Putschcast
A global podcast about Riots, Rebellions and Revolutions. Putschcast explores how power changes hands, whether through internal social and political decay, external pressure, popular resistance or a pure stroke of luck.
Featuring experts in their field, every episode explores a unique moment in history that led to profound changes in the lives of the people affected by it.
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Putschcast
#5 Turkey - A Military Coup to save Democracy
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In 1980, Türkiye was teetering on the brink of civil war amid relentless political violence and economic decline. To end the chaos, the military, led by General Kenan Evren, seized power in a coup that surprised no one. The move was swiftly endorsed by Washington, preoccupied with Cold War priorities.
But was this a necessary reset or a disaster for Turkish democracy, and why did the U.S. greenlight a regime that would oversee 50 executions, mass arrests and brutal human rights abuses?
On Putschcast, political scientist, analyst, and commentator Dr Tezcan Gümüş examines why the coup was initially welcomed by many but also why it led to widespread oppression of political views, religion and cultural identity. He also answers the question of how Turkey found its way back, from military rule to a widely supported democracy.
His first book, Turkey’s Political Leaders: Authoritarian Tendencies in a Democratic State (Edinburgh University Press), is based on his doctoral research and is available here: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-turkey-s-political-leaders.html
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In the early hours of September 12, 1980, the sound of tanks rolling through the streets of Ankara and Istanbul signaled the end of democracy in Turkey. The military, led by General Kenan Evren, seized power. They promised to rescue the nation from the brink of a bloody civil war from political chaos and daily violence. They imposed order through a new constitution, mass arrests, and widespread torture. For years, a shadow hung over the nation. And although Turkey has seen numerous coups and coup attempts, the 1981 stands out. Why? Because its impact can still be felt until this day. My name is Oliver Heute, and I'm excited to have you back here on Putschcast. And I will try to find out today, did the coup save Turkey or did it fundamentally break its democracy? Welcome again to Putschcast, and I'm happy to welcome in the studio today my co-host, Dave Sloan. Hi Dave.
SPEAKER_08Thanks for having me here, Oliver.
SPEAKER_05I've just talked a bit about the topic of today, which is Turkey in 1980. Now, what's your background there?
SPEAKER_08I have very little background on this topic. I happily describe myself as uh as a curious Australian, but uh what uh what I have read is fascinating. Uh this is a thrilling sequence of events that took place in in Turkey leading up to and and following this particular coup. So really interested to learn a bit more about it from our guest.
SPEAKER_05And our guest is right next to me, uh Teshkan Gumish. Dr. Teshkan Gumish, hello.
SPEAKER_00Hello, nice to be here, guys. Uh, thanks for having me. Looking forward to talking about this exciting period.
SPEAKER_05And you're a political scientist and analyst. Uh, you've uh focused your whole academic career on politics in Turkey and the country's struggle with democracy and various versions of it. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00That's correct, yes. And I look at the question of why Turkey has failed to consolidate democracy or across its 70 plus years of multi-party politics.
SPEAKER_05We'll touch back on that later on. Your background, your studies, but also, yeah, your your personal connection to the Turkish community, and by your name, we can tell you are of Turkish origin.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that's correct. And my dad came to Australia in 1973 as a 23-year-old um young man, and then he met my mum in 1975 on a holiday back in Turkey, and they and they both came back, got married, and they were um both my mum joined him in 1976.
SPEAKER_05On Putchcast, every episode is dedicated to a sudden change of power, often uh unpredicted. Um we're gonna find out if this one actually was unpredictable. But uh Teshka, when we spoke leading up to this episode, you picked this particular event. You told me, Oliver, let's look into the coup from 1980. Why did you choose that event in Turkish history?
SPEAKER_00Because it's I mean, Turkey is uh before that had two prior um in military interventions, so coups. 1980 was was one which is which really had a uh a critical impact on Turkish society, politics, and the economy. And we can still feel its reverberations uh today. And also it was highly documented too. So in for a person that's looking into the 1980 coup, there's a lot of historical data, information that you can uh pick through that to bring it to life in in any sort of current analysis. So it's a fascinating area, but also the 70s leading up to it was is also a fascinating area to study as a political scientist and analyst. Not to have lived through as a Turk, I'm sure we'll get into that, but but definitely the lead up to it and and the event and post-1980 uh are fascinating for Turkey.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and you just said Turkey, and I just want to acknowledge that I think both words are okay to be.
SPEAKER_00Both words are fine. I mean, I I I know that um major brought uh outlets do use Turkey, but I think the norm is still Turkey. Uh, you know, I'm happy to use Turkey as we are speaking English, so yeah, um yeah.
SPEAKER_05Happy to go with anything, David. Just heard from you that you didn't have that much insight on the coup. What is your understanding of what led to the coup? What has your research told you?
SPEAKER_08The setting leading up to the coup, I guess, is uh has been most fascinating to me. As I said, sort of uh grew up in Australia. So politics in this country relatively benign, if not boring, and uh the social and political nature of Australia as well is uh relatively homogenous, right? By comparison, the reading uh the reading that I've done about uh Turkey during the 1970s leading up to 1980 is that it's a place where there is an awful lot going on. So politically, socially, religiously, and then you put that in the context of uh I think a world um that's sort of struggling under the strain of uh of the Cold War and all sorts of changes taking place. Turkey's sort of at the nexus of all that. It would be hard to consider that there wouldn't be um, I guess, an event or a cataclysm of some sort. How this came about though uh is what I'm here to learn a bit more about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so economically the 1970s were extremely turbulent. In short, it was a highly, highly dysfunctional, economically dysfunctional um era for the average citizen. Uh and and that's why you see a lot of mass migration out, especially in the 60s and 70s, to to Europe, to Australia, to Canada. People like my family, my dad and my mum, who look to escape that those conditions. If you're a working class person or a lower class person, um your opportunities to better your life, stability, economic security was really not there.
