As coups are one of the primary ways through which dictatorships are installed, this piece details measures that civilians, civil society, and governments can take to prevent and block coups d’état and executive usurpations. It also contains specific legislative steps and other measures that governments and non-governmental institutions can follow to prepare for anti-coup resistance.
The Anti-Coup
By Gene Sharp & Bruce Jenkins
The Albert Einstein Institution
from the July 24, 2008 edition
Washington – President Bush’s vision of a democratic Middle East was premised in part on the region’s popular Islamist groups reconciling themselves to the give-and-take nature of democracy.
It might make sense then, that the Bush administration would do what it could to support a party that has made such a transformation in Turkey. But it’s not.
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which fashioned itself as the Muslim equivalent of Europe’s Christian Democrats, has stood out by passing a series of unprecedented political reforms as the country’s ruling party.
Yet the Turkish Constitutional Court – bastion of the hard-line secularist old guard – is now threatening to close down the AKP and ban its leading figures, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, from party politics for five years. And the Bush administration, in the face of this impending judicial coup, has chosen to remain indifferent. The consequences could reach beyond a setback to democracy in Turkey and affect the Middle East.
The Constitutional Court will rule as soon as next week on an indictment accusing the AKP of being a “focal point of antisecular activities.”
Turkey’s Constitution establishes secularism as an unalterable principle and allows the court to ban parties it deems antisecular. But disbanding a democratically-elected party on such dubious grounds as attempting to lift a controversial ban on wearing head scarves in universities – the crux of the case against the AKP – is not how mature democracies handle divisive issues. Judges should not decide parties’ fates; voters should.
Indeed, voters have flocked to the AKP since its founding by break away reformists within the Islamic movement. The party was elected in 2002 on pledges to preserve secularism and vigorously pursue Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union. It also explicitly disavowed the Islamist label.
The AKP-led government then passed a series of democratic reforms that led Brussels to begin formal accession negotiations with Turkey. Those reforms, together with a booming economy, spurred 47 percent of Turks to vote for the AKP in its landslide 2007 reelection.
To be sure, the AKP’s democratic credentials are hardly perfect. It has been overly cautious in repealing certain restrictions on freedom of speech, and it abruptly lifted the head scarf ban without first initiating a national dialogue.
Yet despite its flaws, the AKP is the most democratically inclined – and somewhat ironically, the most pro-Western – political party on the Turkish scene today. Closing it down would be a mistake.
A ban on a party that nearly half of the country supports could spark violence – which Turkey’s secularist generals might then use as a pretext for a direct military intervention. Regardless, senior EU figures have criticized the closure case and warned that banning the AKP could gravely damage Turkey’s candidacy.
Even more troubling is the message it would send to the rest of the Muslim world – no matter how much Islamists moderate, they won’t be accepted as legitimate participants in the democratic process.
In recent years, mainstream Islamist groups throughout the region – including in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco – have embraced many of the foundational components of democratic life. Yet their moderation has been met with harsh government repression, or more subtle designs to restrict their political participation.
More is at stake than may initially appear. If the AKP – the most moderate, pro-democratic “Islamist” party in the region today – is disbanded, it will strengthen those Islamists who see violence and confrontation as a surer means to influence political power.
During the past year, a number of Islamist leaders we’ve spoken to in Egypt and Jordan have warned that rank-and-file activists are losing faith in the democratic process, and may soon become attracted to more radical approaches. A ban on the AKP would only make it that much harder for moderates to continue making the case that participating in elections is worthwhile.
Though US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praises the AKP’s democratization agenda, last month she said, “Obviously, we are not going to get involved in … the current controversy in Turkey about the court case.” Yet moments later she opined, “Sometimes when I’m asked what might democracy look like in the Middle East, I think it might look like Turkey.” It’s difficult to tell if she’s referring to the new, democratizing Turkey of the past five years – or the reactionary Turkey where judges and generals flagrantly overrule the people’s will.
President Bush has one last opportunity to reinvigorate the cause of Middle East democracy. By publicly denouncing the closure case, the administration would signal that the US not only supports Turkish democracy against a dangerous internal assault, but that it is also committed to defending all actors willing to abide by democratic principles in a region that desperately needs more of them.
• Alex Taurel is a research associate at the Project on Middle East Democracy. Shadi Hamid is the director of research there and a research fellow at the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor, July 24, 2008
COUP (DARBE) explores the origins of the militarily-patrolled democratic system created by Ataturk in the 1920’s; the place of the armed forces in the political and cultural life of the nation; the causes and consequences of each coup d’etat and how they differ from those in South America and the rest of the world, and the future of the “military democracy.”
COUP contains not one word of voice-over narration or one frame of simulated footage. The film instead weaves together interviews with activists, politicians, and military leaders with extraordinary archival and personal footage of the military actions, street demonstrations and extremist activisms. This enables the film to illustrate the variegated nature of the current debate in Turkey, interweaving radically differing viewpoints without passing them through the filter of an overriding narrator. In so doing, the film can remain true to its subject, giving the viewer visual experience of the devastating impact of the collision between state and military authority and extreme civil activism, while providing a hoard of information that goes beyond the mere “sound-byte.”
Some of the film’s interview subjects are Former National Ministers of Health, the Interior, and Foreign Affairs; authors of the Turkish Constitution; current and former Members of Parliament; aides to the President and Prime Minister; military officers; junta leaders; intelligence agents; publishers; party leaders; extremist activists; former death-row prisoners, and scholars.
Several of the film’s interview subjects have never before spoken on film about their experiences. The filmmakers have brought together for the first time politicians from all sides of the political spectrum, even the extremes, to talk about issues of international importance.
COUP is above all an oral history of world-shaping events, and viewers are able to hear direct testimony from the participants themselves. Several who participated in the 1960 coup are well into their 80’s, making this film a great chance to preserve their thoughts and a wonderful window into their times. Already, four of our speakers are no longer with us: General Muhsin Batur (who died in Florence Nightingale Hospital in Istanbul of natural causes after filming), Columnist Raif Ertem, Constitutional Law Professor Bulent Tanor, and Journalist Ahmet Taner Kislali (who was murdered by a car bomb outside of his home shortly after filming completed.)
Never-before-seen photos, documents, audio clips, and film footage from news services and personal archives form the backbone of the film. The film contains ceremonials with the Ottoman Pasha from the 1910’s; Atatürk speeches from the 1930’s; footage from the army trial resulting in the hanging of Prime Minister Menderes; speeches by 1960 coup leader Turkes; clips of the condemned student leader Deniz Gezmis; May Day street demonstrations from the 70’s and extremist café bombings; the September 1980 coup announcement and the follow-up elections in 1983; the 1995 rise of the religious Refah party; the 1997 coup by memorandum and closing down of the Refah office; and military press briefings from 1998.
COUP examines the degree to which abstract ideals (such as “freedom of speech” and “human rights”) are actually applied in a country facing political exigencies. Even if such rights exist on paper, there are practical consequences of asserting them in a nation where the stakes are so high: one of the film’s speakers was murdered by a car bomb after filming; some were jailed for their writings; and some were punished for having spoken with Amnesty International about their experiences. The film also takes a hard look at the practical and ethical issues raised when a country takes anti-democratic measures in its attempt to preserve a democratic system. These implications are both national, when the military becomes involved in the political process, and international, when the nation must balance their own needs with those of foreign governments and world powers.
