Zeynep Kandur: In Some Ways Coup Did Turkey a Favour
Novinite Insider | July 16, 2016, Saturday // 12:55| viewsEPA/BGNES
Novinite is asking Turkish journalists and scholars to comment on the develomnents in the aftermath of a coup attempt in the night of Friday into Saturday that authorities say has been largely thwarted.
For the first time in a while Turkey has been able to unify after the attempted coup d’etat, Zeynep Jane Louise Kandur, a journalist with the Daily Sabah newspaper and a member of the ruling AK Party’s Istanbul branch, has told Novinite.
The fact that crowds came to the streets in Turkey, “despite party affiliation and came together against this and didn’t use it for political mileage… means in some ways [the coup] has done Turkey a favour,” she has opined.
Asked to elaborate on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s words that the development was a “gift of God”, she said it he was referring to the act of bringing Turkish citizens together: “We saw people from the CHP [Republican People’s Party], MHP [Nationalist Movement Party], even HDP [People’s Democratic Party] come out in the streets to support the government.”
“The reaction of the Turkish people to it shows very clearly the dedication of the Turkish people to the democratic traditions established by the country over the past 20-30 years in Turkey and demonstrates the commitment to continuing on a democratic path. Such a coup would never happen in Turkey again. This looks like the last time,” she has said.
“We are in the 21st century, not in a banana republic. You can't get away with doing coups anymore.”
Asked what pushed the military group to act precisely now, Ms Kandur has argued they were forced by plans for reorganization of the military to remove those who support US-based Islamic cleric, Fethullah G?len, accused by the government of orchestrating “parallel-state” attemps to topple the authorities.
“Everybody knows that G?len can deny [being hebind the coup], but it's very clear. Those who took part were a small and well-known group. If you look the head of the gendarmerie, the head of the navy and the airforce, all said they were not behind it.”
“If the organizers didn't stage a coup now they would have been out of the army within a couple of days.”
But what was the group expecting to achieve? Ms Kandur argues:
"G?len is completely out of touch with reality and is desperate. That was a last-ditch attempt to grasp some kind of power in Turkey. It makes no sense whatsoever. How many coups have there been in the history of the world when people have gone in the streets and stopped the tanks like this? There have been unfortunate casualties, people injured. But basically the coup was stopped by the people of the country. That is unheard of.”
The development would not result in a big “purge”, but the military group that acted against the state “will be given the longest and most severe penalties by law, which is life imprisonment,” she has added.
Turkey isn’t more vulnerable after the coup, Ms Kandur has also said. “Now you will have a better operating military.”
Asked whether the coup reflected deep tensions in Turkish society: “I think the polarization in the country has been jumped up over the past years, has been created by some factors, and I think it will lead to a healing in Turkey. It will lead us to trying to get somewhere better and stop using poltiics to destroy the country, but start using it to improve.
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