SPEAKER_05I believe the vast diaspora that this created in um Central Europe, West Western Germany, uh Austria, Australia, Canada, like you said, that was factored in by the government later on as part of the GDP, wasn't it? Like all that money flowing back from Turks working abroad that almost did the government became addicted to that economically.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean you see a lot of um developing countries that the revenue that is generated by diaspora overseas that is sent back is a massive thing, infusion of capital into the economy.
SPEAKER_05You've got this diaspora living in mainly Western countries, making good money. Back home, things are pretty tough. And then obviously at that time you've got satellite television, you follow the events back home, uh, you've got in international uh newspapers as well. Politically though, politically, was Turkey at that time a democracy?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, in a sense, in the very procedural sense, definitely. Uh like I said, uh as I've argued, it was never a liberal or consolidated democracy, and politics is done in a very um cordial manner. Yes, you've got both sides of politics, but yeah, it's not done where it's a um zero-sum game, where if it wasn't in that sense, but in terms of there's voting, there was a parliament, active civil society. So Turkey had a uh its first um coup in 1960, and it had toppled the democratically elected um government of Adnan Mendres and Jelal Bayar, who had been in power for a decade from 1950, the first election of the Turkish Republic, to 1960. But again, it transitioned to authoritarian rule, which which the military stepped in uh to avert. I think maybe that that's another topic for a podcast. But the 1961 constitution that came out of coup was one of the most liberal constitutions comparatively to other Western European countries, highly liberal. Civil society autonomy, university independence, rights for workers, um, strong labor rights. So it fostered a very active civil society movement from 61 onwards, which the 1980 coup military and also the right wing government of the 70s or Sulaiman Temrad saw as a reason for the anarchy on the streets. They blamed the 1961 coup for giving too much um liberal powers or autonomy and rights to people, to labor unions, to universities to become very anarchist. So the 1961 coup was seen as the problem by the right-wing governments of the 1960s and 70s, and also the the generals in the 1980s.
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SPEAKER_00Turkish society, even though surveys will show that the individual's understanding of democracy or democratic rights is not extremely deep. But one thing Turks do is believe in democracy in terms of the process of voting following a political party or political leader, is something that's infused in Turkish society and has been from 1950s onwards. So voter turnout is always really high in Turkey. In the current era, does remain about 80% and above, and so it's non-compulsive, but Turks do love and believe in exercising their democratic right to vote.
SPEAKER_05So I've just learned the pendulum has swung very, very far. 1961, liberal, very progressive constitution to the event we're talking about today where it went the other way around. History always shows that if a political system isn't backed up by economic success, if people can't feel it in their wallets, they therefore start distrusting that very system. Is that then what happened? Because you said the economic challenges were so vast that people probably started questioning the entire system underneath us.
SPEAKER_00Especially the left. Definitely. I think left-leaning um citizens, civil society organizations, and labor unions are obviously by nature their their left wing, started to really question um the system. They felt that they weren't being represented in, I guess, the center of politics. Um, they were being marginalized, and I think this is why the left became radicalized in opposing that right-wing militias were created in opposition to lack left-wing violence on the streets.
SPEAKER_05So it's the late 1970s. Turkey's a democracy. People enjoy voting, they believe in the system. Economically, it's not going very well, but then there's people at the center of that political system who are not doing themselves any favors. Who are those two men that are responsible for, or maybe are they responsible for what happened later?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I definitely um in you know, in my dissertation and in my book, uh, I do put the blame a lot on the political leaders. So on the left, you have um Bulant Ejevitz, who is a social democrat, comes to lead the Republican People's Party, so there's in the Turkish acronym CHP in 1972-273. And on the right, you have a very wily character, similar in age, Suleiman Demiral, who is an engineer by training in the Democratic Party. What we see is the clash of these two very young men in their 40s, highly charismatic, both very populist, and both extremely popular of their sort of constituents.
SPEAKER_05They were not radicals though. They were like in the what you consider a healthy political spectrum, or were they extremists on the far left and far right? Or were you just talking about they were arguing about minor issues that really shouldn't have been at the fore of their political agenda?
SPEAKER_00No, they both believed in democracy. They both believed in voting and parliament, the power of parliament, but both just wanted to dominate outright. And for them, it was a zero-sum game that if I win, I am going to destroy and annihilate you so you can never challenge me again. So this is how politics was done throughout the 60s and 70s, especially in the 70s, between two men who were equally as popular as the other. So no one was outright popular in terms of um electorally. So that's why when you see results, it was it's very similar. And this is why the governments that they cobbled together were never overwhelming majorities. They just refused to see the damage that they were doing to the country economically, socially, and politically because of this um, I guess, cock fight.
SPEAKER_08Was there uh personal animosity between the two of them?
