On Military Coups and Post-Colonialism

[Holac]

Turkey's attempt to re-normalize Islam's role in society is the key issue at hand, and military coups in the past and present are the instrument to disrupt it

 

By: Hatem Bazian

 

The failed military coup attempt in Turkey will possibly bring an end to a pernicious feature that has been around throughout the postcolonial period. Military coups and interventions are a permanent feature of the postcolonial state. While the Turkish experience with direct colonialism is non-existent, the effects of Eurocentric discourses and the shift toward Europe after World War I has ironically produced a distinct postcolonial pattern in the form of military coups and interventions so as to prevent a normative state of development.

 

Turkey's march westward was secured by a heavy-handed military that at every turn worked to prevent any recourse that might bring about a change of direction, emphasis or a reconnecting with a distant problematized past. One has to appreciate the long struggle in Turkey for the regular person, middle class and working class for space in the political order in a country whereby the military consistently acted to prevent such an occurrence. Indeed, since the forming of the modern Turkish state, the military and Eurocentric-trained elites set in motion an antagonistic relation with Islam and its expression in society. This approach, for the most part, shutout the poor and middle class who constituted a significant portion of the religiously inclined population. Being modern and Western meant having an expressed distance and a professed antagonistic relation with Islam, which included the elite and military's attempt of its total erasure from society.

 

The normative development of the modern Turkish state was further complicated by the Cold War, which subverted all internal and external processes to the single goal of winning the war against communism. Certainly, we can point to the fact that at the regional level, as well as in Turkey itself, a certain level of toleration was evident for Islam during the Cold War, but it was an instrument to counterbalance communism rather than epistemic. Time and time again, the military and Eurocentric elites acted to prevent any normative expression and incorporation of an Islamic ethos into society, thus creating an otherness in one's own land and country.

 

Consequently, and after the Cold War, the persistence of negation and hostilities directed at institutions and individuals who had the temerity to insist on viewing the world from an Islamic ethos was institutionally maintained by the military. The military, with the self-assigned role of custodians of an extreme version of secularism, constantly acted to prevent, at all costs, any reconnecting with the past, which included regular usage of coups often coordinated with U.S. and European intelligence services. Coups are the norm in the colonized global south and, contrary to popular opinion, they are not a result of an inability to govern, but rather part of the postcolonial control structure.

 

Certainly, the colonized state was secured by a number of important structures, political, social, educational and religious with violence and military power brought to maintain order and keep the natives under total control. In addition, colonial structures depended on the recruitment of a segment of the native population to undertake a number of tasks, including internal policing, and act as the middlemen in the administrative structure.

 

In essence, the postcolonial state was the colonized state minus foreign troops. However, the colonial enterprise managed to construct a new elite that enacted policies in the best interest of the colonial motherland, doing so even after independence. The colonially suckled and nurtured elites governed the independent state, its economy and institutions for the benefit of the colonial motherland. If one understands that the colonial context touched every aspect of society alike – politics, economics, society, education and religion. As such, the military's role was to secure and maintain order during the colonial period, which likewise was maintained and extended in the postcolonial era.

 

Military coups and intervention was an instrument utilized to keep the postcolonial state in a permanent state of dependency and prevent it from leaving the sphere of influence of the colonial motherland. If states can be metaphorically considered in the same way as a person, then they go from birth to adulthood, maturity and old age. In this context, coups and military interventions are intended to maintain the postcolonial state in a permanent infancy, constantly needing the colonial motherland to oversee it as the only mature adult entrusted with this role.

 

Military coups' function was to disrupt normative political processes and stop existing contradictions in the various forces in postcolonial society form being worked out. Every military coup manages to set the clock back to a starting point and allows the same postcolonial custodian elites to invite and engage the international colonial masters to supervise another's political, social, cultural, economic, educational and religious rehab program.

 

Today in Turkey, we have multiple processes underway, a democratic shift, economic re-orientation and attempts at constituting a new and different elite that is not beholden to Eurocentric universalism. How to reshape people's consciousness away from a state and a military that was antagonistic toward Islam and this negative view was set as the basis of Turkish nationalism since the inception of the modern nation-state. Being secular in Turkish discourse meant the state must be visibility anti-Muslim in the political, social and economic spheres, not only a separation of the mosque and state. In this context, separating religion from the state in the Turkish case meant separating people from Islam as the basis of their political, economic and social ethos and moral conduct.

