...The Turkish regime has been swinging dangerously between an extreme version of right-wing Bonopartism and
(what I have recently called) neo-fascism over the last few years. Bonopartism is a top-down dictatorship that only occasionally deploys mass action. Bonopartist masses are disorganised and do not have a coherent ideology. Fascist regimes, by contrast, depend on the masses more organically. Their masses are organised and are more ideologically in tune with the regime.
Compared with the classical fascist regimes, inter-war Italy and Germany, the Turkish regime had a much more troubled relation with its (Islamist) civic roots (the Erdoğan government publicly disowned Islamism in its first few years). Yet the new regime gradually re-incorporated and re-mobilised the masses and civic circles it had previously demobilised.
In the last couple of months, the Turkish regime had been shifting once again in a Bonapartist direction, de-emphasising mass mobilisation. It was also incorporating elements of the third entrenched form of modern authoritarianism (military dictatorship): especially after the pro-Kurdish HDP’s election victory in June 2015, Erdoğan started to relentlessly utilise the military against opponents. But now, given the pro-regime numbers on the streets (and soldiers once again declared an enemy of the nation), the fascistic actors within the regime have the opportunity to sustain mass mobilisation and take the country in a more totalitarian direction. As of yet, they have not squandered this chance.
After president Erdoğan’s invitation to people to flood into the streets, and face down the military rebels, mosques across the country also urged citizens to thwart the coup. In city centres, provincial towns, and inner cities, people climbed onto tanks clutching Turkish flags. The captured photography and video are likely to become as iconic as images of tank-blocking Chinese students in Tiananmen Square.
But these masses have done much, much more. They have attacked the pro-Kurdish party HDP (which has nothing to do with the coup attempt) in several towns. They have harassed alcohol consumers. Several clashes have broken out in Alevi (a religious minority) neighbourhoods and towns. This is the dark side of what has been celebrated by some as the democratic defence of the regime by the people.
This new ‘anti-militarist’ mass mobilisation in Turkey has been building up (as counter-revolt) ever since the anti-government Gezi protests in 2013, targeting minorities, alcohol consumers, and all kinds of opposition, as much as military personnel. In October 2015, close to 100 pro-Kurdish activists in Ankara were massacred in an ISIS-linked bombing. Witnesses saw police deploying tear-gas against survivors, and blocking ambulances trying to reach the injured. That tragedy is now coupled with mass action against the dead: during
the recent anti-coup celebrations, ‘pro-democracy’ masses destroyed a monument to the Ankara victims. There is no question about where the sympathy of
these masses lie.
Most of the pessimistic predictions about the aftermath of the failed coup have focused on how it will fulfil Erdoğan’s desire for an omnipotent presidency. The danger that awaits Turkey is much greater than that.
