BY: İLNUR ÇEVIK*
We are currently commemorating the first anniversary of the failed bloody coup attempt that took place on July 15, 2016. The events to mark this occasion will culminate on midnight Sunday at Parliament’s courtyard with a mass rally led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Thanks to the Turkish people who stood up against tanks and F-16 fighters, the coup failed and most of those responsible for the bloody events are in prison or currently facing court.
Aydın Doğan, the veteran business tycoon who is the publisher of Hürriyet, one of the largest newspapers in Turkey, has recently said that had the coup been successful, Turkey would have been plunged into absolute disaster.
So it is important to really ask what would have happened if the coup had not failed.
Firstly there would have been an unprecedented bloodbath in Turkey as the coup plotters showed they were willing to unleash violence and tyranny at will without emotion. The people now running this country would have been massacred along with most of us.
Then the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) would have taken over the rule of the country and built its own form of government, which would have permanently changed the whole state system.
In past coups, military regimes would run the country for a period and then handover power back to the civilians through parliamentary elections. Under Gülen rule there would have been no such thing. The coup would bring its own permanent rule that would not have changed in the future.
Thus whoever was a supporter of the Gülenist cult would benefit from the state resources and funds and others would be denied any form of a decent living.
Justice, security and equality would be terminologies of the past and the Gülen people would be given priority and thus others would be persecuted.
Those who oppose President Erdoğan and his policies, in general, would most likely understand the great mistake they made in trying to get rid of him if they faced the rule of the Gülen people.
One leading representative of a Western news agency, which is critical of Erdoğan, admitted that his news agency would have withdrawn from Turkey had Gülen succeeded in the coup.
Gülen and his crowd would have sold out Turkey to the West just like the past junta administrations did. Turkey would have returned to acting like the lap dog of the U.S. and thus serve American interests without any hesitation or objection.
The Cyprus issue would have been solved to the satisfaction of the Greek Cypriots and Turkey would have accepted Armenian demands.
It is clear that the Gülen supporters had a tacit agreement to help the PKK terrorist organization achieve its separatist goals, which means Turkey would have lost some of its eastern and southeastern provinces to a terrorist state.
With the certain economic collapse, Turkey would have been demoted in the top league of nations and returned to its former status of a country battling with financial troubles and accepting handouts like Egypt.
Here we presented only a glimpse of what would have happened if the Turkish people had failed to rise up to the occasion and prevent this evil coup staged by an evil gang, FETÖ.
*İLNUR ÇEVIK is a Turkish columnist. He writes for Daily Sabah Turkish newspaper. (Published in Daily Sabah on July 14, 2017)
