A Few Thoughts On The Attempted Coup In Turkey...

As low-flying F-16s flew over Ankara and Istanbul as part of an attempted coup, Western leaders rushed to support 'democratically-elected' President Erdoğan, I could not help but feel a profound sense of dread.

Erdoğan may have been 'democratically-elected', but he and his supporters have a different view of democracy than most small 'd' democrats.

'Democracy is like a train. We will ride it to our destination and then get off.'

- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

This is exactly the same position on democracy that the Muslim Brotherhood took in Egypt. After swearing that they would never stand for election following the overthrow of Mubarak (partly because they believe that democracy is antithetical to Islam and Shariah law, which unequivocally holds that 'God's law' is always supreme to 'Man's law' and the latter must always bend to the former), they did - and won. Almost immediately, they started to slow down the democracy by adopting an Islamic-based constitution. Before being deposed in a military coup, they had begun to openly proclaim that there might be no need for future elections. 

They believed that the 'democracy train' was rapidly approaching their 'destination': Total power to impose an Islamic version of government on 80 million Egyptians - an estimated 15% (low figure) of whom are not Muslims (they include Coptic Christians, Orthodox Christians, etc). In Egypt, it took 50% or more of the entire population to take to the streets and demand the ouster of Morsi & Co. before the military acted. 

Al-Sisi didn't act until he knew that he had the support of the people, who, IIRC, had also effectively 'secured' Morsi and his coterie by surrounding the buildings where they were located with hundreds of thousands of bodies. One cannot win a coup if the leadership is still free to 'rally the troops'.  Al-Sisi also had the approval of the military, not just a faction. All of these differentiate the success of the coup in Egypt from failure of the almost-cartoonish attempt in Turkey.

In the vein of the previous Turkish coups, the Egyptian military did not intend to rule indefinitely and scheduled elections. General al-Sisi was eventually elected president. He hasn't ruled in an autocratic manner similar to Erdoğan and, indeed, has called for a reformation of Islam.

I fear that the people of Turkey may rue the day that they joined Erdoğan's Islamist supporters and  laid down their bodies to protect 'The Sultan' from the coup.  Undoubtedly, many of the secular Turks  that joined forces with Erdoğan remember the previous coups and want 'democracy', but they desire a secular democracy. Their view of Turkey is fundamentally different from that of AKP.  

In saving Erdoğan, who envisions a Sunni Islamic Turkey that makes Saudi Arabia look like, to use the description of Obama, 'the J-V Team' whilst becoming the region's dominating power and checking his mortal enemy, the Shia theocracy in Iran, I hope that they have not decided to surrender to him before his 'democracy train' arrives at its destination.

As for the endorsements of Western leaders, I believe that it signaled how weak the West has become and to the degree, as a result of their own policies (See Merkel, Angela and her unilateral decision to throw out the welcome mat to the Muslim world. Sadly, a frau, who several years ago proclaimed that Multi-Kulti was a failure, believed that establishing a Willkommenskultur ('Welcome Culture') would be a success), they have so imperiled the position of their own countries that they are, in effect, at the mercy of an autocratic Islamist like Erdoğan. If they need Turkey to help stem the flow of migrants, they have to support a tyrant. If they need Turkey to help fight ISIS, which Erdoğan has in many ways supported, they have to support 'The Sultan'.  

Both of these examples demonstrate how pathetically weak the West is because of its own willful blindness, moral relativism, farcical idealism, and virtue signaling.  They have endangered their people.

BTW, if you paid close attention, you could tell that it was primarily Erdoğan's supporters in the streets. I counted the number of women in the crowds that I saw in the many hours of coverage on one hand...and still had a finger left over.

UPDATE:

In response to my point about the lack of women in the protests on Friday night (Saturday morning in Turkey), Victoria Vista wrote:


You don't mean these women, do you???


My reply:

I wrote about the coverage that I saw, which was primarily from the BBC and Sky News. As for your link, I notice that many of the photographs depict some women in the streets in daylight - after the coup had been defeated. It is undeniable that the overwhelming majority of those that took to the streets early Saturday morning were men. In fact, there is reportage of women inside the building in Istanbul begging the men in the streets and Taksim Square not to kill the surrendering soldiers.

As for the small minority of women protesting, I wonder how they feel about Erdoğan and his position on birth control, which he seeks to ban because it is un-Islamic and the work of 'Western devils'.

America2028 replied:

Spot on. I have a few friends in Turkey, all of whom were hoping that the coup would succeed. Granted, they studied in Britain and are more westernized than most Turks, so you wouldn't see people like them brawling in the streets. But there are plenty of others just like them.


Related Reading: Did Obama get Erdogan wrong?