17 December: the coup that overreached itself

Like all previous coups, December 17 was a coup attempt for which both the before and the after had been thoroughly thought through, and in which a strategic mind and instruments were mobilized. One important difference from its predecessors was that it had internalized, with great success, the experiences, tactics and mind of all other coup attempts, and was probably using a wider room for maneuver than any of them.

There is betrayal in every coup attempt. After all, turning an armed force or an authority entrusted to oneself by the legitimate government, that is, by the representatives of the people, against that legitimate government is in every case a betrayal of a trust. That is why all coups, above all else, have the dimension of a breach of trust.

However, in the past, from the moment soldiers or civilian epaulet-wearers who collaborated with soldiers set their minds on a coup, an emotional distance or tension that everyone could feel formed between them and politics. The footsteps of May 27, for example, had begun to be heard long in advance. It was known to all that the army's relations with Menderes and his government were not good.

Likewise, in the March 12 memorandum there was a serious power-balance tension between the parties to the coup and the people subjected to it. The ground for the September 12 military coup was prepared in such a way that a high expectation had been created among a significant part of the public that the next step would be a coup.

Likewise, before the February 28 postmodern coup there was already a series of ongoing resentments between the Refahyol cadres and the military and its cronies. To this you can add the April 27 e-memorandum process, which also came to nothing, and the Gezi process, in which all feelings were displayed openly and with gritted teeth on both sides.

Yet the important difference of the December 17 coup attempt was that, before the coup, there was no tension whatsoever between the parties in the country that would have made this outcome meaningful. A coup whose footsteps were not heard in any way, which crept up on its adversary and aimed to reach an effective result in one stroke, must be admitted to have been extremely original.

In a democratic world where coups are now deemed crimes, it could of course not be expected that coups would be "incautious" and would arrive disguised as "coups." But in Turkey, including the atmosphere of May 27, there has never been a time when coups were deemed crimes, and therefore a time when coups did not carry out a separate procedure to legitimize themselves.

Even so, December 17 is different still. It is evident that it was very well worked out and has a quality that exceeds the mind of its visible actors. Until very recently the actors and supporters of the coup appeared to be acting together with the government, and were benefiting from all the government's resources like the biggest coalition partner.

In the meantime, very close friendships, human relations and emotional sharing had formed between the two sides, and thanks to this the parties to the coup had made their way into the other side's most private spheres, meeting no reservation at all, for the coup they would strike a day later. That this atmosphere of trust would be abused by one side for a purpose such as intelligence gathering or informing was not something to be expected. Moreover, it was later seen that even the information gathered in this field was used in a distorted way.

Therefore, December 17 was at the same time a great blow struck against the relationship of trust between people. As someone who has from time to time paid close attention to the contribution of the Gülen movement itself to "social capital" in Turkey, that is, to the process of producing social trust, I found it, from whatever angle you look at it, a great disappointment that this story had come to such a place.

The greatest strength and success of the Gülen movement was also that it showed what people who trust one another to the extreme can do together. This movement, which openly struck a blow at this community's sense of trust, also revealed the negative dimension of the relationship of trust within the community, that is, how dangerous it can become when it is not questioned.

From an Islamic standpoint, is it permissible for people to trust one another to the point of "making a friend an enemy, making the lawful unlawful"? Of course not. There are clear verses in the Holy Qur'an to the effect that a relationship of trust displayed at this level without being questioned is directly associating partners with God (for example, Surah At-Tawbah, verse 31).

Meanwhile, the field in which the December 17 coup attempt tried to justify itself is one of the areas in which the AK Parti was most assertive during its 11 years in power: the fight against corruption. Yet what the AK Parti, in power for 11 years, achieved in this country were things that could have been realized only thanks to an extremely effective fight against corruption.

The gains won through the fight against corruption are not limited to those reflected in the country's economic indicators. On the contrary, these economic indicators themselves have brought the value of "justice against corruption" considerably to the fore and have further increased society's commitment to these values.

A discourse that fabricates or exaggerates corruption as a danger enveloping everything in order to justify its own coup, contrary to what is supposed, does not amount to an effective fight against corruption. On the contrary, in this way it normalizes and encourages corruption as "something everyone can do most easily anyway."

To legitimize its coup, the parallel structure, with this campaign, shut down and destroyed a belief and spirituality that society had, for 12 years together with the AK Parti government, spread in order to condemn corruption. It damaged society's faith in itself in Turkey.

Yet we had said before as well: no greater, more shameful corruption than a coup has ever been recorded. Because all coups rest on the corrupt abuse of power, authority and office.

The musketeers of December 17, the more they voice the anti-corruption campaign, the more they continue to erode people's every belief in honesty. Moreover, through the year that has passed since December 17, they keep on spinning their intrigues, each of which is a separate corruption file.

This is yet another difference of December 17 that goes beyond the logic of coups.