SPEAKER_00Extreme. Extremely animosity between them, pretty much hatred. Where Demrad would say when Bilan Edge was prime minister that I would I refuse to call him call the Prime Minister by name, and vice versa. And Edge will come out and say nasty things about Demrad saying, you know, he is you know he's a man that um sponsors right-wing terrorism in this country.
SPEAKER_05There's so many parallels I can see to the 21st century and what's happening in Western countries uh nowadays. So we have a highly divided political sphere. It's about egos, it's about power, which is what Putchkas is all about, and power changing hands. And we have a very, very fragile economic situation because none of this helps anyone on the streets.
SPEAKER_00No, there's no stability in government to impose stabilizing policies, economic policies. So there's you know, in my research, you uh I found this information that and it's very it's very obvious, but there are policies that edge of it in power economic policies planned to implement when he was his government was in power, and Demra was completely against, again, opposing trying to do everything to to to undermine the edge of its government. When Demra came into power and he tried to impose the same economic policies, Edge Ever would look to undermine those policies that he actually himself designed. So this is how absurd the politics was. And how can you have how can you create stability in a country when when both parties both sides are trying to undermine each other and do undermine each other successfully?
SPEAKER_08So their attitude to each other is contrarian.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_08Um I think in some of your research you point to uh there being departments within government that are partisan basically, they're either leading left or or right, um, and they're kind of stacked that way, yeah. Um, depending on who's in power at the time. And that I guess reinforces the division in the country and and and creates a lot of inefficiency in in government itself.
SPEAKER_00What we know now is, I mean, even back then, when the left came into power, that purge right or people with who were known to or thought to have right-wing sympathies from the bureaucracy from all government departments and fill them with left. Right will do the same thing. Police force became politicized for that reason, the judiciary became politicized for that uh reason. So, as you pointed out, everything was dysfunctional between left and right within it.
SPEAKER_05And no passion for compromise, which is so essential in the city.
SPEAKER_00No, no, compromise and consensus did not exist between these two sides or these leaders. So, how can their followers have have compromise and consensus?
SPEAKER_05They are sitting on a powder cake because we have this combination of economic struggle, mass emigration, dysfunctional government. We're gonna talk about the global context a little later on as well, but then there was also pure violence happening around people on a daily basis. Um, and this led to some scholars describing the era leading up to the coup as a low-intensity civil war. Would you support that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I definitely have to agree. And um, not just through the research that I've can, you know, I've read, but also when I was doing my PhD and I was living in Turkey uh for the for my field work for nearly a year. And the people I spoke to did definitely mention what a scary time it was for um personal safety. And these people that were late teenagers, early young adults, going out at night meeting friends was extremely scary. There's one story I got told that certain bus routes were also divided into left-right. So if you happen to, if you're a supporter of the right and you happen to get on a bus route, which is frequented by left-wing um groups, um, you'd probably get either killed or seriously hurt by just getting on that bus. And you ask me, how would you know that you were affiliate of of what group? Is there was also certain um outfits that you wear, or where the way you style as a male, style your mustache.
SPEAKER_04Oh, there was a political way of styling your mustache.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, if you have handlebar mustache in Turkey, it means you're saying that you're you are a right wing supporter of the right wing, or you are or a grey wolf. There is a the left would have a certain other different style of um sort of um sculpting their mustache as well to show that they're left wing and they would wear more sort of um those green army fatigues or or a bit more reds. So just to out show that I am I'm a proud left, um less socialist or communist supporter for communism. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I'm more worried about the bus driver. I mean, he was just doing his job.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, but you yeah, so it was that's how bad it was. That's how dysfunctional um and violent the streets of Turkey were. And and you'd have regions where they were completely autonomous from state control, where they would meet out their own justice and have their own people's courts.
SPEAKER_05I just want to stress again that all this is happening in a functioning democracy. You know, well, yeah. Which is the bizarre thing. Like, this is stories you hear from you know failed states and that sort of stuff. But it was close to it then, or maybe that's what the military was envisioning, that we are getting close to becoming a failed state.
SPEAKER_08One of the things that you put forward is that um uh a lot of the cause for division comes from leadership, which uh is kind of obvious, bottom up and top down this division in society.
SPEAKER_00Is that is that accurate? Yeah, it is. I mean, you know, in also saying that is both leaders co-opted these groups, exacerbated. Yeah, they co-opted these violent groups. I mean, Demerat would come out and say, um, and remember, this is the Cold War context, and right Demerat for the right would blame these groups as being communists, anarchists, heathens, um, they're godless, and really co-opt right-wing groups. And this is known in fact that that to go out and and attack left-wing um politicians and also left-wing um groups as well. Edget would do the same thing, he will co-opt large um militant labor unions like DISC to undermine Demira's rule. So they weren't just using parliamentary means, they're using um means outside of parliament, violent means to undermine the rule of the other.
SPEAKER_05Being a voter, being someone who believes in democracy, whenever this happens, usually there's a broad, silent middle class that doesn't want anything to do with either side. Was there a third way at that time, or did you really have to choose either of the sides?
SPEAKER_00No, you didn't have to choose, but you became a spectator to this violence. And caught up in it.
SPEAKER_05You could you by taking the bus?
SPEAKER_00By taking the bus, trying to live your yeah, trying to survive, navigate these neighborhoods that uh they're run by, you know, non-state actors, violent non-state actors, trying to line up, wait for petrol. Like you said, the majority of people didn't get involved, but they couldn't get a way out.
