A coup or not a coup: what really happened in Turkey

It has been two weeks but the controversy remains. Has Turkey really had a coup attempt organized by a group of soldiers? How are we to believe Turkey’s sharp-tongued president Erdogan didn’t stage this?

Let’s have a look at what we have in hand as evidence.

A short summary of that night

On the night of July 15, 2016 at around 9pm, a group of soldiers shut down the Bogazici bridge, one of Istanbul’s most famous touristic symbols.

No one understood why it was the soldiers, but not the police. Their explanation: “Go back to your homes. The army has seized power.”

Army seized power? Military coup? What year is this?

It is not absurd to have jumped to the conclusion of coup based on Turkey’s past – the last one being in 1980 – but this never meant another coup was expected.

A group of soldiers captured the state television, where they forcefully made an anchorwoman read a statement: “Turkey is now under the control of the army.”

The statement introduced this group of soldiers as members of Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), and as the ‘Peace at Home Committee’. No other military coup declaration included any soldiers associating themselves with a ‘committee’ besides TAF before. This was a first.

The parliament was bombed and damaged heavily. This was a first.

President Erdogan went live on television through Facetime, said this was an ‘attempt’ by the army-end of the followers of the notorious religious leader Fethullah Gulen. He asked people to take to streets and not give passage to tanks, so people went out.

Almost 300 got killed – the police clashed with soldiers, and soon soldiers responsible for the attempt surrendered. The coup was over in less than 12 hours. This was also a first. 

Who is Fethullah Gulen?

The fact that it ended so quickly raised questions: Could this even be real? International media often voices this question, but it fails to do its part in providing the incredibly deep Fethullah Gulen reality of Turkey.

Fethullah Gulen is the leader of ‘Hizmet’ (Service) movement, self-proclaimed as a peace-seeker. Gulen has always remained close to whoever took the office in Turkey. He maintained good relationships with Turkey’s presidents and prime ministers, including President Erdogan. Well, at least in the beginning.

Gulen is known for his schools in Turkey and countries like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. His schools are everywhere. It is safe to say that a dominating majority of today’s 20-30 year-olds have attended his schools and courses at least once in their lives – myself included.

His followers periodically meet at places they refer as ‘Isik Evleri’ (Homes of Light). They establish business ties within themselves, while also keeping the religious reasons that brought them together going.

He is known for his passionate speeches. Youtube videos show how people cry and shout out of passion when he talks. His records are played over and over in these places of gathering as a way of reinforcing love for Gulen.

There is not one school of Gulen where teachers don’t invite students to these homes. There’s a great sense of community in these places. All students are given an incredible amount of love and generosity from an early age. Today’s developments show how Gulen used these years of giving one-sided love, as a means of forming an army of loyals in return.

In the late 90s Turkish media was shaken with a leaked hidden cam video of Gulen, where he seemed to be in complete contradiction to his moderate preacher image. In the video that is still on Youtube he is found saying “We will spin our spider webs patiently, we will wait for people to fall into these webs and we will educate them. Make no mistake, we spin our webs not to hunt them, but to show them their potential liberation, and give life to their dead bodies and souls.”

In the video he also says that he expects his followers to forget what he just said and dispose of these ideas just as they dispose of their juice boxes. Once the video hit the news, Fethullah Gulen left Turkey and moved to the U.S.

He continued to preach his philosophy in Turkey through cassette recordings, schools and newspapers that remained open.

The spider web-patience relationship Gulen was talking about is interpreted today by journalist Ahmet Hakan as the long journey Gulenist men and women go through while educating a child at an early age so that when they are old enough, they can work to protect Gulen in the judicial system, and the army.

I spoke to a Turkish lawyer Halim Aksoy, 53, about this: “Followers of Gulen were known to have taken hold of the Ministry of Justice long ago.

“Years ago, when the government had a good relationship with Gulen, I had a business to take care of with a client at the Ministry of Environment. The project needed an approval from the Ministry of Justice. They said they could do their behalf but they cannot be sure if the Ministry of Justice would cooperate. ‘You know, because they are Gulenists.’”

Why should I trust Erdogan?

The answer to this question is simple: You shouldn’t. If you are pro-democracy, you’ll notice that this has nothing to do with trusting Erdogan or not. Erdogan is someone who cannot be compared to Gulen because Erdogan is democratically-elected.

Regardless of our personal opinion of Erdogan, we have to see that he means the world to 50% of Turks. He’s in front of us with all his good and bad deeds. But Gulen is a whole different entity – he has done everything in secret.

What the international media doesn’t cover

People of Turkey – pro and anti-government – are unified against the coup attempt. In the last two weeks, all Turkish media including pro-government and anti-government ones are sharing stories of people who suffered from the injustice the Gulenist establishment has caused in the judiciary system, and the army.

Every day there’s another group of soldiers or military personnel going live on Turkish TV channels to tell their stories of serving jail time due to slanders of the Gulenist men.

Melike Bulut Sehirli, one of the victims of the Gulenist organization within the army, talked to the Anatolian News Agency (AA). She said: “I was made to leave the Air Force Academy due to extreme amount of pressure put on me, because I was not ‘one of them.’

“Whenever I dropped my gun they would take it and run away. Then they would make me shout ‘My gun is my honor. If I can’t protect my gun, I can’t protect my honor, sir’ over and over for 25 times. It harmed me. I was crying when I was saying it for the 25th time.”

Another victim, Gazi Can spoke to the AA: “There was an extreme amount of pressure. The commander always said things like ‘go and sell lemons or something.’ He was uttering these words as he was putting pressure on our backs during push-ups. ‘Leave or we will keep harassing you’ he always used to say.”

When the international media focuses on the potential strengthening of Erdogan, instead of first talking about what kind of damage this coup and Gulen caused to Turkish people, they are doing the most offensive thing they can do to Turkish people, and Turkey’s democracy.

Turkish journalist Murat Yetkin, a long critic of Erdogan, mentioned such tendency of international media in his column last week: “A foreign news team contacted with one of our colleagues. They said they were looking for Turkish protesters who are supportive of the coup attempt that was planned to overthrow Erdogan.  

“Our colleague clarified that there is no protest whatsoever in supportive of the coup, and that a dominating majority of people are completely against it.”

He ended with a beautiful remark on how Turkish people think about this issue, something that is never emphasized in international media: “The way to a functional democracy can never be pulling it out of sight with a military coup. The remedy should come from within. You can’t be wanting to improve something by choosing an even a worse way.”