By any metric, Tayyip's leadership is not secular.

However, the turkish people (at least according to my friends) are are badly shaken after the two recent terrorist attacks - the coup represents more violence - regardless of its 'benevolance'.

Turkey's admiration of Atatürk, the 'founding father' of modern Turkey is absolute: a benevolant dictator, he molded Turkey into a modern balanced country, uniting multiple social, ethnical and religous systems.

It is widely held that Tayyip is doing exactly the opposite: peice by peice dismantling the social balance and fundamentals of Turkey. Naturally, his actions are liked by some - but his goal is to divide, as opposed to unite.

Based upon this, the coup seems to be yet another tangile proof of the disquiet that has been installed under the Tayyip regieme.

Essentially, the turkish people have had enough of bloodshed, division and disharmony.

Switzerland has a direct democracy where, if the population were to vote for it, they would pass all kinds of crazy policies. This is in contrast to the UK where people now believe the referandum means the government has to embark on an EU-exit process. They don't, because the UK is not a direct democracy. If Front Nationale ruled France and pushed discriminatory policies, would we call Le Penne a dictator as well?

Speaking of Ataturk, back when he introduced the reforms, some of it was unsupported by parts of the electorate, just as some of Edogan's policies are. Democracy means what the majority votes for wins, unless there's some rigging like in US, Russia, or probably Turkey as well. I mean, if votes can be rigged in the US and any and all objection is silenced by friends in the Supreme Court, then what do you expect from Russia or Turkey, really?

Isn't the current situation in Turkey just another case of shock doctrine, as unfortunately happens annually all over the globe?

Putin is someone who has the support of the vast majority of his constituents, even despite the hardships and corruption, while Erdogan is just another opportunistic authoritarian who abused a faulty system to become a "democratically elected" dictator. In the eyes of much of the rest of the world, he has no legitimacy and is a pariah whose only leverage is the migrant crisis and the conflict with ISIS.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_presidential_electio...

Is there a credible opposition party to AKP, or a smattering of smaller parties?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_T...

Sorry, when you start talking about tens of thousands imprisoned without due process, that's way beyond approving undemocratic legislation in opportunistic ways.

> If Front Nationale ruled France and pushed discriminatory policies, would we call Le Penne a dictator as well?

A dictator can be voted in and still be a dictator (see also the one-Godwin-stops-me-from-mentioning). In fact, the original Roman dictators were elected, and followed Roman laws. Modern dictators usually reach power with a golpe, but that's very recent; both Mussolini and Hitler were regularly elected and nominated heads of government by following their proper constitutional laws - the King of Italy was not deposed, nor was the German President (he died of natural causes and left the office technically vacant).

Dictatorship is defined by how power is exercised once attained, not by how it is reached. Removing regularly-appointed judges on political grounds, that's dictatorial; taking political prisoners without following due process, that's dictatorial; and so on and so forth.

> Speaking of Ataturk,

I agree that we (especially outside of Turkey) now carry a rose-tinted view of Ataturk, conveniently forgetting his ugly side: he all but deported and killed swaths of population in order to "solidify" the ethnic background of his state, especially in remote areas and on the islands bordering Greece; and was, after all, a dictator who might have wished for democracy but didn't practice it very much. He was very much a man of his time, from a generation that produced Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Stalin and so on.

> would we call Le Penne a dictator as well?

What would you call Chavez or Maduro? If not dictators (after all, "There is already too much democracy in Venezuela" according to their supporters), certainly they are the leaders of an authoritarian kleptocracy.

> Democracy means what the majority votes win.

No. Voting is just the end stage of a much longer process, backed by the credibility of the Institutions to which the people put faith in.

> Isn't the current situation in Turkey just another case of shock doctrine?

No. This is you trying to fit your worldview into the events.

Yeah, and the special thing about Turkey is (was?) that the military is one of the balancing forces because they were not controlled by the government as they are in many alternative democracies. This is partly historical due to past military coups. It's hard for me to say whether it's good or bad, given that the military independence has led to very negative outcomes like the 1980 coup, but it can also provide a force to keep a crazy parliament in check.

> What would you call Chavez or Maduro?

Can't comment because I don't know enough, sorry. Will look into them.

> This is you trying to fit your worldview into the events.

Maybe you're right, all I'm saying is that it looks like they are in the process of passing controversial policies while the electorate is under shock.