SPEAKER_05And people actually died, like the numbers are quite horrendous.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, statistics are from 76 to 1980, 5,000 people died in total from political violence, over 20 a week on average. These are from students, university, high school students um being killed to um politicians, union activists, civil society members, radicals on both sides. I mean, even a former prime minister was was assassinated by a left group.
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SPEAKER_05You're listening to Putschcast in the studio today, Dr. Tejgan Gimish and uh David Sloan. We're talking about the 1980 military coup. We've just learned how difficult it was to live in Turkey in the late 70s. There was uh daily killings, um, usually politically motivated. The economy was in the straits. The military that plays the crucial role here. Turkey was an early NATO member. I also heard that Turkey had the second biggest army in NATO, so we're talking a massive force, I would say. And also you said there was mandatory military service that I think your father served in as well. So was it a military state? What role, what size did the army have in society leading up to the coup?
SPEAKER_00I mean, the Turkish military historically has always had an important position in Turkish politics and in society. Uh, and this stems from the Ottoman era and the role that the military played in the establishment of the Turkish Republic. And you have to remember Mustafa Kamal Ataturk was a military man, and so were all his inner circle that that set up the Turkish Republic. You've got that naturally in the DNA. The military is never under civilian control as an institution, it's always autonomous as a state in the state, is it? Not a state in the state, but it's it's an institution that believes it's a guardian of secularism, utterk's principles or founding principles of the republic. And it was never institutionally um control of civilian politicians. It was never a state within a state, it was more of an autonomous institution if we can sort of look at it that way. Because a state within the state sounds like it's, let's say, when we use look at Lebanon, Hezbollah. I mean, it was never, I mean, that's when we call a state within a state. It was never that, and and seeing yourself as as a guardian of the state.
SPEAKER_05Well, I have to say, after what you've just told me, I'm not quite surprised given how politicians behaved at the time and how little they cared for the the well-being of the nation. Those professional soldiers that did nothing else in their life. There's one man at the center of today's story, General Kennan Evren. Yes. He will play a major role. Let's talk about him. What do we know about his biography? Was he one of those people you've just described? So he's never seen anything else?
SPEAKER_00To to reach high rank in in Turkish military, you have to have come from within the military. He's he climbs the ranks. Um he knows English. So yeah, he's very well regarded in that sense internationally amongst um NATO allies, especially the US.
SPEAKER_05Did he have a big profile in society leading up to the coup? Did people know his name and who he was? Was he a well-known figure?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, he was. And especially the more and more the later in the years went by, late 70s onwards, and the more the military were distressed as what was happening in society, and also distressed at what was not happening in in politics, um, in terms of you know, trying to stop this or making a conservative effort to stop the violence.
SPEAKER_08I I think the question I have about uh Kenan Everon is um was he the man in the military who happened to be at the top of the tree at the time that this coup took place, or as an individual, um, is he uh a significant facilitator here? Like is he the person that we should be looking at as the man who made this happen?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he was definitely the leader. This was not um there's rumblings in the middle ranks and before anything happens, I better jump in front and and uh you know control this. A year up to the coup, he gathered him and the top generals, so the leaders of the army, um, navy, air force, in highly secret meetings saying we need to do something about this, let's start planning. This really started to crystallize a year before. They actually planned to undertake uh the coup in July 1980, and certain things didn't eventuate, so this is why it was held till September. But this was long time in the planning phase, and he was definitely the the lead coalisting and really pushing the the key generals in in down this path, which they're all on board, don't get me wrong, it wasn't like he he was um forcing anyone down, but but in to answer your question, definitely he was the leader of this from the very start.
SPEAKER_08Uh I think that's one of the really interesting points here about uh how this coup unfolded is the amount of warning um that the politicians were given that this was coming. And this date sticks out at me from uh one of the pieces that you wrote, which is the 6th of September 1979, happens to be the day I was born. Uh was uh was a point where uh the the military declared their intentions to the leaders. They said, This is going to happen if you're not gonna change your path. Yeah, the leaders ignored that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Why against self-interest? Ultimately, they did not see each other as the problem, themselves as a problem, they saw the other side as a problem.
SPEAKER_08This shows a lack of self-reflection and self-awareness, particularly in a country where this has happened twice before in the last 20 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean in 1960 coup the Prime Minister Adnan Menendes was hung by the military, along with two of his cabinet members, and it's still a sore point and a scar on on Turkish political psych uh and society as well.
SPEAKER_05With that history, I would have taken the letters a bit more seriously in the warning signs.
SPEAKER_00So Echevit later on in interviews, he said that you know, in hindsight, everything had gone so out of hand that uh I wasn't surprised. But Demira was uh unapologetic. Like later interviews, you just think you look and go, This has happened under your rule. He he was the prime minister in 1970 when the the second coup happened. Again, dysfunction under his rule, and then it happened that 1980, and this man still was unapologetic and unreflective that he had any real part to play in this situation. And mind you, Demra was also the president of the republic when the soft coup happened in 1997.
SPEAKER_05I love how you have different levels of coups in Turkey. So there's soft coups, uh, there's mediocre ones, and then there's ones where the prime minister gets hung.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and so soft soft coup is also called the postmodern coup as well. Okay, yeah, so that's the two two names that um that that sort of um you know Turkish political uh. You actually have names for that.
SPEAKER_05I just made that up.
