Let me provide you with a few examples to unprecedented
nature of things in Turkey. The most powerful countries attacked Turks’ land
land during World War I as a joint force and dissolved their army, but Turks
formed an army out of villagers and students and got their freedom back. After
the establishment of the new secular regime, ordinary citizens were banned from
practicing their religion in the original language but they changed it when the
ruling elites, Kemalists, thought these ‘illeterate’ people were vulnerable at
a time when they were all uneducated and at their weakest. Then came the coups
in 1960, in which the then Prime Minister, Adnan Menderes was hung by military
junta unjustly, and in 1971. These were followed by the 1980 Military coup
d’état in an effort to restore order and to end the armed conflict between
right-wing and left-wing groups. There is now strong evidence that the military
was actively adopting a strategy back then and was manipulating both groups to
create instability in order to overthrow the government and to gain power. The
violence between the two groups abruptly stopped the day after the coup in a
surprising way!
During those traumatic days, people moved Turgut Ozal and
his Motherland Party to victory during elections despite pressure from the
military. Ozal then became the leading figure in transforming the social and
economic outlook of the nation. Ozal died of a suspicious heart attack in 1993
before he had a chance to resolve the Kurdish issue. 1993 was a dark, bloody
year in modern Turkish history. Just two months before Ozal’s death, the
General Commander of the Turkish Gendarmerie, Esref Bitlis, was murdered in an
airplane crash. Commander Bitlis had met with the foreign ministers of Iran,
Iraq, and Syria to discuss Ozal’s plans to bring peace to the region. He was
also investigating the tragic death of a famous journalist, Ugur Mumcu, who was
murdered by car bomb just three weeks before Bitlis’ death. Mumcu was about to
report evidence to the media that the leader of the Kurdish terrorist
separatist movement, Abdullah Ocalan, (now in custody) was in fact
collaborating with the deep state and had ties with some people from the
National Intelligence Agency.
Mumcu’s death was followed by the killing of 33 unarmed
military recruits in an ambush in Bingol in an attempt to destroy any peace
attempts. A few months after this tragic incident, two more Gendarmerie
commanders, Bahtiyar Aydin and Cem Ersever, were murdered. Ersever played a critical role in the
formation of JITEM, an illegal intelligence unit within the gendarmerie. Before
his death, Major Ersever was confessing about some unexplained murders and
abductions. He also said he would talk
about a ‘stakeholders gang’ found in
the government and military circles who doesn’t want terrorism to end.
Turgut Ozal is still well respected and loved by many today
because of all he did for his country. Turkish people trusted him and gave
their support amidst a military coup despite pressure from the military junta
and Ozal used this credit very well to serve his country and his people in the
best possible way. Tens of thousands of people swarmed into Ankara, the capital
city, in tears when he died and even more attended the state burial ceremony in
Istanbul to show respect.
A similar chance was given to Suleyman Demirel after PM
Menderes was hung by military junta in 1960. Turkish people made him the
youngest-ever Prime Minister in Turkish history. He went through though times
as well. He had to resign after the military memorandum of 1971, but elected PM
for three more times in the following years by citizens as a reaction to
juntas. He was banned from active politics for ten years following the coup
d’état of 1980, but re-elected by people one more time as a Deputy of Isparta
in 1987 and as PM once again in 1991. After the sudden death of Turgut Ozal, he
became the ninth President in 1993 during those dark and bloody years that
followed. In contrary to Ozal, though, he couldn’t be people’s hero like
Menderes and Ozal. Unfortunately, he depleted all the support and trust the
Turkish people gave him when he chose to side with the military junta, called
Ergenekon, during his presidency years. The Ergenekon, a clandestine criminal
organization, and the generals who are involved in attempting to create chaos
and undermine stability with the hopes of triggering coups at least four times have
been brought to justice after 2007 when AK Party and Erdogan was at the center
of the political stage. Demirel lost all of his credibility in the eyes of the
people due to his blatant support for the generals and the Ergenekon during the
legal process.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Erbakan, who played a critical
role in Turkish politics along with Suleyman Demirel, Turgut Ozal, Tansu
Ciller, current President Abdullah Gul and current PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan just
to name a few. He was the most critical figure during the troubled times of
1997 and was at the center of the conflict between the military and his
Islamist Welfare Party. It is crucial to understand the dynamics of conflict of
the time to be able to answer what is happening in Turkey today, which involves
the most victorious Islamist political party, the Justice and Development Party
(AK Party), in modern Turkish history and his charismatic leader, Tayyip
Erdogan and the Hizmet (Service) Movement, which is the most successful and the
only worldwide non-political civic initiative Turkish people have ever produced
so far.
Next: What is Happening
in Turkey in a Nutshell…
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