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Turkey's Slide Into Authoritarianism

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Turkey’s Slide into Authoritarianism by Burak Bekdil n the evening of July 15, 2016, the inhabitants of OAnkara and Istanbul left their dinner tables in panic and rushed to their windows and balconies. What they saw was shocking and surreal, if not apocalyptic: tanks closing the Bosphorus bridge in Istanbul1 and encircling the parliament;2 rival F-16 raids against government and coup forces;3 military brass Tanks and soldiers closed the Bosphorus bridge and being taken hostage by their surrounded the Turkish parliament in Istanbul as Turkey aides;4 combat between the was plunged into chaos for a few days in July 2016 when an military and the police,5 followed attempted coup threatened to overthrow the Erdoğan by soldiers attacking civilians;6 government. and finally civilians lynching soldiers who had supported the coup.7 even in a country torn by ethnic strife, All of this happened at a time perpetual terror attacks, and deep when no one was expecting a putsch, ideological polarization. Turkish Coups in Brief 1 Hürriyet (Istanbul), July 20, 2016. Turks soon learned that the coup 2 Reuters, July 16, 2016. attempt had not been staged by the military’s 8 3 The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2016. top brass but by dissident officers. A similar 4 attempt on May 27, 1960, had succeeded, RT TV (Moscow), July 23, 2016. leaving behind the bodies of the executed 5 Hürriyet, July 18, 2016. 6 Ibid., July 29,2016. 7 Ibid., July 17, 2016. 8 CNN News, July 18, 2016. MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY Winter 2017 Bekdil: Turkey’s Failed Coup / 1 prime minister and foreign minister.9 When a statement on the military’s website, in 1971 the military issued an ultimatum to warning the Islamist government of then- the government of Prime Minister Süleyman prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Demirel, the prime minister resigned.10 against any move that might undermine The military intervened again in Turkey’s secular regime. Erdoğan did not 1980, but Gen. Kenan Evren, elected retreat. Instead, he launched a full-scale president after the coup, resumed struggle “against military tutelage” and had parliamentary democracy in 1983. Things his long-time Islamist associate, Abdullah would go smoothly until 1997 when the Gül, elected president of the country.12 In generals, deeply annoyed by the coalition 2011, the entire military leadership, government of Turkey’s first Islamist including Chief-of-Staff Isik Kosaner, premier, Necmettin Erbakan, forced him out, resigned in protest over a slew of trials that not by sending tanks into the street but by put hundreds of officers in jail on fabricated masterminding political intrigues that led to evidence of planning a coup. Since then, the the collapse of his government.11 top command has been loyal to Erdoğan.13 In 2007, Turkey’s top general issued The perpetrators of the July 15 coup attempt are widely believed to be a coalition of officers: members of the “Gülen” group, who had infiltrated military ranks and suc- cessfully hidden their ideological leanings, often by drinking alcohol publicly and showcasing wives without Islamic headscarves; Kemalists loyal to the re- publican tradition of modern Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and opportunists. Fetullah Gülen, After coming to power in parliamentary elections in November a Muslim preacher, self- 2002, Erdoğan (left) quickly allied with Fetullah Gülen (right), a exiled in Pennsylvania since Muslim preacher with a powerful network of followers. But the 1999 and once Erdoğan’s two leaders have since fallen out, and following the attempted staunchest political ally, has coup, Erdoğan accused his former ally of masterminding the emerged as the prime uprising. suspect.14 9 William Armstrong, “Turkey’s 1960 coup, still resounding today,” Hürriyet, Sept. 11, 2014; “Turkey commemorates victims of 1960 coup,” 12 The Guardian (London), Aug. 28, 2007. TRT World (Istanbul), May 27, 2016. 13 The New York Times, July 29, 2011. 10 USA Today (McLean, Va.), July 15, 2016. 14 The Independent (London), Aug. 2, 2016; Press TV 11 Ibid. (Tehran), Aug. 18, 2016. MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY Winter 2017 Bekdil: Turkey’s Failed Coup / 2 A Turkish Intra-Islamist Fight spoke of God … We failed to see that this structure which we viewed After coming to power in as having a common range [goal] parliamentary elections in November 2002, through different ways could be Erdoğan, fearing that his government could one with different intentions and face the typical end of Islamist regimes in the sinister goals.17 Middle East—a military coup—quickly allied with Gülen, whose powerful network That common goal was to Islamize would help to shore up Erdoğan against the Turkey. staunchly secular military establishment. For many years, the Erdoğan-Gülen A Suspicious Putsch? alliance was a marriage made in heaven. But Post-coup analyses, including con- when, at the end of 