SPEAKER_00You actually have soft coup and postmodern coup, yeah. It wasn't direct, it wasn't direct intervention, but it was a strongly worded letter and and and lists of things that the Islamist government had to do and the threat of military intervention, they fought though they stepped down from power.
SPEAKER_05I've got one more question before we go through the actual events of the coup, the putsch. And that is in most of 20th century history, whenever you look at the overthrow of governments and the military being involved, it is very, very likely that the military sides with the right wing part of politics. I've hardly ever heard of a left wing except for you know Khmer Rush and a few other odd ones, but in general, it's usually conservative right-wing factions that they align with. Why didn't the military just go with the Suleiman Demirel camp?
SPEAKER_00Because they saw him as equally part of the problem. I think when you look at you know the strongly worded letters, private conversations um between the uh General Uh Canon Everan and Demira and Edgewitz behind closed doors and public. And obviously the the military at that stage took a very objective view in saying both sides are uh undertaking this violence equally. We can probably get into why eventually, subsequently, the left as a political movement and as a civil society movement was completely, I guess, destroyed to a point where they've never been able to recover in Turkey since then, and why the right wing is is stronger than ever. We can definitely get into those reasons, but initially at the time of the coup, both sides were contained equally.
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SPEAKER_05The big day is here. 12th of September. 1980. People wake up to the usual Turkish chaos of politics, potential kidnappings and empty pay packets, and history is about to change. Now, walk us through what happened.
SPEAKER_00Outside of the key generals, no one was allowed to know about this. Everyone apparently warned these generals, you are not to tell your partners about this just in case it leaks. On the 11th, that's when they let the rest of the military and the officer corps know about what was going to happen in the morning of the 12th, so 3 a.m. They took over key buildings, they took over the state broadcaster, TRT, took over key buildings, and announced martial law, dissolved civilian politics.
SPEAKER_05Would it have been unusual for people to see tanks roll down the streets and um show up outside of government buildings? Or was that a usual site?
SPEAKER_00No, no, no. That would be it would have been completely, you know, if you're an Ankara, if you're a civil servant, and you saw tanks roll up, given the country's history, you would know something's something's happening. And given the hi given the prior leading um months and years where you've got these strongly worded um statements by by the military and also letters sent um to the to the politicians to to do something about the this um the conditions or and the situation um in country, then you wouldn't, you know, you would know something definitely is is up and most likely a coup. So yeah.
SPEAKER_08The act of dissolving parliament is this just a matter of taking over the building and not letting people come to work?
SPEAKER_00What they did was they physically also went to the homes of the polit the leaders, took them and their wives in um to a secure location, and and yeah, and just sort of physically remove them from everything. So they can't make statements, they can't sort of talk to media to rile up their supporter base. So they did this very quickly. Um I think they they really pinpointed who they were gonna physically contain when the coup was announced, so just so they weren't able to you know basically rile up supporters in society and really uh make it a I guess a a fight on the streets.
SPEAKER_05So it sounds like a textbook coup to me. Well executed, or was there any resistance, violence, protests on the streets?
SPEAKER_00No, no. So just to give you an anecdote, my my mum's cousin, who was a young naval officer at the time, was asked to go onto the streets. Um to support the crew, and he said they expected strong resistance because you know I guess you would, because you see in 1970s aren't battles between and society's heavy. Um so that's what they expected. But he goes, it was eerily quiet, and they did not get any sort of vi violence um or opposition against them. Now, and also very quickly, the military junta banned any types of protests on the streets that were completely banned. Certain newspapers, especially left-leaning ones, uh, were closed down, and also criticism of the coup was banned as well, eventually, uh, in media. So you could not write any critical piece about Kenan Evran at all as an individual or or the coup itself or the military, so that became like law.
SPEAKER_04Was it a sigh of relief?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. I mean, any every average person you speak at that time, this is the people that you're talking about, that that middle that that average day person that's not involved in this in these violence. The quiet majority. They might have sympathies towards the left or right or or or vote for Demer or Edgewitz, but that's as far as it goes. That the they're, you know, a peaceful democratic citizen was extremely relieved that this violence was had stopped.
SPEAKER_03In the eight months since the military takeover, everyday life in Ankara has returned to a normality many people had almost forgotten. Even the inflation rates dropped. According to most people we've talked to, accusations about human rights and prisons are merely irrelevant attacks on national pride. We've been told that Europeans who call for a prompt return to democracy don't understand the way Turks feel about their bickering politicians.
SPEAKER_05No resistance on the streets. The military was united as well, which is always uh guaranteed. It was textbook and uh success from the military point of view because one question we always ask on putchcast was it a bloody or a velvet, a peaceful coup? This one was a peaceful one, but only until arrests started to happen.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, yeah. So this is where societal um views and support for the coup began to change when they realized the mass arrests, systemic torture that was happening, death penalties. So 250 people were given the death penalty, 50 were undertaken. There's debates around this, but the youngest being 17 at the time. I was wondering, do we know what people got the death penalty for? Yeah, it was because of those uh violent activities, political violence that they were involved in, or murders. So this this 17-year-old.
SPEAKER_05So not for opposing the military rule, but for previous Yeah, yeah, it was all previous, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's from the left-right um uh groups, yeah, predominantly union activists and so forth that was seen to instigate this violence.
SPEAKER_05The judiciary was highly politicized as well, you said before, were those kangaroo courts? Well, they were military courts.
