Resistance to the military’s coup attempt may have had more to do with Turkey’s past than with the president’s popularity

For its president and prime minister, scenes of mass public opposition to an attempted military coup displayed the strength of Turkey’s democracy, and proved the country’s overwhelming support for their leadership.

But activists and critical politicians have been quick to signal that joint resistance to the failed military takeover did not spell growing support for the ruling AK party (AKP) government.

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Many have argued that the lack of popular support for the military plotters was one of the main reasons that the attempted coup failed but underlined that opposition to the intervention of the military did not translate to backing for the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Shortly after news of the uprising broke on Friday night, Turkey’s opposition parties issued statements condemning the military’s violent intervention and professing their support of the elected government. Social media sites, if throttled, were awash with people opposing the coup attempt, and despite a curfew declared by the military, tens of thousands took to the streets in Turkish cities.

“The resistance against the coup attempt last night was quite heterogenic,” said Erol Önderoglu, Turkey’s Reporters Without Borders representative who is currently on trial on terrorist propaganda charges after participating in a solidarity campaign with a pro-Kurdish newspaper. “The most valuable outcome of last night’s events is that many people who are not AKP supporters stood up for democratic values despite the recent crackdowns on the opposition, and despite the tension and the polarisation of the country.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People gather on Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge on Saturday following Friday night’s failed coup attempt. Photograph: Selcuk Samiloglu/AP

However, not everyone shared his optimism. “Everyone spoke out against the coup last night and that gave me hope,” said an academic who wished to remain anonymous. “But watching events unfold today this hope has shrunk quickly. Last night there was the possibility that the government would use this to return to a more unifying language, to return to the peace talks, to unite the country. But today it looks like they will use [the coup attempt] simply to consolidate power.”

The academic said that the trauma of past military interventions, and not sympathy for the government, drove people to oppose Friday night’s bloody coup attempt.

“These people do not support Erdoğan, but they oppose the idea of a military coup. Turkey has a history of very painful, traumatic military interventions, so I was not surprised to see such united opposition to this attempt.”

Turkey has faced a number of military coups since the foundation of the republic in 1923. The military, once the most trusted institution in the country, has long defined itself as the guardian of the secular Turkey established by the country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. As recently as 1997, the army intervened and forced Turkey’s first Islamic-led government to resign.

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But since 2007, when high-ranking military staff went on trial for an alleged coup attempt, trust in the military has waned considerably, and the AKP has long been credited with pushing the army back into the barracks and establishing civilian rule.

The military staged a coup in 1960, which saw the hanging of the then-prime minister, Adnan Menderes, and two other ministers, and another in 1971. On 12 September 1980, the head of the military, Kenan Evren, sent tanks rolling through the streets of the Turkish capital and installed a ruthless military government. He shut down parliament, suspended the constitution, imprisoned civilian leaders and rights activists, disbanded political parties, labour unions, even all associations.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Troops seal off a main road in Ankara after the military coup led by General Kenan Evren on 12 September 1980. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

In the immediate aftermath of the 1980 coup, 50 people were executed, around 650,000 were detained, 300 died in Turkish jails, over half of whom under torture, according to official numbers. Another 14,000 people were stripped of citizenship, and hundreds disappeared. The trauma still runs deep.

“Turkey has experienced a coup once every 10 years. Each time that happened, the country was thrown back by around 50 years,” said Levent Gültekin, an opposition writer and columnist. “The deaths, the torture, the horrible scenes in the street – all this is still very fresh in the collective memory in Turkey, and this memory is easily activated by scares of yet another military intervention.”

Evren, who died last year at age 97, left the country with a deeply undemocratic constitution, which, after being implemented in 1982, restricted the right to freedom of assembly and expression, seriously curtailed labour unions and put universities under strict state control.

Gültekin underlined that this was the first time that civilian resistance forced the army to back down from a violent intervention. “That is of course a good thing. But the real question is how these crowds who professed their loyalty to Erdoğan, will be used,” he said. “Some of the people we saw on the streets are people who do everything Erdoğan asks them to do. He has turned voters into militant followers. It would be a positive development if the government will use them to further democracy, but if they are used to further authoritarianism, it would be a catastrophe.”