Today’s Zaman, Turkey
July 13 2008

Rationale for the coups

Two legal processes are concurrently at work. While one is put into
effect to close down the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK
Party) and put an end to its government, the other is directed against
the main opposition group that is intent on doing the same thing
through a military coup following an atmosphere of chaos it was
preparing to create.

The latest interrogations and evidence collected against the putschist
retired generals and their official and civilian associates revealed
that they were about to unleash a series of assassinations and
bombings to destabilize society and create such widespread fear that
the people would call in the cavalry to save them. What is most
striking is the way and the ease with which these people plot to
overthrow an elected government and impose their will on the majority,
believing that they know best and can run the country better. They
have neither the knowledge nor the expertise for what they envisage,
yet they surmise that they can do it better than any elected body and
its experts. What is the source of this delusion?

I believe the ideological foundations of military coups come from the
very training of the military personnel. They are not raised and
trained as professional soldiers only. They are socialized into being
"saviors" that would deliver the society from both external threats as
well as self-destructive deviations. These deviations are of course
transgressing the straightjacket forced on society via constitutions
made after each coup. So the Turkish military keeps guard over a
system by and large designed by itself. Social change and popular
demands for participation, liberalization and globalization are seen
as subversion.

Needless to say this is not a conviction shared by the entire military
establishment. Otherwise all the recent information that has surfaced
in the press would not have been leaked out by constitutionalist and
pro-democratic officers. Hence we can claim that by allowing the
search of rooms in military premises and condoning the arrest of
former commanders, the Turkish military is initiating an unprecedented
process of extracting rotten apples to save the sack.

Does this mean that the era of coups is over? This has yet to be seen,
for the proclivity to stage coups is not only a matter of professional
deformation passed on by military training. People are conditioned for
the fact of coups as a last resort to maintain law and order. Rule of
law is the last thing people heed when the cavalry rides into town to
dismiss the unruly elements that threaten law and order. Although the
nature of threats changes over time, the majority of the people are
not really interested in judging whether the crisis they are living
through is due to the deficiencies of a system that delivers neither
freedoms nor affluence. As long as the popular expectation to call in
the army to amend things during times of crisis prevails, we will
never shed the identity of being an "army nation" and choose a
deliberative-pluralist democracy over a tutelary republic.

The roots of this production flaw go back to the times of the
declaration of the republic. In the 1920s, the young Turkish Republic
was composed of two major social classes. The military-civilian
bureaucracy empowered by its grip on the state apparatus and the vast
peasant masses. The minority bourgeoisie was eliminated by population
exchanges (with Greece) or through punitive deportation (as was the
case with Armenians). There was no Turkish-Muslim bourgeoisie worthy
of mention. The small middle class was mainly of bureaucratic nature,
deriving its income, status and power from its affiliation with the
state. The peasants were traditional, poor, unorganized and
ignorant. The state treated them as its handicapped child and
figuratively locked them up in the basement. Prohibited to show up in
the public realm as they were, the rural population remained intact
and in place until the 1950s. During this time the state tried to
create a dependent bourgeoisie with subsidies, suppressed worker
wages, cheap inputs, high tariff walls for imports, favorable credits
and monopoly status in the market. Such a dependent business class
never challenged the golden hand that fed it.

However, this closed system came under the stress of expansion within
and globalization from without. Beginning with the 1980s, Turkey
opened up to the world. A new business class emerged from the
countryside (often referred to as the Anatolian Tigers) and began to
demand the same privileges that the urban state-fed bourgeoisie
enjoyed. They owed nothing to the state for their existence, growth
and international expansion. Their demands were met by resistance on
the grounds that they were too religious and conservative.

Secondly, the mechanization and commercialization of traditional
Turkish agriculture following World War II to meet the demand of
Europe under reconstruction led to massive migration from the
countryside. These former peasants became the source of parochial and
conservative new urban dwellers. They and the peasants became the
customers of the new bourgeoisie that was on the rise. So they had to
be economically and socially empowered.

The appearance of the people on the street began to change, as did
their demands and expectations. More women in conservative garb (with
covered heads) entered the university and the job market. Political
parties that answered the call of more pious citizens began to compete
in politics. These new social forces wanted more participation, a
bigger piece of the pie and more services. They had waited too long
and they had no time. All of these developments were watched with awe
and anxiety by the old elite who did not want to share power and
privilege with these newcomers who for them had no finesse in dining
and wining or dancing. They were pious and their wives did not look
"modern." These were symbolically dangerous for the secular regime and
had to be locked away once more. The problem is that they are too
numerous and the basement is not spacious enough. This is the gist of
the political crisis that looks like a regime crisis from afar.