Democracy says nothing about check and balance, or respect for minorities.

But I think we are just using different names for the same beast. "Liberal Democracies" are "Democracies as we'd like to understand them in the western world".

What vote rigging are you talking about?

Edit: Is rigging the wrong term?

In the 2000 election, the close result in Florida triggered an automatic machine recount under Florida law. The machine recount still had Bush leading. So Gore sought hand recounts in only four heavily-Democratic counties. The Florida Supreme Court then ordered statewide hand recounting only of "undervotes" (ballots where the machine failed to detect any vote for any candidate). But the recount process itself was a total disaster: http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/the-florida-recount-of-2000. The various counties doing the recounts were applying totally different standards to counting the votes.

In a 7-2 decision,[1] the Supreme Court held that the Florida recount violated the Constitution's "Equal Protection Clause," which requires the law to be applied equally to all people. It found that recounting only some ballots and recounting them using different standards in different places resulted in unequal application of the law based on where people voted.

In my opinion,[2] the Supreme Court got it right. The right thing to do would have been to stop after the machine recount. There is no way a hand recount was going to be a more fair and trustworthy process than the machine recount. The machine might not properly count what everyone intended to vote (e.g. because they didn't punch out the chad on the voting card all the way), but machine error is going to be random. Hand counting, on the other hand, will be biased toward favored candidates. Moreover, a subsequent $1 million study commissioned by news organizations found that Bush still would've won under most recount scenarios.

[1] The oft-reported "5-4" decision in Bush v. Gore was not about whether the recount was valid. 7 of 9 Justices agreed it was not. It was about whether Florida still had time to do a proper state-wide recount within the statutory deadline.

[2] I was too young to vote in 2000, but at the time I supported Gore. I too was infuriated about the 2000 election until I actually studied Bush v. Gore in law school.

Erdogan succeeds in part because he attacks democracy. The whole reason Erdogan (with ISIS's help) attacks the Kurds is because "they" deprived Erdogan's party of a parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002. [1] [2] So his military attacks his own cities. [3]

(The Erdogan/ISIS connection is obvious. [4])

Erdogan's been threatening academics for a long time. For example, detaining them for a petition for peace, hacking/blocking it so people can't read it. [5]

Erdogan destroying his opposition isn't democratic.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/turkey...

[2] http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/7/29/turkey-launc...

[3] http://www.france24.com/en/20160714-turkey-unesco-heritage-s...

[4] http://time.com/3980085/these-5-stats-explain-turkeys-war-on...

[5] https://news.vice.com/article/turkey-detains-21-academics-fo...

Erdogan attacked Kurds long before he lost his parliamentary majority. He attacks them because it's politically convenient for him to have a unifying enemy (most non-AKP Turks do believe the Kurds should renounce violence and drop their separatist demands). In fact, the HDP reached such a high level of support in those elections because a lot of people finally saw through the game and were tired of playing it.

I don't disagree that Erdogan all but helped IS/Daesh against Assad and Kurds, I'm just saying that his attitude towards the Kurdish problem has been more or less the same since the '90s.

The opposition may not have much power right now but they'd have none at all if the military took over so it's all about theit survival instinct.

My point was, if Erdogan is such a threat to democracy, how come his political opponents -- such as the pro-Kurdish HDP and leftist parties -- didn't support this military coup, which was allegedly in favor of liberty and secularism and everything good that Erdogan seems to be against? Maybe these opposition parties were aware that military coups are seldom democratic, are often followed by arbitrary imprisonment and summary executions, and maybe it wasn't obvious that this rebel army faction was a better and more democratic alternative to Erdogan?

If they support the coup, this undermines their legitimacy, and in the likely case that Erdogan wins, they will immediately be purged, along with the coup planners. Of course, that can happen regardless.

There's an old Soviet joke about this - three men are in a cell, and try to figure out why they are there. It turns out that one criticized a minister, another praised that same minister, and the third is that minister.

Yes, but that's un-american and therefore, evil.

Preferably after a bloody purge. It has a distinguished history of organizing death squads, torture, murder of political opponents, and probably a few false flag operations, not to mention a cozy relationship with business interests. This, obviously, doesn't make Erdogan into a nice guy, but the rosy picture many people outside of Turkey seem to have of these good old secular generals risking it all to uphold their moral values isn't, IMHO, supported by facts.

