Turkey: A Lesson For Egypt
Updated: 12:04pm UK, Monday 05 August 2013
By Sam Kiley, Middle East Correspondent
When the sword of Islam clashes with the sabre of secular military ambition sparks will inevitably fly.
Egypt has been set aflame this way – but Turkey has moved decisively to blunt the armed forces political armoury.
Some 300 officers, politicians, lawyers and dozens of journalists are hearing the verdicts after a five-year trial in which they have been accused of plotting bombing campaigns, political murder and a coup against Turkey's Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Organised by a "deep state" organisation known as Ergenekon, the alleged plot has bitterly divided Turkish society.
Secular liberals have little time for the habitual interventions of the military in Turkey's politics – but, over the years, they (like their Egyptian cousins) have also looked to senior officers to preserve the secular traditions that modernised their country after the end of Ottoman rule in 1923.
So the alleged plotters are being seen as the latest victims of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's long running campaign to rid Turkey's body politic of the presence of the military by his critics.
The military staged its last coup in 1997 against the Necmettin Erbakan of the Welfare Party, an Islamist movement, by operating against him from behind the scenes.
In 1998 Erdogan, the Mayor of Istanbul and a member of the Welfare Party, was jailed for 10 months for allegedly inciting racial hatred in a move which he has always blamed on the secular military.
When he came to power he moved quickly to try to keep the military at bay.
His secret police first uncovered the "Sledgehammer", an alleged plot ten years ago, in which about 300 people, most of them in the military, were jailed for allegedly organising another coup.
Many of his critics insist that the charges in the latest trial are trumped up.
They point out that only one other country on earth has jailed more journalists – and that is China.
This year's demonstrations in Taksim Square in Istanbul and across the country have rattled Mr Erdogan – who has been in power for a decade - as tens of thousands took to the streets to protest against the steady drift of Turkey towards an Islamist state.
He has attempted to ban kissing in public, imposed restrictions on the sale of alcohol, and neutered the domestic media which has infuriated many Turks.
But they are unlikely to be able to look to the military to help – their counterparts in Cairo successfully implored the Egyptian armed forces to depose their democratically elected president.
In some ways Egypt's recently ousted President, Mohammed Morsi, currently in military custody, might have learned from his Turkish counterpart.
He could have moved against Egypt's US-backed armed forces before they moved against him, early in his presidency.
He had warnings.
General Abdel Fatah al Sisi, his defence minister, twice warned that the armed forces might intervene before they did in June this year. He warned this would be to stop a civil war.
A move against the armed forces for threatening a coup might have been legitimate.
But it could not have been carried politically.
Then president Mr Morsi had failed to focus on Egypt's economy. Mr Erdogan didn't make that mistake.
His economic reforms created a wealthy middle class and big money vested interests who were interested mainly in maintaining political stability while the economy boomed in the last decade.
Many looked aside when Mr Erdogan first cracked down on the military.
Mr Morsi pursued a cruder agenda.
He was unable to galvanise an economy which, in any case, is believed to be about 40% under military control.
Instead he focused on centralising power and promoting his fellow members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
By December last year he had put himself above the law and introduced rule by decree.
The Brotherhood is the most potent civil society movement in Egypt – but without the armour of economic success, it was always going to be run-through by the military.
Recent upheavals and demonstrations against Mr Erdogan's Islamist agenda in Turkey has fuelled support for the 300 alleged coup plotters as the verdicts come in on a long trial.
This may be the opportunity for the Turkish military to take a lesson from their Egyptian comrades and forge an alliance with the secular liberals on the streets. If they do, we can expert fireworks.
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