17 December: the Arab Spring and the FETÖ judicial coup

Today is the 17th of December. As we said before about 28 February, it is one of the days of Allah. But the attempted judicial coup launched in Turkey 5 years ago today still makes this day quite special for now.

Yet another occasion that makes this day special is that 8 years ago in Tunisia a young street vendor named Bu Azizi set himself on fire to protest the government. This incident had triggered a Revolution process that would later affect the entire Arab world and be named the Arab Spring.

This Revolution process, without doubt, had shaken loose all the stones of the colonialism-based order that had been continuing in the Middle East since the First World War and had taken different forms in different periods. It had the effect of a social and political earthquake, and all the pillars of the order had been shaken and many toppled. From that day to this, the aftershocks and effects of that earthquake continue. Things have still not settled down, and at this rate will not settle until they find their stability.

Was the relationship of the Arab Spring process, triggered on 17 December 2010, with the FETÖ-ist Judicial Coup attempted in Turkey on 17 December 2013 merely that the two coincided on the same day?

Or let us ask the question this way: was it a coincidence that FETÖ chose the day of 17 December to rise up, by using the Judicial power it had seized, against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and in fact against Turkey, which together with him had caught a new awakening and an air of Spring?

Truly we cannot know this. But after three + five years that have passed, today we can see the relationship between the two cases much more clearly.

First of all, one must somehow settle accounts with the claim that the Arab Spring process was designed by certain well-known centers, by certain people, in order to reshape the Middle East and the Arab world. One must see that this assumption of a power that controls everything, that is supposedly aware of nearly every leaf that falls from its branch, at some point also assumes a divine power that is made a partner to Allah.

The fact is that the Arab Spring process was a kind of socio-political disaster, from the standpoint of the owners of the world order, realized by the breaking of the energy produced by deep social undercurrents or faults. This disaster, first of all, upended the order of those so-called centers of power. It was something they had not calculated and were not prepared for.

But this does not mean that they afterwards did not try to control this process by mobilizing all their means.

Indeed, as soon as the Arab Spring process began, the only thing those powers thought of was to set in motion counter-coup processes that would turn this process back and make up for what they had lost.

According to some people's assessment, the source of inspiration of the Arab Spring process was Turkey, with its manner of uniting and fusing its people and its state more with each passing day, and of successfully establishing, with its democratization and development, peace among religion, state and society.

The Turkish experience, which was the source of inspiration of the Arab Spring process, therefore had to be the first target of the Counter-revolution's moves.

That is why the movement of rebellion (Tamarod) that went as far as the coup in Egypt in June and July of 2013 was a more comprehensive plan that also included the Gezi movement in Turkey. The aim was simultaneously to overthrow Erdoğan in Turkey and, in Egypt, Muhammad Morsi, the only President elected for the first time in its history.

Tamarod and Gezi were two uprisings whose discourses, tools and tactics were all cooked in the same kitchen. It succeeded in Egypt, but did not succeed in Turkey, and because Turkey could not be brought down, a source of inspiration for a renewed wind of Spring over the Arab world would always continue to exist.

FETÖ's insidious support for and manipulation of the Gezi incident became more visible over time. Attributions such as "authoritarian" and "one-man" directed at the name Erdoğan were seen for the first time in their publications. Cumali Önal, the Cihan News Agency representative in Cairo, who was preparing for Tamarod, confirming the putschists who wanted to portray Morsi as a dictator, as if that were not enough, did not hesitate to put Erdoğan in the same basket too.

FETÖ, which failed to overthrow Erdoğan through the Gezi revolt that it tried to steer with a disgusting insidiousness, tried the same thing this time through a judicial coup on 17 December, that is, on the third anniversary of the day the Arab Spring process began.

A judicial coup is definitely a far more dangerous, far more insidious, far harder-to-handle coup than a direct military coup or forcing one to withdraw through popular uprisings. Moreover, when it is done in the name of "fighting corruption," resisting it is far harder than resisting tanks.

First the devilry in it must be shown. No one looking from outside knows the inner face of the matter. It looks like the flailing of a government drowned in corruption against members of the judiciary who go after corruption courageously, even heroically. Yet to be able to show people that those judges are, with this operation, themselves drowned up to their throats in a treacherous corruption. That is the real great courage and heroism.

With judicial coups like 17 December, many a ruler in the world has been quietly buried in history. No one could speak even well of them after them. The dreadful thieves who sat in the seats after them, meanwhile, have gone on their way quietly and unnoticed, having gained a so-called clean slate and the power of governing legitimacy.

That is why, in my view, the stance and leadership Erdoğan displayed on 17 December against this insidious structure that was trying to occupy the country were harder and more exceptional than the leadership displayed against a direct military coup.

Meanwhile 17 December is also a special day that exposes the alliance behind both the FETÖ coup in Turkey and all the counter-revolutions of the Arab Spring. We saw that with sufficient clarity too.