2013, Erdoğan decided to fessions from suspects, pointed to Gülen as break it up, a secretive Gülenist network in the mastermind. But there were reports that state bureaucracy (mostly in police and the suspects might have made statements judiciary) moved to accuse him, his family, under torture, and the main question is, who four cabinet ministers, bureaucrats, and benefits? According to Howard Eissenstat of prominent businessmen of corruption St. Lawrence University, Erdoğan amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. A flurry of audio tapes revealing massive comes out of this tremendously fraud was leaked to social media—apparently strengthened … This has by Gülenists who had vigorously collected remobilized a base that was getting material for years—in an attempt to slash sort of tired of him. It gave him at Erdoğan’s popularity ahead of local elections least a moment in which he unified in March 2014.15 The plan failed as Turks all elements of society against a shrugged off embarrassing revelations, and clear threat.18 Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the elections with 43 percent of Unsurprisingly, Erdoğan has used the the vote. Erdoğan then won three more failed coup to go after, not just the Gülenists, elections: the presidential elections in August but everyone he suspected to be hostile to 2014 and two parliamentary elections in June him, including Kurds, leftists, and and November 2015.16 As Erdoğan lamented secularists. after the July 15 failed coup: To some extent, the failed Turkish coup looked like the “Reichstag fire,” the I am saddened for not having been arson attack on the German parliament able to unmask this treacherous building in Berlin in 1933. A young Dutch organization [Gülenists] a long communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was time ago. For that [failure], I am arrested for the crime, pleaded guilty, and liable to God and to my nation. was sentenced to death. But more broadly, May God and our nation forgive us though the true origins of the fire remain … We tolerated them because they unclear, the episode was used as a pretext by the nascent Nazi government against its 15 Der Spiegel (Hamburg), Mar. 19, 2014. 16 “Turkey’s Recent Elections: From March 2014 to 17 TRT Haber TV (Istanbul), Aug. 3, 2016. November 2015,” Carnegie Europe, Brussels, Oct. 22, 2015. 18 Associated Press, July 16, 2016. MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY Winter 2017 Bekdil: Turkey’s Failed Coup / 3 communist rivals whom it accused of plotting against it.19 The Purge Erdogan’s actions following the attempted coup closely resemble historical purges by the Nazis and Soviets. In the days before July 2, 1934, Nazi Germany under- took the “Röhm-Putsch,” a series of systematic political executions and arrests of alleged coup plotters within the Sturmabteilung, the Nazi paramilitary group, in order to consolidate Hitler’s absolute hold The crackdown following the coup on power. With many social democrats and attempt has been brutal, frequently communists already imprisoned, Hitler also violating basic principles of Turkish went after conservatives.20 Just a few years law. Under the state of emergency, it later, in 1937–38, Stalin carried out a is dangerous to question whether massive purge in the Soviet Union. Some July 15 was a hoax, orchestrated or estimates place the number of murdered or tolerated by Erdoğan for political imprisoned at more than a million people. gains. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag The purge was Stalin’s effort to eliminate (above) stated that anyone ques- tioning the coup’s authenticity “likely past and future opposition groups, real and had a role.” imaginary.21 In some ways, the Turkish post-July 15 purge does not look much different. There owners. Some of Turkey’s biggest companies have been no executions or labor camps, but were seized. Private property was ag- millions are suffering on suspicion of links gressively confiscated.22 A Turkish cabinet with the Gülen movement. During the month minister said that by September the and a half after July 15, the Turkish government had seized more than US$4 government purged more than 100,000 civil billion worth of assets belonging to suspected servants and arrested tens of thousands, Gülenists.23 including nearly half of Turkey’s active duty The crackdown was brutal and often generals and admirals and thousands of violated basic principles of law. Under the judges and prosecutors. Others targeted were state of emergency, it is dangerous in Turkey journalists, academics, teachers, pilots, to question whether July 15 was a fake coup, doctors, businessmen—even small shop orchestrated or tolerated by Erdoğan for longer-term political gains. Turkish pros- ecutors are currently investigating people 19 The Guardian, Jan. 12, 2008. 20 Holocaust Encyclopedia, r.v. “Röhm Purge,” accessed Oct. 21, 2016. 22 Reuters, Aug. 18, 2016. 21 Encyclopædia Britannica, s.v. “Purge trials: Soviet 23 Hürriyet, July 25, July 28, 2016; “Turkey’s Gulen history,” accessed Oct.
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