Turkey – Why a civilian coup could follow – Süddeutsche.de

The attempted coup by the military in Turkey strengthens Erdogan power – and weakens the country.

Comment by Christiane Schlötzer

There are Turks who rejoiced when they heard of a military coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday night. Loud shouts of joy they dared not only an inward jubilation because already been publicly flaunted opposition to this president could be dangerous. How much frustration with Erdoğan and his last increasingly authoritarian policies must be when a military coup triggers such a relief feelings? And this by no means with close friends of generals, but in people who despair of the state of Turkish democracy? But

The secret elation did not last long. The coup leaders quickly made it clear that they think of more democracy now nothing. They bombed the parliament in Ankara. On Saturday, the deputies met then the wounded “House of the People”. While still lay the debris in the aisles, the parliamentarians showed no such agreement for years. From Islamic AKP on the CHP, which sees itself as the guardian of the Republic, to the Kurds: All condemned the attempted coup – and its author as a “gang” and “terrorist”

So. the rebels have reached with their audacious, highly dangerous, amateurish action: the Turkish policy is there united, where recently was with great bitterness and sometimes fought with fists. That’s the good. But the bad comes at once. In the attempted military coup now could follow a kind of civilian coup. Evil sign there already.

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım threatens to reintroduce the death penalty for the putschists. Thus the recently for Premier doctorate Erdoğan close friend of the president proves agitators in an already charged situation. The death penalty was abolished in Turkey under pressure from the EU and the Turkish people after the first victory of the AKP for wartime. In the coup eight practicing in Istanbul some citizens already vigilantism, at least one soldier is intended to have been killed, others have been preserved only with difficulty by the police in front of a raging mob.

The threat of the death penalty reminds darkest times in Turkey: the military coup of September 12, 1980. of all the interventions of the military in Turkish politics that had the most terrible and longest episodes. Thousands disappeared then in prisons, tortured, 50 death sentences were carried out. Especially Kurds were radicalized in the notorious prison of Diyarbakir ordered. Intellectuals were chased out of the country, a loss that is felt today. The generals then promoted religious education in schools, because they thought, so to drive left ideas. And they wrote the still valid authoritarian constitution that Erdoğan makes now exploited.

By Sunday thousands army personnel were arrested as a possible coup. The chief of staff was not there, that distinguishes the failed coup by the drama of 1980. But at the Arrestierten it is not also a few representatives of lower ranks. There are commanders including, officers, generals. These two members of the Constitutional Court, other senior judges, also one-fifth of all the judges of his offices was relieved.

All of them should belong to the Gülen movement, a religious brotherhood, listening to the preacher Fethullah Gülen, who in US exile lives. This former companions makes Erdoğan since 2013 almost all responsible for what scrapes on his image. Corruption allegations, critical media, competition for donations million and religious fervor

The slogan of the putschists sounds more like a Ataturk formula

From the outside the partly absurd competition is hard to see through. The preacher in Pennsylvania denies any involvement in the coup. Its adherents it was last not even managed to set up his own party in Turkey. The slogan of the rebels ( “peace in the country”) sounds more like a Ataturk formula and thus the old, secular coup tradition. For this also speaks the significant participation of the Air Force, which is considered the stronghold of Kemalism.

But nothing is impossible, and the uncertainty and the fears of many Turks are more likely to grow than diminish. There are fears of the unpredictable, in a witch hunt, the persecution of critics of the government, before a permanent state of emergency, a revolution from above.

Erdoğan has now referred the coup attempt as a “gift from God”. Even given the many dead that is a very strange expression. But he reveals what the president has understood immediately: This attack on his power has its power only strengthened

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