> a benevolant dictator

I think the Kurds in particular will take issue with such a description.

Is there any indication that the coup of to try to restore secularism, and not instigated by Gulen and his followers? I ask this sincerely because a couple of my very educated Turkish friends in the west do think Gulen was behind the coup attempt in some form or the other.

My personal view is that Gulen was involved with the coup, but possibly jocobin nationalist/kemalist fractions in the army was also in the mix.

I'm not saying that they weren't legitimate. I have no information one way or the other. But if the regime wished to exploit the failed coup for political reasons, faked statements are one standard way to do that.

A stadium full of Gulen supporters cheering for Erdogan, just 4 years ago.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP7r0U8mfg

Erdogan's speech; "I wish Gulen was here with us today"

Excellent, super analysis of recent Turkish history. I am speechless.

As usual, Turkish politics is all about nuance. First of all, a coup benefits no one - previous coups perhaps brought short term "stability", but at the cost of the lives of many people jailed and executed without due process, and a lack of respect for the rule of law. They were pyrrhic victories at best, and set the stage for the current mass polarization of "secularists" and "islamists" that is causing so much unrest and strife. Back in the day, it also was "communists" once. Coups are not good or right, regardless of who they're orchestrated by. Lest you think

Lest you think the coups were mostly harmless, some examples of what happened were widespread (thousands) torture and arbitrary jailing, capital punishment, public hangings, repression of freedom of speech and books, purging of dissenting opinion from universities and government, special courts created to swiftly punish any opposition, repression of trade unions are just some of the results. Examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Turkish_military_memorand... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

-----

Having said that, to the actual point: The right-wing secular generals have been dismantled for the most part anyway. The prevailing theory is that the coup might have come from the supporters of Fettullah Gulen, who's for some reason seen as a harmless moderate in the West, but in Turkey he's not. It's never mentioned, for example, that his organization in Turkey runs "houses of light" (isik evleri) which serve as alternate housing for students who can't afford proper housing, where young children are gently groomed and selected for religious coercion and indoctrination, to then join the organization for life. They're given proper educations, jobs, business connections, in return for their service of course. Perhaps the Gulen schools in the US don't engage in that, probably because they know that won't fly there, and Gulen is relying on the US's protection against the Turkish government. Also not mentioned is that they worked with the Erdogan government when it was dismantling supporters of secularity from branches of government. What makes you think that these people would make for a better leadership than the current one?

More about Gulen recently:

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/thinking-gulen-is-a-peacefu...

and also

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/07/turkey-cou...

Don't get me wrong, I don't like Erdogan and his group one bit, but a coup would not have been better by any measure.

And here is the problem that I personally have, it could be that the whole organisation is like Scientology, Opus Dei or they spend their evenings with prosecuting chickens, but regarding the coup the world still need to see some solid evidence. Where is the proof and preferably something that has more value than Erdogan's word for it.

It doesn't matter if somebody is a not a nice person. When there isn't any evidence of a crime you don't prosecute them, simple as that. Also don't tell me that of all that is going on after the coup, that these are the results of proper investigations or a good functioning justice system.

Meanwhile in this European country we are confronted by Turkish (even third generation) people that threatening other Turkish people, arson or destruction against buildings of people they clearly don't like and that mainly because some egomaniac in a country far away is throwing blind accusations like there is no tomorrow.

We are even at the point that the Turkish embassy is calling all people to report anybody who "insults" Erdogan, because the world clearly needs more LOTR comparisons or poems. Hell, this week the president of this region needed to make the comparison with nazi's because that was the last time we were confronted with a foreign power trying to meddle in our local affairs. In the end the ambassador needed to apologize, but we are seeing more and more of those incidents.

I agree completely with your sentiment regarding conviction without proof, but want to comment on this thought one part for a second, in isolation from the rest of the discussion. First of all, that the world doesn't see evidence on gulen's shady dealings or extreme islamist tendencies at all is a measure of the world's own ignorance. I don't mean this in an accusatory way - it's not your fault.

Outside observers, especially those who do not understand Turkish, are excluded from huge swathes of news, discussion, court cases and information. What you're getting is the gist. It's second hand information at best, and the foreign media often gets it wrong, misses historic context, or glosses over the nuances.

Just like all the people here (and in western news organizations) who didn't know Gulen existed up until very recently - an deficiency in knowledge so huge that it should scare you away (and perhaps disqualify you) from holding a strong opinion on Turkish politics immediately.

