Turkey Analyst
Vol. 2 no. 6
27 March 2009

WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAY

Dramatic developments in the Ergenekon case shaped public debate in Turkey during the fortnight. The imprisonment of Mustafa Balbay, chief Ankara correspondent of the secularist daily Cumhuriyet, who is accused of having taken part in a military-civilian conspiracy to topple the AKP government, and whose diaries that were recovered by the investigators are used as evidence against him, was followed by another dramatic turn in the coup conspiracy case. The prosecutors presented the charges against former generals Sener Eruygur and Hursit Tolon, shifting focus in the case from the alleged activities of low-level members of the “deep state” to the coup planning in 2003-2004, which according to the prosecution failed because of the stand taken by the then Chief of the General staff General Hilmi Özkök. A palpable change in the public discourse has now occurred. A general consensus is emerging among most commentators that the Ergenekon prosecutors have indeed unraveled a real threat to Turkish democracy.

ALTAN: ATATÜRK IS THE CULPRIT
Ahmet Altan sees the revelations about the coup conspiracy in the context of Turkish history the last century. Those who have yielded power during this period have always been tempted to “educate” the masses, presuming that they know what is best for the people. But then, you invariably end up navigating in the murky waters of fascism. To those who say that Atatürk (the founder of modern Turkey) indeed saved this country without consulting the people, I would retort that well, had it not been for Atatürk, then we would not have had any Kurdish problem or any problem with religion. It is the mentality that the wishes of the people are to be disregarded in the supposed interest of the people that got us into trouble in the first place.

ALKAN: ATATÜRK IS NOT GUILTY
Türker Alkan takes issue with Ahmet Altan’s indictment of Atatürk. The republic is 85 years old. Atatürk only ruled during 15 years of that period. For most of the time, Turkey has been governed by conservative, religious parties. Why should Atatürk be held responsible for the democratic deficiencies that those parties did nothing to address? And secondly, Atatürk was firmly opposed to military involvement in government. Of course he was a dictator, but at a time when authoritarianism was in ascendancy internationally he did lay the foundations of a future democracy through his secularizing reforms. Yet, don’t say that democracy would have been impossible in a Turkey where Sharia still ruled, where women could not venture outdoors; democracy would of course have been viable in such a country – to the same extent that it has been realized in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

CANDAR:  THE GENERALS WERE COWARDS
Cengiz Candar writes that the most important revelation about the coup conspiracy is overlooked: What is most striking is not that the generals attempted to make a coup, but rather their incompetence and cowardice. In Spain in 1981 Colonel Tejero, who stormed the parliament and retired Colonel Talat Aydemir in Turkey in the 1960s, did at least display personal courage, even though what they did was wrong. But the generals who are now indicted never dared to take action. They never got beyond the “hamam talk” with their journalist secretary. And when they were imprisoned, they were unable to endure the hardship, getting suspicious doctor’s certificates issued. It does not really matter what happens next, if they are sentenced or not, if they are put back in prison or not. Thanks to the Ergenekon investigation, their incompetence and cowardice have been exposed, explaining why there was no coup and making it possible to conclude that the era of coups is probably over.

SAZAK: BALBAY IS CLEARLY IMPLICATED
Derya Sazak withdraws his initial support for Mustafa Balbay. Sazak writes that the diaries of Balbay clearly implicate him as a coup plotter, although of course Balbay will have the opportunity to present his own version during the trial. But with the publication of the diaries, my act of expressing solidarity with Mustafa Balbay after he was arrested and interrogated for 23 hours has become meaningless. What Balbay did cannot be interpreted and defended as being in conformity with the practice of journalism.

BILA: ÖZKÖK SAYS YOUNG OFFICERS ARE MORE DEMOCRATIC
Fikret Bila refers to his interview with retired General Hilmi Özkök, who is a key name in the investigation of the coup attempt. According to the prosecutors it was Özkök who as Chief of the General staff saw to it that the coup plans were foiled; indeed the indicted generals are accused of having tried to removing Özkök himself. Hilmi Özkök refuses to answer any questions concerning the specifics of what transpired, referring to the upcoming trial in which he is expected to be called to testify. But he explains why the era of coups is over: The younger generation of officers is much more sophisticated, they are well in tune with international developments and democratic minded. And coups don’t happen in countries which have reached a certain level of development; Turkey has evolved economically and sociologically, with a population that is more educated than what it used to be. Modern technology, the Internet also works against coups, since it is no longer possible to keep secrets, as everything gets instantly recorded and disseminated electronically.

DÜNDAR: DEMOCRACY IS STILL NOT SECURED
Can Dündar concludes that with the new turn it has taken, the Ergenekon case is sure to become a settling of accounts with the century-old tradition of military interference in politics. But will the trial, which could be expected to continue for years, also conclusively defeat that tradition and the mentality that has kept it alive? That is not sure at all. It is not in Silivri (where the trial will be held), but in Ankara that the future role of the military and thus of democracy will be decided. It is only by laying the foundations of a political system in which personal liberty and the freedom of media are guaranteed, with barriers raised against the drift toward one-party state that it will be possible to secure democracy. Do those who are in the process of purging the Ergenekon conspirators strike you as guarantors of such a development?

SAHIN: WHO SAVED DEMOCRACY?
Haluk Sahin poses the question why it was that a coup attempt that is said to have enjoyed widespread support in military ranks ultimately still failed. The coup plotters were hoping to influence public opinion, but they were not able to steer the public in the desired direction. They complained about the role played by the media, not least by the outlets of the Dogan Media group. Ironically, that is the same media group that is now viewed as hostile by a government that is trying to bring it down using the instrument of financial punishment. At the end of the day, what saved democracy was the perception of the people that that system, despite some deficiencies, was functioning well. That was why public opinion remained unresponsive to the conspirators’ efforts at influencing it. However, if Turkey at that critical time had not been ruled by a “reformist” government who was making efforts at adjusting to EU norms, if the government had instead been authoritarian, issuing threats around, trying to silence dissent and defending breaches of the rule of law, then the coup plotters would have stood a much greater chance to succeed.

The Turkey Analyst
The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It is published weekly, and includes a topical analysis, as well as translations and summaries of selected Turkish news reports. It is edited and compiled under the supervision of Svante E. Cornell, Halil M. Karaveli, and M. K. Kaya.

The analyses appearing in the Turkey Analyst are often written by the three Editors. The Turkey Analyst occasionally publishes signed guest analyses.

The Joint Center
The Joint Center was created in 2005 through the merger of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and the Silk Road Studies Program, at the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.

The Turkey Initiative
The Joint Center launched a Turkey Initiative in 2006 in order to improve understand of Turkish domestic and foreign affairs in Europe and the United States.

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