SPEAKER_00So it's so all the basically that all these sentencing happened, uh, these hearings here. And if you watch archival footage on YouTube, I think BBC and things like that have little uh stories from from from back then, and you will see like there were just mass hearings.
SPEAKER_03Martial law courts in Turkey are now processing thousands of cases in a series of mass trials. Here at Martial Law Court No. 34 members of the banned National Salvation Party are facing charges that they violated Turkey's strict laws about secularism, insulted the memory of Ataturk, and tried to set up an Islamic State.
SPEAKER_00So you would have you know big groups of people from a union, tens or maybe hundreds in a massive courtroom hall uh in front of military courts. It's not a fair judicial process that's happening en masse.
SPEAKER_05Kenan Evren, you just lost me. I had some sympathy for this man up until now from hearing about the history, where they came from, he you know, was an appointed savior of um the secular society, democracy, unbloody coup on the day. However, then doing this. Why did he do this? This makes no sense. Why not try to win the population over? Why put hundreds of people on trial and not try to ease into a new phase that they were craving and and portray himself as someone who's truly the defender of democracy, and that's not someone who in 1980 orders the execution of 250 people.
SPEAKER_00He's not the only actor. So there's many generals, many officers. So that they he wasn't involved in the day-to-day running of the coup or the junta.
SPEAKER_05Was he mainly the figurehead?
SPEAKER_00He was he was the leader, so there's a lot of blame to go there. Of course, he is the leader, so he knew what was going on. But you know, we have to have a a more of a nuanced view as well. There's other people in in the military that were permitting this to happen as well.
SPEAKER_05Another way to phrase my question is did the military actually have a vision or long-term strategy?
SPEAKER_00Yes, the key reason was to depoliticize society because they believed that the 1961 constitution allowed politicization of the society along with the politicians and so forth. So the key thing for them was to create a depolit politicized society. How do you do that? Well, we have to teach people a lesson that if you're getting involved in politics, this is what what's gonna happen. You know, I think over 200,000 people were arrested and incarcerated. How do you also do that is to change the constitution. So the constitution completely changed from what it was from 61. And 1970 crew in 1771, there were amendments made to the constitution, but definitely it wasn't an overwhelming rewriting of the 61 constitution. It was still still there, it was just as um things were amended. But 1980 was a complete rewriting of a constitution which aimed to depoliticize society, remove autonomy of universities, strip the powers of unions, strip the powers of civil society, political party basically um the political party's law base created its structure of political party where it was more authoritarian, more centralized rule, rather than decentralization of a political party. The political party has to be centralized, that that means the state can easily control that political party.
SPEAKER_05To rephrase, the strategy of the military was to undo the 1961 constitution, to do this uh impactfully, sustainably, so for many years to come, the military will always have an option to crack down as soon as things get out of hand.
SPEAKER_00They constituted themselves as the guardians of the state. And how did they do that? They created this thing um this organization or institution called the National Security Council, which during the Junta period was run by the five generals who basically ran the country in those two, three years before the return of democracy. They rule by decree, but they made all the decisions amongst themselves.
SPEAKER_08So this 1982 constitution allowed democracy, allowed for democracy re-emerging in Turkey. Yes. Um, and that constitution is still in place. However, the military have given themselves uh the ultimate authority, and that remains as well.
SPEAKER_00Yes, no, no, I mean the you know um things have changed since the AKP era. Definitely the the the power of the military over civil the tutelage of the military over civilian politics has completely been erased. In subsequent years, in in in in modern sort of 2000 um onwards, it definitely the AKP made it had undertook a very strong concerted effort to remove the dominance of the military over in politics.
SPEAKER_08I did notice that in 2014, Kenan Everon uh was convicted of obstruction of democracy, and as a 90-something year old, uh sentenced to prison.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Why did that come about?
SPEAKER_00I think it was just a very populist politics by Aradwan. Could have been undertaken when they first came into power in the early 2000s, but they held off doing it and they think they they just waited till he was a frail old man. So it was yes, he was convicted, but he never served you you would never serve time for for for those crimes and those acts. So it was more of a hollow gesture, really.
SPEAKER_08The timing seemed peculiar.
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SPEAKER_051980, we've got a well-executed coup. Bodies are put into place on behest of the military, develop this new constitution. Constitution gets rolled out in 82, it puts the government, the state at the center, protecting them ironically, from the people. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of doing the opposite. And at the end of the decade, Uzal became the first democratically elected prime minister. Did the military succeed? Did the military make things better for the average Turkish person?
SPEAKER_00Tug Uzal was an economic czar during the coup period and he had free reign. When parliament was dissolved, the politicians, the key the leaders of that time, Demonad Ejevit Arabakan, who was the Islamist leader, and and Tukesh, who was the right-wing head of the Nationalist Movement Party, were given 10-year bans from politics.
SPEAKER_05I was wondering what happened to all those characters.
SPEAKER_00So they were given 10-year bans, and then 1983 is when the first democratic elections were called. Kenan Everman and the generals decided that they were going to create two parties which were state-friendly, one on the centre right, one on the centre left. So engineer these parties that were that would conduct politics gentlemanly and with the state in mind, and not go go beyond the bounds that were set for him by the by the by the coup leaders. But Urzal being you know the economic czar asked to create his own party, just surprisingly. But this is also when we're coming to global economic uh and a global context, is because he had good relations with the IMF, with the West, um the West Capitol, and the and the US, the US actually really pushed everyone to allow Urzal to compete in these elections. So surprising to everyone, he trounced the other two competitor parties and came into power with a with an overwhelming majority in parliament in 1983. He basically was a centre-right religious conservative party. I was wondering where he's sitting there. So there's he was a very pious character as well.
