Turkey: A Look In From the Outside
By Patricia H. Kushlis
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the Turkish police had arrested two retired generals, the head of Ankara’s main business lobby and 21 others affiliated with an ultra-right wing group in a failed coup plot against the Turkish government.
Military takeovers in Turkey were part of the political landscape for years but, if I remember correctly, they were normally restricted to the highest ranks of the active duty Turkish armed forces. They were usually successful. They only occurred when actions by civilian politicians threatened to destroy the country and, as a consequence, they also had considerable popular support.
This week’s reported coup plot and the arrests made met none of those criteria.
That was then . . .
When I first visited Turkey in January 1979, the country was on the verge of collapse. The economy was in shambles. Gas lines were long, inflation was rampant, trading on the black market for dollars was ubiquitous, even coffee – that staple of all Turkish staples – was scarce. The migration of villagers from the plains and mountains of Anatolia to the slums of Istanbul in search of a better life had already begun and the country’s infrastructure and leaders couldn’t cope with the strains.
The political system was in chaos: caught between ultra right and extreme left – street fights and murders had become all too common place. Eighteen months later – when I was filling in for three weeks on the Turkish desk at the then US Information Agency, the military moved in and restored order ushering in – as it turned out – the beginning of a new and far more prosperous and stable era.
This is now. . .
Since then Turkey – and Turkish politics – have come a long way despite ups and downs, slips and slides. Yet, every so often the Turkish political system confronts a crisis as is happening again this summer. This latest crisis – in which the Constitutional Court has not only been asked to declare the ruling moderate Islamist party illegal and ban the government’s leaders from power but has also agreed to rule on this contentious issue - is unlike any this country has ever confronted. The Bloomberg report hints, at least, that the recent arrests may be the government’s response to its establishment challengers.
A changing Turkey
Yet, what is less understood is that the rules of the game – and some of the players themselves - have changed because over the past decades Turkish society itself has substantially changed. As a result, even banning the ruling party and its leaders will not, repeat not, eliminate moderate Islamists from the Turkish political scene.


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