Analysis: attempted coup puts liberals in difficult position

Turkish liberals now find themselves in a deeply troubled position following Friday night’s failed military coup.

For years, the AK party and Recep Tayyip Erdogan as prime minister and now president have worked to wipe out various avenues of free speech and democracy by closing down independent and liberal-orientated newspapers and television outlets, restricted the sale of alcohol and encouraged Turks to make Islam a mainstay of their daily lives.

Such moves, which have sought to shut down important facets of their personal and national identities, have led secular and western-minded Turks to loathe what president Erdogan and the AK party stand for, even as millions of Turks, as evidenced by the huge numbers of people who took to the streets Friday night to help prevent the coup, vehemently support the president.

But Turkey’s long history of military rule and coups costing of thousands of lives means that liberals and secularists know military involvement in politics leads to a destablised country, and are an opposite of the democratic principles they themselves embody.

Even some of Erdogan’s biggest critics, including opposition politicians from a Kurdish-tied party whose members are expected to lose their parliamentary immunity as a result of a government crackdown enforced this year, have already come out condemning the attempted coup.

Elif, an architect who asked not to be fully identified, says that no coup is a good idea “even if the government is not loved by most”.

“But this feels very staged, things don’t make sense. The only one who seems will benefit from this is Erdogan and his government,” she said.

“What kind of a military starts a coup by randomly blocking off the streets and taking over TV headquarters while on live broadcast, without first taking control of any government institution or high ranking official?”

Turkey’s military, a bedrock of Kemalist secularism, once enjoyed almost free reign over the country’s political rulers.

For decades up until the 1990s, political parties and leaders were regularly toppled by army generals when the latter felt that politicians veered too close to religious piety or were percieved to be too inept to govern. Since the mid 2000s, however, the rise of Mr Erdogan and the AK Party have sidelined the role of the military in Turkey's political landscape.

In the immediate aftermath of the failed coup, support for it seems thin on the ground, even among the president’s critics.

"As far as I could see, there was no one supporting this coup, not in the liberals or any other group," said Ahmet Sabanci, a writer and journalist.

“Of course there was sceptics (thinking it was a ‘staged coup’) or many people thought that the AK party and Erdogan might use this situation to gain more power or as an excuse for a more authoritarian stance but none of this means they were supporting this coup or any kind of. There was practically no one supporting or showing any sympathy for this coup attempt.”

Others criticised the president's late night calls for people to take to the streets to stop the rebel soldiers, and that democracy in Turkey will suffer most because of yesterday's events.

“The main security threat was due to the crazy fundamentalist people Erdogan urged to come out on the streets, supported by jihad prayers coming from the mosques all night,” said architect Elif.

“Democracy is based on seperation of powers, (and) this will most likely end in Erdogan in full power, so no, this won’t help democracy.”