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The Past. The Present. The Future?
Several days have passed since the failure of the attempted military coup in Turkey, and it's becoming obvious that the
consequences of the failed plot will have very serious and detrimental effects for the Turkish polity and society, writes Inosmi.ru columnist Dmitri Dobrov. Metin Munir, a veteran Turkish journalist from the internet news portal T24, wrote about the failed coup attempt as follows: "Erdogan is saved, but Turkey is going under."
For his part, in an analysis published by RIA Novosti, Dmitri Dobrov warned that what Turkey may be witnessing today "is the
end of Kemalist Turkey, where the army had been the guarantor of secularist principles and democracy, even if only in the conditional sense. What will happen to the country following this event is hard to say, but democracy is definitely set to suffer for it."
President Erdogan, for his part, called the attempted coup a "gift from God." For his critics, Dobrov suggested, it is
"an opportunity to 'take care' of opposition from both the right and the left - from supporters of liberal civil society, to the pro-Kurdish parties. It's no wonder that the world's press has begun to speculate that Erdogan may have deliberately staged the coup to consolidate his power."
For now, the journalist recalled, it remains unclear what exactly motivated the officers to stage the abortive coup. "Although Erdogan himself had alleged that they were motivated by Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen,
it's also possible that they acted on the principle of protecting the Kemalist tradition - which sees the army as the guarantor of Turkey's secular order. It's quite possible that they had patriotic intentions."
Comment: It's worth noting that Nigel Farage decided to attend the GOP convention to "hear Trump's speech." Farage seemingly jumped off the UK ship and now wants to get on Trump's bandwagon.