From the Arab Spring to a continuous order of coups: on the 5th anniversary of the coup in Egypt

Exactly four years ago, the bloodiest and most savage military coup of the 21st century was carried out against Mohamed Morsi, the first president in Egypt's 4,000-year history to come to power through a democratic election, and Morsi was sent straight from power to prison. The coup was organized by Morsi's own Minister of Defense, whom he himself had appointed, but it also had a great many supporters, from within and from abroad, whose backing came as a surprise.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia took the lead in this coup attempt, just as they are acting against Qatar today. Of course, the US and the EU countries also backed the coup through the positions they adopted afterwards, if not in the very first minute. From within, alongside the Saudi-backed Salafist Nour Party, the leftists, the Coptic church and the liberals, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the thugs and most of the media sided with the coup from the very first minute.

Both the profile of those in the coup coalition and the language and discourse that led to the coup process hold great lessons in themselves. Morsi had not even been in office for a year, yet the leftists and liberals had begun to criticize him for not sharing power with others, even though he had been elected president with 52 percent of the vote, and to grumble that he had not solved Egypt's century-old problems within a hundred days.

These grumblings had already begun to supply the first motivation for the coup. During my visits to Egypt under Morsi, the argument I heard most from liberal and leftist journalists was that "Morsi had been elected by the votes of an unqualified populace." In other words, the typical comparison of "the shepherd's vote versus the professor's vote" was widespread.

The "Tamarrud" (Rebellion) movement, a fancy phrase used against Morsi, was going to hold a huge rally on 30 June in Tahrir Square, the symbolic square of the revolution that took place on 25 January 2011 against Hosni Mubarak. The coup plotters, who looked down on Morsi's "unqualified" votes, filled this square of freedom with flocks of "looters" (çapulcu) known as thugs, and thus formally and openly stole the glorious square of the revolution. This "looting" was no different from what was shamelessly claimed as a title here in our country during the Gezi incident.

In return for their stolen squares, Egypt's revolutionaries immediately set up Rabaa Square and all of Egypt's squares in their place, and for a month they kept in the squares, in an entirely peaceful resistance, several times as many people as those who had rebelled against Morsi. This stance was a true revolutionary stance, entirely peaceful, with no intention or act of violence whatsoever. Unfortunately, the opposition to violence that they had declared from the outset most probably also made them easy prey for the coup plotters. For the coup plotters had no values and no sensitivities whatsoever regarding human beings and humanity. One morning they gave the first sign of what they were capable of by opening fire on people performing prayer in front of the Republican Palace, killing dozens. Even so, they set about dispersing the crowds by ruthlessly firing volleys on the hundreds of thousands who continued to hold their ground in the squares. They set fire to the hospitals treating the wounded in the square, and crushed the gathered corpses with construction machinery.

When all this happened, not the slightest voice was heard from the so-called democratic Western world. It did not show even one percent of the interest that it showed, in those same days, toward the Gezi incident, Turkey's "Tamarrud" movement, which was taking place in Turkey and which started from the relocation of a few trees.

The truth is that the insensitivity displayed by the civilized Western world toward the slaughter of a democratic development in the Islamic world at such an initial stage would take much talk and much analysis. Most of that talk, of course, concerns how sincere and honest the Western world is in its claim to democracy, and especially in its interest in the development of democracy in the Islamic world. This attitude actually gave an important clue about what might have happened had the coup attempt undertaken by FETÖ in Turkey three years later succeeded.

We saw that the international coalition formed against the coup in Egypt appeared before us with the same roles on 15 July as well. In fact, a coalition also sufficiently illuminates the nature of the Gezi incident, which targeted Turkey simultaneously with the coup in Egypt.

The sum of what has happened in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia in the four years since the coup in Egypt, of what happened in Turkey after Gezi during the 17-25 December and 15 July processes, and of what is happening today with regard to the Qatar crisis, shows that we are within an interlinked process.

Looking at the point it has reached, there are those who say that the Arab Spring process was, from the beginning, part or the beginning of a plan aimed at such an outcome. Yet while it may be true that the Arab Spring was a process that triggered many later developments, its beginning certainly represented an awakening that developed spontaneously, entirely in the name of the Arab-Muslim peoples claiming their own dignity, freedom and will.

Within a short time the movement had a full spring effect throughout the Arab world. An atmosphere of unity formed that healed the century-long rift between peoples. Dictators were withdrawing, and peoples were discovering a world in which their own will was of value.

That this development took place in line with the wishes of the world's rulers was contrary to both reason and logic. Indeed, with everything going well, the only worry was when the rulers who had founded this world a hundred years ago would step onto the stage and try to sabotage the process.

They stepped onto the stage in Egypt, and then, with the process they sabotaged in Syria, Libya and Yemen, they threw the Islamic world into total chaos. Nor were they able to establish a new order. There also appears to be no likelihood that they will establish a new order in their favor in the short or medium term. In effect, all they are doing is delaying the birth of a new, free world. With the coup they carried out and supported in Egypt, they made the greatest mistake in their history. Today, because of that great mistake, they are in a far less secure position in the world surrounding them. Moreover, every step they take to rectify the situation makes their position a little more inextricable. Governing the entire Middle East through an uninterrupted coup process is not a work of reason..

Spring, however, is a matter of seasons; it comes around and returns again.