So when outsiders ask for "evidence" - really they're asking for a New York Times / Economist / Wall Street Journal / Foreign Policy op-ed. Because that's considered a respectable news organization, but Turkish sources aren't considered respectable, never mind that they probably share most of their sources on Turkish news.

So, demands for "solid evidence" in this sense are a measure of privilege that's so monumental that people don't even realize they're subject to it.

So when I try to make an argument with someone who isn't from Turkey, the best I can do is point to sources like these, which all have surface-level milquetoast reports on gulen, painting him a "reclusive cleric", an islamic scholar and "supporter of interfaith dialogue" - all true to some degree, but definitely not the whole story.

---

As a more concrete example, let's look at the progression of Gulen profiles in the nyt over the years:

2000 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/25/world/turkey-assails-a-rev... 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/asia/04islam.html 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/12iht-gulen.html 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/middleeast/turkey-fe... 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/us/fethullah-gulen-turkey-... 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/world/europe/fethullah-gul...

It's amazing to see how the language and the detail in the account of his activities change across the years. The 2000 article gets the part about the prosecution, but misses the point on Gulen completely. Nor a single bad thing about him. Anyway, recently, they gave the soapbox to gulen himself twice:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/opinion/fethullah-gulen-tu... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/opinion/fethullah-gulen-i-...

Luckily, they also gave a smaller soapbox to Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist, who presents many great counterarguments:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/opinion/who-was-behind-the...

Again, I don't think this is some conspiracy, but just ignorance. The 2000 article was ignorant of basic, common knowledge in Turkish politics. The more recent ones are less ignorant.

---

Of course this is changing: for example here's a 2014 article from the Carnegie Endowment, which points fingers to shady activities but doesn't make accusations about islamism: http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/02/04/g-len-movement-and-t...

Turkish sources are also starting to publish english language news - here's an analysis of the Gulen movement through wikileaks cables:

http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014/04/04/cia-fbi-divide...

Here are some of the actual cables - I hope these are considered reliable to draw your own conclusions from:

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/05ISTANBUL1336_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09ASHGABAT491_a.html

See Centicosm's comment here for another well researched article:

http://www.meforum.org/2045/fethullah-gulens-grand-ambition

It also comes from the Middle East Forum which is a conservative think tank, so take that as you will. But this is what I mean - they have a huge incentive to badmouth islam, so they actually bother to engage in research. Impressively, most of the sources on the bottom are Turkish language sources.

---

Anyway, my point isn't about gulen, but the attitude and the cultural notion that facts exist when they exist in the western media, and anything else is unreliable conspiracy theories and bunk. And this coming from people who barely knew Gulen - a central figure in Turkish politics - a few months ago.

Yes, things do suck in Turkey, and are nonfunctional in many ways. Many things are wrong, many sources are unreliable and corrupt, but we're not completely stupid either, and the sneering sense of superiority I so often encounter is counterproductive, surprising and tiring.

What do you think about press being cleaned ? in the west it's seen negatively obviously, but is there other details that may explain, like in the Gulen movement case, the decision ?

Is Erdogan feeding the people populist lies in order to rally them ? Some people have said he's starting to look like Germany pre WW2 politic style.

Well, yeah - at least in the eyes of my social circle, but I doubt that he'd gather so much influence if everyone thought the same.

> What do you think about press being cleaned ? in the west it's seen negatively obviously, but is there other details that may explain, like in the Gulen movement case, the decision ?

Well, I have very mixed feelings.

Someone made a point that a lot more people were complicit in the nazi atrocities than were indicted in the Nuremberg trials, and that makes sense. So the ones directly involved with the coup plot, yes, absolutely prosecute and punish them swiftly. The rest is trickier.

Obviously Gulen and his supporters need to be dealt with. But how can we be sure that the trials will be fair and equitable, and not a mockery of the justice system, like the Sledgehammer case that Erdogan participated in (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sledgehammer_(coup_plan) )? How does a government prosecute thousands upon thousands when its courts and prosecutors can barely hold under the current case load?

How can we ensure that the tens of thousands accused are actually guilty? Of course a trial is done to test exactly this, but there is no right to a speedy trial in Turkey, and people routinely die in detention waiting for their court date. How many are genuinely suspected to be guilty rather than merely detractors who are being conveniently removed? They've done it before, and they'll do it again. This makes me extremely uncomfortable, because who's next?