SPEAKER_05And then he's got sort of a wild card supported by Washington, gets in and actually wins out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, outright, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Urzal takes power, surprisingly, yeah, with the motherland party, newly formed. Maybe people just wanted that third option, you know, and Duopoly's never great either. What then happened for the rest of the decade? How did Turkey develop under his rule?
SPEAKER_00We had moved back in 82 as I was um a young, I guess, a toddler, and so lived through that um period. There was a lot of economic pain. When you transition the economy of the country, the structure of the economy, the philosophy of the economy so quickly, with little real legislative guardrails, it really threw the economy in into turbulence. The high inflation after a while, a lot of economic mismanagement, a lot of economic corruption. Two got Urzal normalized corruption in government. Erzal was acting in a in a in a context where there was no strong opposition at all because they were banned from politics. And you've got the 19 the constitution, which is basically put a straitjacket on society to be able to protest. And what he also did was, and the constitution does is gave powers to employees as opposed to workers. So it becomes a very skewed uh context in terms of against the the worker, the average person, which and pro big business.
SPEAKER_05He has this great reputation internationally, but then does the opposite at home and corrupts or institutionalizes corruption. Yeah, yeah. Which is never good for any national economy. It never is. Um corruption. What state was Turkey in at the end of the decade?
SPEAKER_00I mean, torture was still going on, books were banned. I think the misconception about Erzalt is he's seen as a liberalizing figure. I think what gets missed is we have to compartmentalize that liberalism. Liberalism in an economic financial sense, not a liberal in a rights or democratic sense. Because he, even though he had an overwhelming majority in parliament, he refused to maybe roll back a lot of the legislation which which was left from the coup, period. He refused to take it back. In 87, there's a referendum called. Evan actually pushes Urzal to say, hey, look, the people are asking for these guys back. Take it to a referendum, um, and then Urzal actually campaigns no, like publicly campaigns to maintain these bans.
SPEAKER_05So Kenan Everen gets back into good books with me now. So he he does what he does best, he fights for democracy while using torture and executions. Yeah. Um, he's president at the time, right? And Urzal is the prime minister doing all the daily work, and then they become opponents.
SPEAKER_00They don't become opponents in that sense, but I think you know, every historical figure is highly complex. And and Evan definitely um tells Urzal, like, look, maybe take this to a referendum. If they and if people choose to uphold the ban, hey, we maintain the ban and politicians. If they don't, then so be it. But um, but you have to sort of um maybe allow for this groundswell that's occurring to go through the process. Now, Urzal, you know, to just to show you how you know that he wasn't the most democratic character, you know, campaign no to maintain these bands. And but um he was unsuccessful, and um the referendum backed um the removal of the bands of these um politicians, and they re-entered, and and that from that point on, Rizad really was not able to um maintain his his electoral power.
SPEAKER_05Democracy was phased back in.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, dysfunction as it was.
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SPEAKER_05We had tumultuous years in the 1970s, a military coup followed. There was a new constitution drafted by the military. However, there was a referendum, there was popular support. Economically, the country didn't recover as well as initially hoped, corruption playing a big role in that uh in the late 1980s. What we haven't touched on is that Turkey isn't a homogeneous country, Turkey's so complex. And also, I think just the urban metropolitan divide as well. You've got this you know, metropolis that is Istanbul, and ever-growing Ankara, the political center, you don't hear much about Izmir or any other areas. Was there a divide in in Turkey? Uh, was there popular support as we see in contemporary Turkish politics from certain parts of the country versus the you know liberal metropolitan elites, for example?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that one thing I forgot to mention is you know the coup outlawed Kurdish language and Kurdish culture, and it really cracked down or repressed Southeast and East, where it's Kurdish majority in Turkey. So that was very clear and uh of you know, outcome, unfortunate outcomes for for Turkey and Turkish uh citizens, um, expressions of Kurdish culture were outlawed. One of the things that you know we didn't get into, but not many people get into is so the PKK formally uh was established in 1984. Which is the political wing of the Kurdish. Yeah, Kurdish Workers' Party, which is the armed uh wing of of the uh Kurdish political movement in Turkey. Before 1984, it was it had begun to sprout out in the southeast and east of the country. There were armed attacks against um you know uh military and police. The Kurdish um uh armed movement, which is also Marxist as well, or or or or very left-leaning, so they also wanted seeking autonomy from the state in those regions.
SPEAKER_05The Turkish military that staged the coup. Was there any Kurdish representation in the military or was it ethnically divided that Kurds didn't have a chance to go through the ranks?
SPEAKER_00No, no, I mean in Turkey, no one there is not this, you don't have an identity card that says, you know, you're Kurdish or or you're Turkish or or whatever it is. But there is no segregation of if you're Turk, if you're Kurdish or Turkish, and you have different sort of opportunities or less opportunities with class second-class citizen. It's when you uh express that Kurdish identity or Kurdish nationalism is when the state will crack down on you. And this has been the issue. The state does not allow for expressions of Kurdish identity, especially when it's politically motivated.