 

In the post-Cold War period, a new elite formed across many parts of the Muslim world that is not beholden to Eurocentric thought and no longer views imitation of Europe's trajectory as the highest purpose in life. The new, intellectual, Muslim class is rather young, as most are between 25 and 50, and are as well read on European history as they are on their own Islamic tradition. Turkey's new elite is highly educated, well-versed in all the contemporary intellectual trends and globally connected, which means they cannot be dismissed with the same type of orientalist rhetoric common among think tank talking heads. It was very telling to see the responses coming from Western think tank people in the early minutes of the military coup since it represented in their mind an opportunity to set the clock back and bring their nurtured elites into seats of power again.

 

The current Turkish leadership has brought about major developments in the domestic spheres first and foremost, as economic growth focused on the middle class and the poor, opening access to education with 70 new universities and colleges that provided opportunities to those that would never have dreamed of taking a picture in front of existing institutions, asserting a meritocracy in the selection process for positions within the state apparatus and making it possible for people to express their Islamic tradition openly.

 

I do know that Turkey's civilian leadership was constantly worried about a military coup and how best to navigate their way through it, and this is the basis of the internal tension that shaped their actions and responses. One can say they are paranoid about military coups, but if one understands the nature of the postcolonial order and the constant intervention by the U.S. and Europe in the affairs of the global south, then the recent action serves as a reminder of what is at stake.

 

If we are thinking in broad historical strokes, from the end of World War I when Islam was removed from society and deemed to be the problem, then Turkey's experience 100 years later is an important one. Turkey's attempt to re-normalize Islam's role in society is the key issue at hand, and military coups in the past and present are the instrument to disrupt it. Certainly, the success or failure of Turkey's attempt will have profound and long-term implications for the Islamic world and Europe for sure.

[Holac]

Very interesting analysis by Hatem.

 

Military Coups are part of the post-colonial techniques used by the West to maintain ownership of its former colonial subjects, or any other society that aspires to have a different viewpoint, as is the case in Turkey.

[maakhiri1]

Agree,

 

Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, DRC, former Zaire, few examples,

 

Have you read the book by John Perkins, confessions of an Economic hitman,

 

http://johnperkins.org/

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man

[ElPunto]

Yes an interesting analysis and I agree for the most part. But what to make of Erdogan detaining and/or firing 50,000 people. It can't but be the sign of an autocratic egotistical dictator. Despite the coup - I think on this path Erdogan and the AKP are setting the clock back on themselves. Something the coup didn't manage to do.

[maakhiri1]

I agree with ElPunto, to politially part of the Gulen Movement, or like him, does not necessary mean they were part of the coup or want the coup.

 

Erdogan, in the process of revenge, may lose and destroy the democracy the gave him the power in the first place.

[Holac]

Why doesn't the Gulen movement establish its own political party and mount an open, transparent takeover just like Erdogan did with the AKP party? Why overthrow the government and kill hundreds of people in the process?

 

What is up with all the secrecy, "community homes", corruption, dark pledges and cult behavior? It is baffling, which leads me to believe this is a criminal organization. Erdogan understands there was a tremendous loss of life. I think it is best to suspend all cult suspect, screen them, and re-hire the ones that have nothing to do with Gulen or the coup.

 

 

[galbeedi]

Of course it is a cult. They wasted all the good work they did throughout the decades. They were the allies of AKP and Erdogan but decided to take the power through illegal means,

 

With a listening device they bugged all government miniseries and military leaders and recorded all private conversations. In 2013, through these devices, the Gulen prosecutes and judges charged ten cabinet ministers and military generals. Most of the generals were accused for plotting against the government. Through judicial coup , they almost destroyed the government of Erdogan and people poured in the streets.

 

Since they infiltrated all governments , they spilled government secrets and all military operations by feeding their own papers. In fact they are a parallel state that does not want to openly contest elections.

 

This was not a military coup , because most of the leaders of the military , including the chief of staff, the army, air force and navy chiefs did not participate the coup. Through the Turkish intelligence service, the military received around 4:00pm about the coup. They issued ordered grounding all flights and called back those who took off. At 8:00pm all no movement orders were completed, yet the Gulen members embedded in the leadership of military bases issued new orders.

 

Imagine , the chief of staff of the Turkish forces was detained by his own secretary. Erdogan aid de camp, the colonel who should be with President in his travels, was with the coup plotters. Like robots, the Gulist were given orders and they persecuted without questions which is a cult like They did not care about the country or the lives of their citizens.

 

They called themselves the peace counsel. First, evil terrorists bombed Istanbul airport and killed almost fifty people, then the coup followed. I would probably say that the Gulen people had some support from foreign powers to destabilize. Turkey.

 

They are state within the state, yet all the educational and other services provided by this movement should be saved . Schools and hospital services for the needy must be preserved. The biggest fear is the Gulen movement's interest is more important than the people and the state.