ISTANBUL // Time and again since the failed coup of July 15, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged his countrymen to take to the streets and squares of Istanbul and Ankara to declare their unity and determination to defend Turkey’s democracy. And Turks responded, day after day, in their millions.
In an unprecedented display of unity, president Erdogan stood alongside the leaders of Turkey’s main opposition parties. Even though the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), long a thorn in Turkey’s side, was excluded from the show of unity, Kurds also joined what were dubbed the “Democracy and Martyrs” demonstrations.
“If someone is attacking us, we can come together in unimaginable ways, even if we are enemies,” says Ayse Eren, 53, a lawyer and former Marxist. She is no fan of Mr Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey for 13 years, nor of his party, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, but she would gladly have joined the rallies if it were not for her disability. “If it weren’t for my leg, I would have gone out,” says Ayse, 53, who walks with a cane.
The failed coup, which was instigated by a faction of the armed forces, has united Turks as never before. For whatever the differences between the political parties there is one thing that troubles them more: the fear they all share of being forced to live under military rule.
Turkey has experienced military rule in almost every decade since the 1960s and memories remain fresh for people like Elvan Gelebi, a pastry-seller in the Istanbul district of Nisantasi. Now 48, he was 13 in 1980 when tanks rolled into the streets of Ankara. At that time, the state targeted religious Turks and he remembers all too well the discrimination suffered by the veiled women in his family.
“My sister could not study in university because she was veiled,” he says. “Women were not allowed to visit their sons during their military service if they were veiled. They called it a coup in the name of democracy but it was not democracy.”
After the putsch, parliament was suspended, the constitution revoked, 650,000 people were detained and 230,000 prosecuted. The putsch leader, Kenan Evren, disbanded all political parties and carried out a wave of extrajudicial killings against left and right wing militias before enacting the coup. Hundreds died and more than 1.6 million were blacklisted. Evren imposed a National Security Council to govern the country, ruled as president for seven years and maintained a strict control on freedom of expression. People were persecuted for their political beliefs.
“There was no liberty then, everything was restricted by the coup,” says Elvan. “If the coup had succeeded this time, there would have been a massacre. It would have been civil war.”
The determination not to relive those times is what drove everyone – conservatives, nationalists, libertarian or secularists – to heed Mr Erdogan’s call after the most recent coup attempt, even those who suspect the president of being part of the reason for it happening in the first place.
Kemal Aturk, 34, an after-sales director for BMW and supporter of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) believes president Erdogan’s bid to change Turkey’s parliamentary system into a presidential one alienated many Turks.
“I blame Erdogan – Erdogan caused this,” he says. “We all suffered from the coups in the past and there is no justification for this one. My first perception was that this was a fight between certain groups. Erdogan will try to benefit from this unity for his presidency, but we [MHP] stand to defend the presence of the state.”
For some, however, the state post-coup still leaves them out in the cold. The HDP was excluded from the rallies because the government perceives the party as being allied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a rebel group that the Turkish state classifies as terrorist. Clashes between the PKK and the Turkish army resumed last year after years of relative peace under an agreed ceasefire. Since then, Turkey’s south-east has seen the worst violence in 20 years at the expense of its residents.
Azad, 28, who gave only his first name for fear of persecution, laments the exclusion. “Kurds are against the military coup because they suffered greatly during all of them, “ he says, citing food embargoes, a state of emergency imposed on Kurdish cities and a ban on the Kurdish language in public. “We are six million voices but they [the AKP] don’t care about bringing people together. They want democracy only for themselves. ”
There is no denying that the rejection of a military takeover has been overwhelmingly beneficial to president Erdogan and his government, providing them with an opportunity to purge the country of opponents, whether real or imagined. It has focused attention on Fethullah Gulen, the aged cleric whose influence is said to extend into virtually every facet of Turkish society.
Now that the flag-waving and cheering and self-congratulation is over, the question on people’s minds is whether the sense of national unity will last. For HDP supporter Azad, the crackdown is a temporary distraction. “Once he [Erdogan] finishes his operation against Gulenists, he will find a new enemy,” he says. “This is why he didn’t call the HDP to the rally.”
Ayse Eren thinks any bolstering effect the coup has on the AKP is unimportant. “During the next elections, everyone will vote for their own parties. But nationalism is stronger,” she says. “If the issue is our country, the rest are details. Erdogan is a detail.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
