Some Turkish people. Some others quite clearly do. Like in Egypt, the socioeconomic divide between metropolitan areas and the countryside is huge.
It is however curious that this happens at a point in time when Erdogan seemed set on admitting he’d fucked up: he’s apologized to Russia just a few days ago (which is HUGE in diplomatic terms) and switched from bombing Kurds to bombing actual Daesh/ISIS installations, which is part of the reasons ISIS/Daesh is suffering.
Considering the history of corruption in the Turkish army, there is a chance that someone does not agree with this change because it hurts black-market profits on the Turkish-Syrian border. On the other hand, such an abrupt change might have been prompted by the feeling that the army was ready to take over unless Erdogan stopped dicking about. You don’t plan a coup in a week, not even in a month, and he must have known – how convenient to be abroad on holiday…
The borders are going to locked down independently anyway. That’s pretty standard for any coup.
But Turkish people running to Europe through Greece this early? It’s not a civil war, at least not yet. I really truly doubt it. That’s not why they are trying to control the Bosphorus. The capital is sawn in half by the Bosphorus, they want to be the only people controlling access across both sides of the city until they’re sure they control every government building, agency, and ministry in the city.
The business district is on the European side. There are already reports of attempts to run on the banks. There are plenty of reasons to control the bridges, and I truly think stemming a tide of refugees is at best a tiny concern right now.
It’s probably been in the works for a while, Erdogan has been bad for a while but his pseudo-cooperation with ISIS might have been the breaking point.
For the immediate instigation it might just be that there’s a lot of coordination involved with getting people on board, plus waiting till Erdogan was out of the country was probably critical. The further away he is the less able he is to use his authority to stop the coup.
Ankara is not even near the Bosphorus… Istanbul is the economically most important city in Turkey (and by far largest) but not the Turkish capital since, uh, nearly a century
Citizen: So what are you gonna do once you’ve established martial law? Soldier #1: Establishing martial law is just phase one. Phase one: establish martial law. Citizen: So, what’s phase two? Soldier #1 [has no response. Looks around, then calls out to the other soldiers on nearby] Hey, what’s phase two? Soldier #2: Phase one: we establish martial law. Soldier #1: Yeah yeah yeah, but what about phase two? Soldier #2: [says nothing, then] Well, phase three is freedom and democracy. Get it? Citizen: I don’t get it. Soldier #2: [walks up to a large chart] You see,
Phase one: establish martial law. Phase two: [???] Phase three: freedom and democracy.
I wonder if there’s some connection with Erdogan’s somewhat out-of-character moves to improve relations with Israel and Russia. Perhaps he saw unrest coming and was making sure it would stay strictly internal? An attempted coup is bad, but an attempted coup while in a state of not-cold-enough war with Russia could be much worse.
In fairness, the Turkish military has a lot of experience with the coup thing. They’re probably going to hand out surveys for how they can do better next time.
Yeah, a friend was saying he saw similarities with Italian and Spanish coups in '60s and '80s and I was like, “dude, the difference is that Turkish coups actually work.”
Q7: Of the following phrases, which statement best represents your feelings of martial law?
( ) A necessary inconvenience in order to reestablish democracy free from tyranny
( ) An awkward phase in reclaiming the freedom of the Turkish people
( ) A tiresome, indefinite existence buoyed by anticipation of a better future
( ) A grueling experience leavened only by hope of a free Turkey
