#dnaEdit: Changeover in Turkey

The fact that the attempted coup by a section of the air force and army on July 15 had been foiled is no reason to dismiss the whole affair as not of much consequence. It was indeed a diabolical attempt, and there is reason to believe that the coupists w ere intent on killing off the top leaders, including President Erdogan. Had they succeeded, Turkey would have been plunged into chaos. It is understandable then that Erdogan is taking tough measures in tracking down those suspected of being part of the plot. But there is need for both caution and scepticism about the widespread purges that are being carried out in Turkey in the name of saving the country from those who were planning to overthrow the government.

The issue appears to be much more complex than what it appears to be on the surface. Erdogan is not merely fighting Fethullah Gulen, the Islamist cleric now living in exile in the United States. The relationship between Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Gulen has been quite ambiguous. Both the sides subscribe to Islamism, and this was the common base that brought them together in the first place. It is not clear as to why they had fallen out. It has to be remembered that Gulen left Turkey in 1999, much before Erdogan came to power. Is Gulen demanding a more rigid Islamic regime, which Erdogan,  the politician that he is, is unwilling to accept? Is the fallout between the two on ideological grounds, or is it merely personal rivalry? Ankara mayor Melih Gokcek, one of the leaders of AKP, has  admitted that it was a mistake on the part of his party to have allied
with Gulen, and that Gulen had used the AKP to effect the infiltration of his people into the army.

Going by the number of people -- 60,000 according to Western media agencies — who have been thrown out in fields ranging from the armed forces, judiciary, educational system and the media, it seems that Gulen is the virtual leader of a large section of the people. What indeed are his ideas and why is he so dangerous? In an Op-Ed in The New York Times on July 25, Gulen while condemning the coup, had also stated his own ideology as “inclusive and pluralist Islam” and his movement is called “Hizmet”, Turkish word for service. It is not necessary to take Gulen’s confession at its face value. The hidden political subtexts need to be ferreted out, and Erdogan perhaps detects the political connotations of Gulen’s stance.

It is indeed necessary to ask the question whether Erdogan is fighting his political battle against Gulen in a fair manner? The suspicion remains that he is using strong-arm tactics not only to root out suspected Gulenists in different parts of the administration as a pretext to eliminate his other rivals as well, especially the secularists. The army has for long been the guardian of secularism, and the AKP’s battle over the years has been with the army. Now, Erdogan has done something quite radical. He has defanged the army, closed down the military academies, brought the army command under the defence ministry, and restructured the Supreme Military Council (YAS) by inducting the deputy prime ministers, foreign, justice and interior ministers apart from the president and prime minister as members. It would appear that Erdogan is eliminating both the secularists and the
Gulenists in one swift move.