As we write, convulsive news continues to occur. Officially the coup has failed, but the settlement of loose and loyal franchise accounts in Ankara has not yet ended. Yet this morning there was talk of explosions around the Presidential Palace in Ankara.
What is happening in Turkey?
We state that the Armed Forces are a pillar of Turkish society and enjoy great respect in the civil world. Since the '20 years are the sentinel of the revolution of Mustafa Kemal, the "Ataturk" father of the country that has ferried the remains of the Ottoman Empire into the modern era. Vigilant on secularism and on the West's gaze on the Nation, they have never had the need to seek power because they represent its foundations. It is no coincidence that Turkey has proven to be a stable country for decades, NATO's strength in the East, immune to drifting and particular coup traditions.
For more than a year, on this column, we are focusing on the new route taken by Ankara, ever further away from that sluggish and balanced slope reflecting the very geography of the country: a monolithic block between East and West.
With the arrival and consolidation of Erdogan from many sides, the alarm was raised on the Islamist horizons of Ankara, more and more aligned with the policies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar every day and less and less interested in a real involvement in European integration policies. On the contrary, Ankara has ridden its strategic position to play a role as a prima donna both in the Syrian crisis and in the management of the migratory phenomenon, which in Anatolia finds an important springboard towards Europe. Regardless of the interpretations, the cooling of the historical excellent relations with Israel and an approach to the Sunni Arab world are an objective fact that speaks volumes about the positioning achieved by Turkey after continuous and imperceptible geopolitical adjustments.
The new Turkish protagonism, a mix of Ottoman revanchism and Islamic awareness, has certainly relied on the sentiments of a people who dominated by historical heritage and never tamed by the catastrophic events of the first half of the XNUMXth century.
Strongly of this conscience, President Erdogan's power system has ruthlessly ridden the "Turkish uniqueness", looking for more convenient and quicker times of this time: Islamic identity.
As the same thwarted coup declarations demonstrate, in the Turkish political dialectic the word "God" has returned to be present in an invasive way to characterize the philosophy of power, derived from below thanks to the people and from above thanks to Allah.
How Erdogn's confessional orientation in these years has been instrumental, it is easier to understand it than to establish it with certainty. The new dimension of "God-protected nation" has surely guaranteed the loyalty of a slice of the population attracted by abstract suggestions, providing a hard "ultras" socket ready for everything for its leader.
Turkey in recent years has increasingly become an Erdogancrazia, where the salient features of Ottoman society, turned towards a more useful than real Islamization, have become the very identification between political power and nation.
Not everyone has adapted to this process. A large part of the company turned its back on Erdogan from the first hour. From the clashes of Taksim Square in Istanbul to the repression of newspapers not aligned with the government, the path has been long but constant: Ankara, from semidemocrazia to the Western system has gradually become an enigmatic non-democracy on whose choices of international politics have thickened not a few doubts.
The Armed Forces were part of this opposition by demonstrating with this night's coup attempt to still be the secular and modernist soul of the nation.
Militant disagreement over the years has widened to include both the high spheres of the USSR and the military and air force cadres necessary to ensure an adequate chain of command in a highly hierarchical structure like the Turkish Armed Forces.
In the force relationship, however, he won Erdogan. Abandoned at midnight with the refusal of asylum by Germany, he re-emerged in the morning, a man of Providence.
Now is the time of revenge that will allow the President to win twice: stay in power and provide for the long-awaited repulas within the military world.
While the West, after hours of fear and hypocritical waiting, sends conciliatory messages, indisputable truths arrive from Ankara: Erdogan will be stronger from tomorrow and Turkey an even more enigmatic country. The military, hitherto the flame of Turkish independence, could become the armed side of a power without any control.
(photo: Türk Kara Kuvvetleri)
