By ILIYASU GADU
THERE are several ways in which we can link the attempted coup of Friday, July 15 in Turkey to the ghost of Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Having led the revolution that toppled the Ottoman monarchy in 1923 and instituted the reforms which launched Turkey onto the path of modernity, everything in Turkey onto this day has tended to be affected by the legacies he left behind. One of the prominent but highly contentious legacies of Ataturk has been the role of the Turkish military in the country’s political and governance structure.
When I first visited Turkey in 1986 to take up an offer at the Foreign Language School (Yabanci Diller Okulu) of the University of Istanbul located at the city’s Beyazit quarter, the country was under a tenuous governance arrangement whereby the President (Cumhur Baskan) of the country and its de facto ruler then was the Military chief General Kenan Evren. The Prime Minister (Bas Bakan), who was responsible for running of government, was Turgut Ozal a former Finance Minister who had worked with the IMF and World Bank.
In all these, there was no mistaking where real power resided. Being primarily a military officer from where he earned his popularity in the Gallipoli (Cannakale) campaign when he led the Turkish military to defeat Australian and New Zealand troops under the British Army, Ataturk ensured that the military remained the power in Turkish politics and government when he eventually became President of Turkey. There were other reasons for the prominence of the military in Turkish politics. With Turkey being geopolitically situated in a tense region bordering on the volatile Middle East, the restive Balkan, Greece and disputes over Cyprus and Mediterranean islands, Armenia, Ukraine and Russia coupled with the ever present issue of Kurdish demands for independence, the military is never far away from direct involvement in Turkish politics.
Yet another factor that aided the involvement of the Turkish military in politics and governance had to do with the preference by Turkey’s major NATO partners like the United States, Britain and Germany to have the military in effective power so as to better cope with the threat posed by the then Warsaw Pact forces against the southern flank of NATO which was headquartered in the Turkey. Indeed, at the height of the Cold War, Turkey hosted the largest American military bases in Diyarbakir and Incirlik. Turkish politicians like Bulent Ecevit, Suleyman Demirel and Erdal Inonu who were forever fractious and squabbling against one another were not thought capable of handling the delicate task of maintaining internal order within Turkey and coping with the Soviet threat at the time.
But, continuing military involvement in Turkish politics has its drawbacks. To some extent, it was justifiable in times of internal and external conflict which Turkey was embroiled in for long stretches of its existence as a modern nation. But as Turkey grew economically and became a regional economic, diplomatic and strategic power hub, it became anachronistic to have the military dominating political and government life. In the intervening years from the 1990s, there has been a gradual easing out of the military in politics with prominent civilian political figures filling in to the extent that by the turn of the last century, Turkey had its first non-military President.
Enter the current President of Turkey, Tayyip Reccep Erdogan, who was the target of the attempted coup of Friday, July 15. Unlike some political figures in Turkey, he had been known to be forthright on his views that it was time for the military to be less visible in Turkish politics. Indeed, a couple of years back, using the opportunity of an embryonic military coup plot that was detected, his administration used the ensuing trial dubbed the “Ergonekon trial” to purge the Turkish military of some of the perceived opponents of the administration.
Erdogan also feels that Turkey with its glorious past as the epicentre of the largest empire in the world prior to the coming of the British empire should not be seen to be begging for recognition internationally. His confidence in this regard has been due to the phenomenal growth recorded by Turkey as it expanded eastwards. Turkey now ranks as one of the largest economies in Eurasia and in the world.
Erdogan’s politics however elicits mixed reactions in Turkey and outside it. At heart a typical Anatolian Turkish man (even though he was once a Mayor of Istanbul), his policies of trying to return Turkey to some of the Islamic practices of the past has tended to upset the more western-oriented Turks found mainly in the Istanbul and Ankara regions of the country. To Turkey’s western partners, Erdogan’s Islamist bent in local and international issues is a negation of the secular, western-oriented direction that Ataturk had instituted in Turkey.
Although the details are still unravelling, it is quite clear even at this early stage that the coup aimed at not just restoring the military to power, but also to reverse some of the islamist policies and direction of the Erdogan administration.
Whatever Erdogan’s failings are, however, had the coup attempt succeeded, the world would have been worse for it. Turkey would have been almost certainly embroiled in a civil war that would have sucked outside powers in. With Turkey as a regional economic and military power, anything from a full blown regional war to a world war would not have been impossible.
For most Nigerians, Turkey is the country where the excellent educational and medical institutions and services come from. It also a country that has friendly mutually beneficial relations with Nigeria and one of the top economic and tourist destinations for Nigerians. As a democratic country itself, Nigeria and Nigerians would not wish for Turkey’s democracy to be truncated. Having succeeded in nipping the coup attempt in the bud, it behoves on the Erdogan administration to move swiftly to douse the ensuing tension by building confidence among the various shades of Turkey’s political tendencies. Similarly, all Turkey’s political and economic partners must help heal rather than seek to exacerbate the scars of last Friday’s misadventure by a section of the Turkish military. Turkey is too important a country in the world to be allowed to fall into the abyss.
n Gadu writes vias [email protected]