Woah. You praise Erdogan's economic policy but give absolutely no credit to Kemal for his reforms? At all? They had no benefit? I mean that's just crazy.
Sorry mate, it seems you're very much biased because of your religion.
Turkey
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Sorry mate, it seems you're very much biased because of your religion.
All right, thanks. Well written & informative post by the way, appreciate that.
One of the organizers is apparently the head of Turkish Air Force. So it seems that there were really high persons involved in the coup, not only a few generals going rogue.
Heh, good analogy.
US have suspended all operations in Syria from Turkey.
You're having an absolute laugh if you're suggesting the great powers had no bearing on the political direction of the Turkish Republic after their war of independence whether directly (the demarcation of borders) or indirectly, the lack of troops on the ground doesn't preclude the presence of diplomats in the Sublime Porte.
Whilst it is true that Ataturk was no angel to religious Anatolians, the bolded part there is utter, utter bullshit. I apologise for being rude but I do know what I'm talking about. My master's dissertation was about Kemalist reforms; and girlfriend is Turkish!
Actually he's basically correct. It didn't matter who was present at the Porte, since Kemal made Ankara the new capital. Kemal didn't take direction from any outsiders. Here's a basic outline of what happened.
At the end of 1918, Istanbul and the Ottoman government, including the Sultan, were controlled by the allies (basically, the British), who seemed to have the destiny of the whole of Anatolia in their hands to do with as they pleased (as they would do in the Levant and Iraq). In the Treaty of Sevres (see the big map I posted a page or two back) the allies decided to grant self-determination in Anatolia to the Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds (the latter to be under some kind of European protectorate), leaving 'Turkey' as a rump state in central Anatolia with Istanbul and the Staits under international control. Other zones in Anatolia were to be given to Italy and French. Essentially, it was a 'victor(s) take the spoils' arrangement.
While all this was happening (1918-1920), Kemal had fled Istanbul to eastern Anatolia to organize Turkish resistance to all this. The sultan, under British pressure, dismissed him from the armed forces, but most Turks recognized the sultan was no better than a British puppet at this stage and they rallied to Kemal's cause, and the movement eventually organized the Grand National Assembly and National Pact, where they designated Turkey's frontiers to be those non-Arab regions of the what was left of the empire with a Turkish majority - regions which were now occupied by European, Greek, and Armenian forces, with the Greeks (with allied support) pushing inland from the west coast to occupy more and more of Anatolia. Kemal invaded the Armenian state, and split it with the Bolsheviks, before ousting the French and Italians, and eventually expelling the Greek forces (along with over a million Turkish-speaking Christians).
Kemal made Ankara the capital of the new Turkey, and he won recognition from the European powers (formalized in the Treaty of Lausanne), forcing the British out of Istanbul and fulfilling the territorial claims of the National Pact, with the exception of Iskenderun (modern-day Hatay Province which the Turks took from Syria in 1939) and Mosul (which the Turks still claim to this day).
So Kemal's establishment of the Turkish Republic was carried out in defiance of the powers, and he won due to his military expertise, the powers' post-war fatigue, and his pragmatism (he made no claims to the Arab lands or the Turkish lands east of Anatolia). His ideological orientation was pro-Western, but that was the result of trends that had been taking place in the Ottoman Empire for over half a century, it was never due to the pressure of foreign powers.
Skertel signed for Fenerbache > Turkey in revolt.
Can someone teach the military in turkey for them to succeed they need at least some of the high rank officers with some weight and then they need to arrest/kill the president right in the beginning.
The perspective of a proper Turkey expert:
YES!!! War against US
What you and @Synco are seeing as a benefit, I see as a negative. I respect that we have a difference of opinion on the issue, and am happy to agree to disagree. Ataturk's legacy is one that is very much tainted by suppression of Islamic thought and allowing a military to have an undue influence upon the political system. His reforms were all well and good, but my point wasn't about them, it was his suppression of religious thought in the country.
As a Muslim, I see Ataturk as a suppressor and a dictator, who targeted the religious poor and was almost pathologic in his crusade against the role of Islam in public life in Turkey. He succeeded in his aims during his lifetime, and his legacy was intact for many years after it but it must surely grate all these Kemalists that the one leader to come up and really put Turkey on the map after Ataturk, was an Islamist.
