Please note that President Erdoğan has won every single local and national election in the past decade, including the recent presidental contest when he achieved an admirable 52 %. As such, he is undoubtably the most popular Turkish leader since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Even so, the unarmed people who confronted the tanks were by no means composed entirely of Erdoğan fans. Nor are the huge crowds who have been keeping vigilance until the wee hours of the morning the zealous supporters of his Justice and Development Party. They are none other than the multi-ideological members of a seasoned nation who is well aware that in our part of the World after every democratic victory there is another battle waiting to be won.
We are a steadfast lot who believe that the peoples’ right to choose their way of life is a natural, fundamental right, and as such is a corollary of the postulate of integral democracy. Hence, no democratically elected government deserves being overthrown by an coup. No attack on unarmed civilians can be extenuated, most certainly not by the Peoples’ very own military with weapons precured with their hard earned taxes.
Please note that July 15th was not some Play Station game. We lost over 250 men and women. About 1500 people are wounded, some so heavily that they probably will not make it.
The gist of it is that, we in Turkey are angry and hurt. As such, we have been expecting if not compassion, some solace from our friends and allies- and at least some semblance of homage from the international media. To our dismal, we witnessed the BBC Arabic, Sky News Arabic, El Arabiya TV, the ITN diplomatic editör and the US networks run boisterous commentaries saying that President Erdogan“ was finished” or“ had fled to Germany.”
As Sunday Times unabashedly reported the rogue faction as“ the guardians of democratic and secular rule of law”, our very own resident reporter Andrew Finckel, typically ignored the reality of the Turkish scene and haughtily advised from The Guardian:“ The lesson of the failed coup is that Turkey needs a leader who can bring different sides of a divided society together – or at the very least, one who is willing to try.” This was from a man who has been living in our mids for the last two decades.
As for the irrefutable fact that“ It was a major display of solidarity when Turkish MPs from all four major political parties gathered at the damaged Parliament only hours after a coup attempt failed to overthrow the government”, we were to find out that a blatantly hostile explanation had already been designed and put to service:“ Knowing if they didn’ t, the resurging dictator-in-charge( please note that would be President Erdoğan would include them in his lethal kill roundup too.”
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