Especially with the press, I think it's important to preserve free and unrestricted speech. But it's also true that that ship long sailed under Erdogan, when news organizations would get fiscally investigated if they dissented loudly. So given that I don't think it'll improve, should the Gulenist reporters go to jail? Perhaps - if their only crime is to write articles supporting backwards views, then probably not. I'd rather them ousted and judged in the court of public opinion.

So, mixed feelings and no good answers.

> Is Erdogan feeding the people populist lies in order to rally them ?

That's the kicker - he doesn't have to. This situation benefits him greatly, and fell conveniently on his lap. Some people of course accuse him of organizing the coup as a false flag, but I think that's too much of a conspiracy. All he'd have to do would be to notice it a tiny bit in advance, prepare for it, and allow it to happen. Or even just get lucky enough to narrowly escape, but then make use of the situation fully.

> allow it to happen

Yeah passively playing the victim seems to be more efficient.

Well, it's unclear. Of course the Erdogan government claims they are, but we don't know - there could be a lot of innocent people in there too. And that's exactly the issue and source of contention.

1960 and 1980: Old school military colonel - generals. They thought they should show these puny civilians who the real boss was, hanged a few people including a prime minister, oppressed free speech and media.

1998 was different, it was a half coup, they disbanded government, created a huge vacuum of authority, caused the biggest economical depression in Turkish history, oppressed majority of people (Those pesky conservative people, why do they want to go to university?)

2016: They failed miserably regardless of their motivation. I hope this would be a lesson to them, Turks had enough of this crap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Turkish_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Turkish_military_memorand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Turkish_military_memorand...

>Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar, testifying as a plaintiff to Ankara prosecutors, said while he was held hostage by pro-coup soldiers, Gen. Hakan Evrim, the commander of a main jet base, asked him to speak with Gulen.

>"Hakan Evrim said they could put me on phone with Fethullah Gulen, who he described as their 'opinion leader'," Akar said.

>"But I refused the offer at once."

http://www.trtworld.com/turkey/turkish-top-general-was-told-...

One of the main coup guys having a go at Akar was Gen. Mehmet Dişli who "initially ordered Akar to sign the declaration and read it out to the Turkish public. Facing Akar’s firm rejection, Dişli held Akar at gunpoint and attempted to physically force him to comply with the order by cinching a belt around his neck, the sources claimed. " http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/chief-of-staff-held-at-gunp...

Mehmet Dişli "happens to be the brother of Saban Dişli, a former vice president of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Saban is a close confidant of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan." http://www.gagrule.net/turkey-the-alleged-coup-leaders-two-s...

Some more on that stuff here https://www.quora.com/Who-is-behind-the-coup-attempt-in-Turk...

What kind of coup has a fighter jet with the President's plane in its sights, and then doesn't shoot it down, and instead allows it to land? What kind of coup doesn't bother actually capturing the leaders, and instead goes and captures a bridge? What kind of coup ignores the leaders but then shoots at protesters from helicopters? What kind of coup shoots at an empty parliament building?

If this was a coup, it was the most incompetent coup ever conducted in the history of the world. Turkey has had a bunch of coups over the years, and none of them looked anything like this one. When you want to conduct a coup, you do it in the middle of the night and you capture the nation's top political leadership first and foremost, and you definitely do not harm civilians.

The attempt was real. It was actually planned pretty well. Their plans were exposed. They panicked, couldn't really follow through with all their plans. Generals that weren't part of the coup took the chain of command pretty fast to stop the attempt.

1) Parliament building was not empty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM_Qt55kJVk

2) Apparently there were other jets that were actually following Erdogan's plane

3) They kidnapped almost all high ranked military personnel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--bCuv6G5I0. The ones that escaped actually took back the chain of command and was able to stop the attempt.

4) Does anything look staged in these videos; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTEbX7kvZ6E or this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkfIbfnZt_Y. Some of these people on the floor are 50-60 year old generals. What is their role in your scenario?

A possible friendly general is Mehmet Dişli, Erdogan's friends brother. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-eas...

It would have been hard for a real coup to be as damaging as more time with Erdogan will be. It'll look like Syria in a year or two. We might as well just remove the name Turkey from the map and wait until the flames die out.