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Turkey's
Intra-Islamist Struggle for Power
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Originally published under the title "Coup Lessons."
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Exiled
Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen (left) and President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, once allies, have turned on each other with a vengeance.
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Every piece of evidence emerging after the failed putsch on July 15
indicates that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the victim of a failed
Gülenist coup d'état. But to get the picture right we must ask ourselves,
perhaps ironically, what the victim and the perpetrator have in common. The
answer is many years of staunch alliance and the same ideology: political
Islam.
Mr. Erdoğan now accuses the Gülenist movement of "having
infiltrated into the state system over the past 40 years." He must
accuse himself first. He was the man who paved the way for the Gülenist
infiltration during the years he was in power, from 2002 to 2013, when he
broke up with the "terrorist." In his own words: "Whatever
you asked for, we gave it to you." In short, Mr. Erdoğan was a devoted
Gülen ally during 37.5 years of the "terrorist's" 40-year quest
to capture the Turkish state.
What brought them together? What, essentially, do Messrs. Erdoğan and
Gülen have in common, ideologically speaking? The desire to Islamize. Did
they break up because of deep ideological divergences? No. Over methodology
in reaching a common goal? Perhaps. Because of greed for political power?
Probably. But not because one of them decided to abandon political Islam.
The failed Gülenist putsch offers lessons that Turkish Islamists will
probably never learn: Islam the religion or Islamism the political ideology
will never forge a wonder alliance or achieve your end goals just because
Islamism the political ideology brings together a small or big bunch of
like-minded conservative Muslims sharing an ideology that aims to
"conquer" Muslim lands first (by imposing Islamism on secular
Muslims) and then "conquer" infidel lands (by imposing Islamism
on non-Muslim nations).
Turkey experienced a coup attempt by
Islamists disguised as officers against Islamists who are not disguised.
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"Conservatism as a glue" and "he is a good fellow who
prays five times a day, has his wedding ring on his right hand, has a
particular type of moustache" are foolish indicators upon which to
forge enduring political alliances. Being conservative Muslims isn't enough
to make a strong bond. If President Erdoğan's narrative of the July 15 coup
attempt is right, what we see here is basically a coup attempt by Islamists
disguised as officers against Islamists who are not disguised. In short, an
Islamist coup against an Islamist government.
Will the Turkish Islamists in power ever understand that piety or
non-piety is not a good basis to establish friends from foes? No. For
several years they feared a putsch from their ideological nemesis, the
secularists. In a bitter irony, the secular officers helped them suppress
the Islamist coup attempt within the army ranks.
The Islamists in power must now purge tens of thousands of Islamist
government officials, including senior judges, military and police
officers, academics, and their former allies. They must close down
thousands of Islamist schools, NGOs, and foundations and engage in a
witch-hunt in a country ruled under a state of emergency; Islamists running
after Islamists. Funny, more women with the Islamic headscarf are now being
arrested than under the oppressive secularist regime of the late 1990s.
Sadly, the Erdoğanist-Gülenist (political) amorous affair produced
millions of pages of (political) love letters (just Google it and see
material as recent as even 2013) but ended up in the courtroom after
domestic violence. Now there will be new Islamist-to-Islamist alliances,
with new sects competing to emerge, just because the pious can only trust
the pious. And then the headlines on another dreadful day will be bad déjà
vu.
A minor note to my former "sparring partner," column neighbor
Mustafa Akyol, who wrote
that "the government is trying to wipe out a cult that has secretly
infiltrated the state, in order to impose its own agenda by using every
dirty method against its enemies." That is wrong. The government is
trying to wipe out a cult that has not-so-secretly infiltrated the state as
its best ally in order to advance a common ideological goal, and by using
every dirty method against their then-common enemies.
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based
columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News and a fellow at the Middle
East Forum.
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