And it's probably safe to say that you hold similar views vis-a-vis Erdogan, and that's fine. We e have different priorities and beliefs, and at the end of the day we'rsat on our arses from the comforts of our own home discussing what close to 80m people are living through right now. So, there's no need to get worked up, it's just the internet mate
I'm aware of everything you've stated 2cent, I'm not denying Kemals military expertise nor the events of the war but the treaty of Lausanne wasn't a unilateral declaration with one signatory, rather negotiations took place with a consensus reached by all the parties. Kemal obviously had The upper hand in negotiations but to deny any influence from the great powers on his decsions is being being naive. A lot of things happened in the 1920s but the Great Nations giving up influence in the lands of Byzantium while gaining it after 700 years isn't one if them.
So what did Kemal give up in the negotiations?
I don't think he gave up anything mate, he got what he wanted but his reformation of the state was influenced by other powers, don't take that to mean at the barrel of a gun though because influence can be soft as well as hard.
@2cents I like you bro and I know that you know what you're talking about so do you agree that the dissolution of the Caliphate was a massive feck up in regards to the current vacuum in today's religious authority?
I agree it was influenced by other powers, though not in the same way you seem to. Take his abolition of the caliphate - one of the factors that persuaded him to finally go through with it (he might have been willing to leave the caliph as a figure-head, a kind of Muslim pope but under the thumb of the government) was that leading members of the Khilafat Movement kept pestering him to restore the caliph to his former power. In December 1923 Agha Khan and Syed Ameer Ali even wrote him an open letter basically demanding it - Kemal took this as foreign (British) interference in strictly Turkish affairs, and abolished the caliphate altogether as a kind of f/u to Indian Muslims for, as he saw it, trying to undermine Turkish sovereignty in the interests of Britain.
But I believe Kemal's pro-Western convictions were built up over the course of his life training in the Ottoman military, in the age of Ottoman reform and military defeat. They were his own genuine convictions.
Not really. The caliphate was practically dead anyway since the Young Turk revolution in 1908. During the war it was just a symbol for the Turks to try and win Muslim support, and for non-Turkish Muslims to hang on to a sense of identity during a period of upheaval and uncertainty. After the war it became an albatross around Kemal's neck as he attempted to build a country out of the ruins of Anatolia, and the Arabs wasted lots of time arguing among themselves over who should be the next caliph when they should have been organizing together against the imperialists.
On the question of religious authority today, I get that the fall of the caliphate has become a symbol for Muslims of their political weakness on the international stage. But I think the caliphate that modern Muslims hanker after is a nostalgic myth, one that never really existed in history, and the pan-Islamic yearning for it today is a substitute for real political engagement. The idea that Muslims need to be politically united to be strong doesn't hold up in history, and I think that formally tying Islam to the modern state with all its cynical politics is potentially extremely damaging for Islam as a faith, as it would suggest the idea that The Caliphate = Islam, meaning anything that benefits the state benefits Islam, even if it goes against Islamic doctrine! This is something the Iranians have debated since their revolution, Khamenei even questioned Khomeini on it after the Iran-Iraq war, and Khomeini confirmed the primacy of state interests (see http://irandataportal.syr.edu/admon...faqihs-authority-and-the-course-of-its-stages).
I think that, in history, Islamic civilization was strong when Muslims had a secure and confident sense of what exactly it meant to be a Muslim, with all its complexities and even contradictions, and that while at times political unity resulted (in part) from this sense, it was never a precondition for it (of course, Muslims haven't been politically united under one state since 750 AD). This sense wasn't tied to the fortunes of the caliphate, or to the shari'a, but from a higher notion of God and belief in the common destiny of the umma. Ibn Battuta for example traveled the world of Islam through a dozen or more different political entities while always feeling, at some level, at home.
The one glaring hole in my theory is that the Mongols conquered the Islamic world at a moment of political fragmentation, but even or especially here we see that the strength of Islam is not dependent on politics, since the Mongols ultimately converted and laid the basis for the great Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires, a period when Islamic civilization was never stronger, but had no caliphate (the Ottomans only started making serious claims to the caliphate in the late 1700s - before that, both them and the Mughals had embraced it as a legitimating title, but didn't invest it with any political significance).
I think the impact of Western military, economic and especially cultural dominance caused Muslims to question the very basis of what it meant to be a Muslim, and has produced the free-for-all and lack of central authority we see today - this all happened well in advance of the abolition of the caliphate. This is not unique to Muslims, the rise of the West posed the same questions for the Chinese, Russians, Hindus, and everyone else, and everyone has struggled to come to terms with it in one way or another. The resurrection of the caliphate today won't solve the problem for Muslims, it will only come about after they have resolved the questions among themselves.
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Quality answer.
