New-generation coups, Tunisia and the UAE

When a coup is mentioned in Türkiye, the model etched in the mind has always been the military coups that began with 27 May. At the end of this model, in which the military set its tanks in motion and directly seized every level of government, politicians would be punished for not understanding, for insisting on not understanding, the messages that the military holding tutelage gave, sometimes by implication and sometimes openly. Indeed, whether heading toward 12 March, 12 September or 28 February, the military's threats, through the press and all the media, constantly worked like a "calibration institute for democracy."

But since 2007 the coup plotters have renewed themselves, undergone a mutation, so to speak. Now they no longer come in the form of a military coup; they try other ways to overthrow legitimate, elected governments. Now we have in front of us a rich sample of new-generation mutant coup attempts:

Then, the Gezi uprising, whose seventh anniversary we are marking these days, was again an entirely different coup move that had renewed itself considerably. Explaining this, in those days, to the Muslim who took part in the uprising feeling so democratic, so anti-authoritarian-government, even so leftist-socialist, even anti-capitalist, was by its nature very difficult.

For them the event looked, at worst, like the democratic right to protest and, at best, like something like a revolution. Taking part in a coup as if taking part in the democratic right to protest. So the coups become quite democratized, too. Or taking part in an operation to bring down the only focus of resistance to international capital as if taking part in a socialist revolution. So the coups come quite from the left, too. Or, in the name of anti-capitalist social justice, in the name of Islam, becoming hostile to the only political structure that has been a hope for the oppressed and the exploited in this world, looking from behind eyes painted by the formidable discursive operations of the insatiable, greedy colonialist capitalists who have stripped the world bare. So the coups taste quite like an Abu Dharr revolt, too.

In those same days in Egypt a Tamarod Movement takes place, in order to slam shut the door that had been opened a crack for liberation from the despotism the Middle East has lived under for a century and for governments based on the will of the people, and you would think it was just like the Gezi incident. Their discourses, tactics, international endorsements and follow-ups were the same. As someone who closely followed both the Tamarod Movement and Gezi in the same period, I am still in amazement at having seen the parallel between them. When we asked then, "Can a road lead from Gezi Park to Harbiye?", the leftists, with the winds of Gezi blowing at their heads, labeled us conspiratorial, and they did not even have the eyes to see where the same undertaking led things in Egypt.

We saw how the FETÖ mentality behind the affair made playthings of the leftists who joined Gezi, of all the organizations, and of those who built anti-capitalist dreams in the guise of Islam. And the FETÖ mentality's miraculous powers were of course not self-derived. There was a subcontracting for a higher mind, in which Türkiye's leading finance-capitalists, who proudly adopted the label "Looter" for themselves, also converged.

The most dangerous of the new-generation coups was without doubt the one that emerged on 17-25 December. Against a coup attempted by a structure organized as a judicial junta, and moreover by accusing the government of corruption, no government anywhere in the world had a chance of standing. In fact, there are currently many such governments in many parts of the world that could not resist coups carried out through the judiciary. They reign as legitimate administrations.

They say "a brigand does not become the ruler of the world," but he does, just like that; it has happened. What you call the judiciary is not law or justice; it is merely a power.

In my view, Erdoğan's real political skill, which cemented his leadership, emerged not on 15 July but on 17 December, that is, in the politics he displayed against the coup's coming in the satanic guise of the judiciary. Otherwise the 15 July coup was the worst of the old-generation coups and, in a way, a desperate move of exit from the predicament FETÖ found itself in after earlier coup attempts that had failed against Erdoğan's leadership.

Now the coup mentality is in search of renewing itself, of overcoming and of repeating more effectively. Today we can comfortably say that the political vacuums and opportunities they need do not exist in Türkiye, but this does not mean that their appetites and their quests do not exist.

Just look at the coup the BAE tried to have carried out in Qatar after the coup it carried out in Egypt. Then the coups it undertook in Yemen and in Libya.

By blocking at the last moment the coups it was nearly about to pull off in Qatar and Libya, Türkiye left its appetite stuck in its throat. Now, as if it had not been able to fill its belly in these hunting grounds, it is trying to chase a coup in Tunisia.

Of course in Tunisia there is no army for sale that could serve as a tool for coup appetites in the sense we know. That is why there too they are trying to develop a new-generation coup. One specific to Tunisia, applicable only in Tunisia. But the goal and the style are still the same: exploiting political vacuums and reaching a result through the media, the unions and a fragmented parliament.

I think there is no need to remind that the BAE is in complete solidarity with all the coup attempts in Türkiye.

In fact, now the cap has fallen and the bald head is seen, and all the games the BAE has been trying to play in the region and all the sedition it has been brewing have come out in the open.

What comes after this is the question of what to dress that bald head in.