due to political violence and economic disruption because of these violent outbrakes. Every time, the Turkish military would step in, take control for a little bit, and step out so that the country can resume democratic order. This “tradition” happened every decade, causing many Turks to look to the military for salvation when conflict arises. This tradition stopped in 2013 when the Ergenekon trials occurred.
In these trials, 275 people were accused of plotting a coup back in 2003 and 2004 to overthrow Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time. This caused the arrest of senior military officers, and allowed Erdoğan to choose lower ranking officers loyal to his party, making it so that the military would not attempt another coup against the Turkish government.
That was until this past weekend. Turkish planes and tanks went through Ankara, attacking the Turkish Parliament building and the Presidential Palace. Erdoğan, in response, called for the citizens to take to the streets to stop these forces and support him.
Erdoğan calls the soldiers in the coup traitors, they didn’t fight for nothing. Ever since Erdoğan and his AKP party took over Turkey, they have been going against everything the nation was founded on. He is making it so that democracy cannot flourish in Turkey, by silencing the press that speaks out against his reforms, banning websites so that people cannot express their opinions about his government. He also threatens anyone who supports other political parties by silencing their media campaigns and arresting political rivals. He and his party also outright ignore touching upon certain social issues in the country, such as lacking to find a solution to the rising murder rates towards women. Worse still, he has overseen the revival of Ottoman tradition, bringing back the ceremonies, reestablishing religious schools, and even promoting the use of the hijab. He even had the audacity to call the Turkish citizens the “grandsons of Ottomans.”
With all of his reforms and actions, he goes against everything his country was founded on. All democratic and secularist ideals that Atatürk and his followers fought for are being undermined by the authoritarian, Islamist “president.” The fact that the coup took place is not a sign that the military want to take over Turkey, but rather save it from a power-hungry man who would rather bring back the traditions of the Ottomans that many Turks died fighting against.
So, to wrap up this history lesson, I am actually going to congratulate those armed forces for fighting against the AKP party and Erdoğan. They were fighting in an attempt to hold power in order to bring back the democratic principles that Turkey was founded on, and to stop a tyrant from continuing to undermine those principles. Erdoğan won for now, and surely the military will be punished for trying to undermine him. But this coup was a sign that Turkey is no longer the great nation that was founded by Atatürk, and they are still willing to fight to make Turkey as great as it once was.