I think that there was still a chance to create a figurehead caliph though, I mean the Roman question was answered pretty well was it not?
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What you and @Synco are seeing as a benefit, I see as a negative. I respect that we have a difference of opinion on the issue, and am happy to agree to disagree. Ataturk's legacy is one that is very much tainted by suppression of Islamic thought and allowing a military to have an undue influence upon the political system. His reforms were all well and good, but my point wasn't about them, it was his suppression of religious thought in the country.
As a Muslim, I see Ataturk as a suppressor and a dictator, who targeted the religious poor and was almost pathologic in his crusade against the role of Islam in public life in Turkey. He succeeded in his aims during his lifetime, and his legacy was intact for many years after it but it must surely grate all these Kemalists that the one leader to come up and really put Turkey on the map after Ataturk, was an Islamist.
And it's probably safe to say that you hold similar views vis-a-vis Erdogan, and that's fine. We e have different priorities and beliefs, and at the end of the day we'rsat on our arses from the comforts of our own home discussing what close to 80m people are living through right now. So, there's no need to get worked up, it's just the internet mate
Fair enough but I think you're missing the point. Unlike many in Turkey who basically worship Ataturk, I'm of the opinion that he was indeed an oppressive leader in many respects; but to say that his reforms did not bring about any positive changes in Turkey, or in your words 'no tangible benefits for the people', is beyond ridiculous.
On the bolded part: no, I don't hold similar views towards Erdogan. Despite the norm, it's a lazy assumption to say anyone who thinks of Ataturk's reforms as being overall a positive is automatically anti-Erdogan. If anything, his descend towards authoritarianism is reminiscent to that of Ataturk. Still, that doesn't change the fact that Erdogan has brought about many positive changes - the same way Ataturk did with his reforms.
It's no use painting the whole secularist/Islamist power struggle in Turkey as a black and white issue. There are many, many nuances that need to be considered.
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So it now turns out only a couple of thousand soldiers took part. Not even 1% of the Turkey army.
Media really did hype it up a lot, considering how they were making out what a momentous attempted coup this was during the first few hours.
Media really did hype it up a lot, considering how they were making out what a momentous attempted coup this was during the first few hours.
I think that might be the way a lot of coups actually play out, with the idea that the rank-and-file will fall into line once they suss which way the wind is blowing. But this looks more like a desperate act by a faction which felt like it had little to lose. There's a lot of stuff going to come out, but we might never known the important details.
There are reports of 2,700 judges being 'purged'. Were the judges part of the coup, or is Erdogon just taking advantage of the situation to justify a preconceived political move?
Yeah, I guess so.
If the coup had managed to arrest Erdogan, PM and other leaders while at the same time keeping the situation calmer, then I guess that many other army fractions might have joined the coup. As it was, the coup failed by not managing to do so, and ironically, because of Erdogan's use of social media.
I think that the coup was doomed to fail regardless. It is a decade too late for any coup in Turkey to be successful, and I guess that now, Erdogan controls a large part of army which essentially makes impossible for a coup to be successful (and at the same time to not start a civil war). Turkey will change their leader when Erdogan dies or in an extreme case if they go into a big economical recession (and if that happens, people might have less love for Erdogan).
I think that as long as he can keep the economy strong, he'll lead. Sure, he is an evil dictator, but at the end of the day economy rules. And he has the rural religious people regardless, so all he needs to do now is keep economy ok, not go full Wahhabi, and arrest whoever he wants which might threaten him.
Likely the second. After all, how 35% of the judges in the entire country can be involved in a military-based coup, and how did the government found it that fast.
You don't need a mass of the army for a succesful coup. South Koreas fourth republic fell because the ranking member of the secret service decided to assassinate the president and instigate a coup, and the ranking general soon saw an opportunity to rise to power. The army just fell in line when the general told them to.
The latter.
There are some credible reports that the government had a planned purge of Gulenists in the military and other areas (such as the judiciary) lined up, and that this 'coup' attempt was a desperate attempt to pre-empt it. That would explain the government's apparent readiness with these lists of names, not to mention the farcical planning of the rebels.
Indeed, but at the same time, you probably need more than what they had yesterday (especially when it comes to removing a highly popular president like Erdogan).
As far as it is understood, the highest profile officer, was a four star ex-commander of Air Force, and in addition have been another 4 generals/admirals and 30 or so colonels. Turkish army has around 350 generals/admirals, and many of them were higher ranked than the coup leader. I guess, that at the very worst case, you need to have some of the army leaders there.
Yesterday, all main leaders of army bar one were on Erdogan's side. It was doomed to fail before it started.
