Taksim Square, July 24. CHP supporters stand under Turkish flags, including portrait of Ataturk, founder of modern Kemalist Turkey. Petros Kardjias / Press Association. All rights reserved.European reports about the developments in Turkey
since July 15 are quite equivocal: the attempted coup was the beginning of the
end of what had been left of Turkish democracy since AKP came to power in 2002,
since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected prime minister in 2003, and since he became
president in 2014.
Without a doubt, the growing authoritarianism of
the Turkish government is real and worrying. Since July 15, tens of thousands
of security personnel, judges, academics, journalists etc. have been discharged
and/or detained. Many universities, schools, publishing houses, newspapers,
radio stations and online media outlets have been closed down. Employees of
Turkish universities are currently not allowed to leave the country, some
cannot even cross the boundaries of the city they live in. The state of emergency
provides the Turkish government with the liberty to extend pre-trial custody,
to search civilians, to impose curfews, curb the consumption of alcohol, limit
private festivities and so forth. All of this is catastrophic and sends the
signal that president Erdoğan aims to consolidate his power with ever growing
authoritarianism.
But the inner-Turkish discussion of the attempted
coup and its aftermath consists of more than the "being against
Erdoğan" which dominates European interpretations of the developments. In
fact, it is much more nuanced than this black and white perspective. I believe
that it is only on the basis of a full understanding of both perspectives that
adequate answers can be developed to the question how the relationship between
Europe and Turkey should be shaped in the future. That is, if the answer is not
merely aimed inwards, towards Europe, but also wants to include those who are
suffering most from the attempted coup and its aftermath, namely the population
of Turkey.
In Turkish discourse, it is in no way considered
proven that Erdoğan's position has been strengthened by the coup. On the
contrary, even voices that are critical of the government have pointed out that
he has been weakened by the loss of his most important instruments of repression.
The Gulen-movement is key here; in Turkish discourse, it is considered evident
that this religious sect had infiltrated the military, the judiciary, parts of
the educational sector etc. and that it orchestrated the attempted coup. In
fact, that Gulinists have developed into a common foe for a society which had
hitherto been divided by ever-growing rifts between secular and religious
forces, between Turks and Kurds and so forth.
This helps to explain why the Turkish government
allowed a demonstration organised by opposition forces on Taksim square on July
24. It included all kinds of societal groups: LGBTQ, Alevites, Kurds,
Kemalists, Religious, AKP-supporters, and was nevertheless broadcast widely by
state media. This is not in line with European ideas of AKP omnipotence, but
with a broad societal renunciation of Gulenist forces. The same is true for a
public service announcement which has been shown in Turkish television in a
continuous loop: the spot turns Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's words "Happy who
can call himself a Turk" into "Happy who can call himself a Turk,
Kurd, Circassian, Arab, Armenian, Assyrian, Jew, Christian, Alevite, Sunni
[…]". Erdoğan's public acknowledgement of opposition leader Kılıçdaroğlu
for his determined stance against the coup and the fact that prime minister
Binali Yıldırım has been speaking of the need for societal dialogue since July
15 also refute more unidimensional interpretations of recent developments in
Turkey.
Preident Erdogan and his wife wave to the crowd during vast Democracy and Martyrs' Rally in Istanbul, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016. Emrah Gurel / Press Association. All rights reserved.Since July 15, every night has seen demonstrations
in Istanbul against the coup, in which not only supporters of the president are
taking part, but also Kemalists, minorities, explicit opponents of Erdoğan. Apparently
for many demonstrators, the matter is not the president of state, but the
question of what the Turkish political system should look like and how the
societal political bargaining process could and should be shaped in the future.
The unexpected four-party-declaration on the day after the coup is a case in
point. In fact, in Turkish discourse, the attempted coup is considered a
fundamental attack on Turkish democracy; never in the history of the republic
had initiators of a coup d'etat attacked the Turkish parliament.
Relatedly, many Turks are asking themselves what would
have happened had the coup been successful. Would the rule of military forces
which had been infiltrated by Gulenists have been more democratic than the
current system? What is the relationship between secularism, political Islam
and democracy in current Turkey, what should it be in the future?
The question which we have to ask ourselves in
Europe is why this Turkish perspective is invisible in our dominant
interpretation of the coup. Which inner-European discourse strands are
rendering it unspeakable? This kind of self-reflection, which also needs to
include a critical engagement with the question of the ‘right’ relationship
between religion and politics, would immensely benefit the objective analysis
of the events in Turkey of the last two weeks, as well as future European
political decision-making with regard to Turkey.