Park was also highly popular, but it still only took a single person with a gun to bring him down. If the first thing this coup had done was assassinate Erdogan it would have given the ranking generals something to think about.
Probably. With Davotoglu out of the scene, and with the prime minister being essentially a yes-man who can't think of itself, with some luck it might have been the end of that party.
On the other side, military coups aren't something to be exited about.
Very true. And one of the worst things imaginable was a failed military coup, as we will likely see.
It's one of those inevitable dilemmas concerning political change in today's Middle East (I for once include Turkey here). With the possible exception of Kurdish self-governance, I simply can't see any half-decent (let alone progressive) faction powerful enough to have a decent say in how things go in the foreseeable future. The outcome of the "Arab Spring" and the Gezi protests was a definitive proof of that, sadly.
So now it mostly boils down to the question of the lesser evil. Erdogan/AKP or the Turkish military? Mursi or el-Sisi in Egypt? Al-Nusra and similar rebel groups or Assad/Hizbollah/Iran in Syria? NATO airstrikes to weaken ISIS or not? Ugly choices all over, although sometimes they have to be made regardless.
Everything you've ever wanted to know about Fethullah Gulen, Turkey's most controversial cleric
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...ric-opposition-erdogan-akp.html#ixzz4Ebidrkk8
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...ric-opposition-erdogan-akp.html#ixzz4Ebidrkk8
And if that doesn't concern the public there then they're a bunch of idiots. In no sane country are 2700 judges purged overnight.
Agreed. Many coups were instigated and organized by a minority of the army (some not even senior officers). In all of the successful coups, the reigning president was captured and imprisoned or executed. Once the head is secured, the rest of the army and country follows, barring severe schisms in the population. fecking amateurs here though.
Yeah there were a few candidates at the time, but they were all tainted by association with the European powers, with the possible exception of the Amir of Afghanistan (even the Nizam of Hyderabad touted himself around a bit). Hard to know how it might have worked, since it wouldn't have had a firm basis in tradition. In any case, it was exactly what the British were pushing for, since they thought they could control it and so maintain a level of authority over their own Muslim population, Britain being the greatest Muslim power in the world at the time (and perhaps in history) in terms of population. This is why they basically offered the caliphate to the Sharif of Mecca. He, however, understood the caliphate in the traditional sense to mean an empire of some sorts, which is why the British soon abandoned him. He formally announced himself caliph anyway in 1924, right after Ataturk's abolition, but the Saudis ousted him not long after. An interesting and forgotten episode.
Not forgotten by all.
http://abcnews.go.com/International...se-highest-force-protection/story?id=40634670
U.S. troops at Turkey’s Incirlik air base were at the highest force protection level, known as "condition Delta," after power was cut off at the base and the Turkish government closed the airspace around the site in the hours following a foiled military coup attempt, a U.S. official told ABC News today.
Turkish officials told ABC News they believe Turkish planes docked at Incirlik Air Base took part in Friday night's coup attempt, which is why the airspace is locked down.
[...]
That's quite a ballsy move cutting power and surrounding a base that houses nuclear devices belonging to an ally of yours.
U.S. troops at Turkey’s Incirlik air base were at the highest force protection level, known as "condition Delta," after power was cut off at the base and the Turkish government closed the airspace around the site in the hours following a foiled military coup attempt, a U.S. official told ABC News today.
Turkish officials told ABC News they believe Turkish planes docked at Incirlik Air Base took part in Friday night's coup attempt, which is why the airspace is locked down.
[...]
That's quite a ballsy move cutting power and surrounding a base that houses nuclear devices belonging to an ally of yours.
They wouldn't dare go anywhere near those nukes.
All this democracy crap Western politicians are spouting...what's democratic about imprisoning journalists? What's democratic about purging judges?
Precisely. The media seems to make out that before all this Erdogan was this democratic beacon of hope in the Middle East.
Yet its conveniently forgotten he has:
- Shut down opposition media outlets
- Imprisoned and magically made diseapper dissenting journalists
- Has given himself executive powers in the ceremonial role of President and disregarded political neutrality
- Built himself a feckin Palace
- Aligned himself with extremist elements in Syria
- Ran a brutal campaign that has killed scores of Kurds
The man has is an egomaniac with a sultan complex who's been slowly chipping away at the democratic fabric of his country, couple that to his Islamist roots and its not hard to see why he's a disaster waiting to happen. Not saying a coup would have been the solution to this, but to make out he's Turkey's democratic champion is nonsense.