SPEAKER_05So the military coup let to a crackdown on any form that isn't Turkish nationalism, um, oppressed minorities, which is Armenians as well, and probably smaller. Yeah, anyone from Turkey.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because the constitution um extolled the unitary of the state. And again, you need to what is an attack on the unitary of the state is very loosely defined. So it was Islamism, it was Kurdish identity, it was Armenian identity, you know, and it gives the state a lot of room to move and to target whoever it wants to target because of these constitutional, um, constituted laws of the any attacks on the unitary of the state or the Turkish Republic can be prosecuted.
SPEAKER_08So the Cold War is going on at this time, right? The influence of that in particular, I think, with uh Turkey located where it is, directly south of Russia. How did that influence the I guess the feelings that Turkish people had uh at the time? And I talked before about, I guess, their ambition and the direction that they want to be heading in. Is there a side being taken?
SPEAKER_00So Turkey was always aligned with the West, NATO key US ally against this uh the Soviet bloc, because it's right on the was on the border of the Soviet Union. What's playing out in Turkey, this left-right violence, is happening in the global context of left-right violence, and also parts of Europe as well. The cracking down on left-wing militants is something that is favoured by especially the US. And now, when the coup happened, Jimmy Carter is present in the US and he's at a theatre show. He gets word that the military has taken over in Turkey, and he gives tacit approval and goes back to watching the theatre calmly, apparently. The left hasn't won. The communists basically have lost when the military comes into power. So this is our boys that have that have taken power.
SPEAKER_08That notional alignment of the military with the right more than the left is what's perceived from the outside, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it and eventually that's what eventuates as well with the with this um the state-centric philosophy, you know, and that becomes the state philosophy and the constitutional philosophy as well. So you naturally align with the right.
SPEAKER_08And was there, and this is backtracking a little bit, but was there any uh maybe not influence, but uh even obvious commentary um from uh from other nations, not necessarily Western nations, leading up to the coup?
SPEAKER_00I know that when you know the coup was undertaken and torture became well known, European countries and um were very critical, threatened Turkey with basically cutting off funding, investment in the country, and Turkey actually really needed, especially at that point. But the US actually stepped in and said if we will fill the vacuum um and and with investment if if European um countries decide to stop that because of the torture and the human rights abuses.
SPEAKER_05Beacon of democracy there, the Americans.
SPEAKER_00Well, yes, they have, you know, I mean, look, that's a probably another uh podcast series that we can get into.
SPEAKER_05But yeah, that that's just a slap in the face of uh Western European leaders trying to you know support democratic voices in Turkey. Yeah, yeah. Against so many parallels to today's political environment. But the Europeans trying to you know put some sort of restraint on the new leadership in Ankara, and the Americans just come, we'll we'll we'll support you regardless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the context is also next door, Saddam Hussein is setting up his fascist dictatorship. Yeah, yeah. Um, we have now the mullahs in charge in Iran. Iran, this all happened within the 12th month context.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so 1980, yes, but was 79 was the Iranian Revolution, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And um Soviet Union invading Afghanistan, so the Americans were sort of distracted, you know, trying to combat that as so maybe military coup in Turkey was probably one of the most favorable things that could happen to them.
SPEAKER_00Massively favorable, and you know, this is a coup that ultimately was against left-wing thought.
SPEAKER_02Americans have been proud to help Turkey in securing the democracy and its democracy in seeking prosperity. Our aspirations for our partnership remain large. Peace, security, and freedom for our peoples, close cooperation in securing these objectives, and success in defending them. I am confident that 40 years from now, Turks and Americans will look back and say that through their friendship, Turks and Americans secured for themselves the kind of world we have envisioned together. And now, please join me in a toast to President Evren, to the Turkish-American relationship, and to the friendship between our two peoples. And as you say in Turkish, Sharef Eniz.
SPEAKER_05We are coming to a close here at Putcast. Unfortunately. What a topic, the Turkish military coup of 1980. We've learned about uh the violence that led up to it, um, the chaos. We've learned how a well-executed coup led to not much improvement when it came to prosperity, let alone civil liberties. But we've also learned what you've just mentioned again, that it really was about restraining those very liberal values of the original constitution that were very progressive, even by Western standards at the time. So turning back time really is what happened there. And uh, the military is famous for being uh conservative. And we also learned that this led to an oppression of religious beliefs, it led to an oppression of ethnic identity, anything that wasn't pro-military state, secular government was outlawed, which then led to the Turkey we have today, which we will talk about another day, uh, because there's clear parallels and influence there. But maybe to close off, how is the Turkish coup of 1980 viewed today?
SPEAKER_00I would expect, given um the way AKP, President Aradowan's party, and himself have weaponized the coup, Kamalism is as a populist um strategy, demonized it. I'm sure the way it's taught would be a a critical perspective of the coup. Now, the people that lived through it will probably have a bit more of a nuanced um view of it. That yes, it needed to happen, but subsequently it's um the outcomes from it were really bad, and what it did to Turkish society was really bad. Youth that haven't grown up in that area, I would think that they would have a very critical view of it. Yes, a coup taking power by violent means is not good, but you also gotta understand there's there's there's complexity around it too.
SPEAKER_05And this is what this podcast is about. So for the ones who don't understand, should listen back and get some context. But I do think it's very important to mention again that Kenan Evran, the leader of the coup, was sentenced in the nick of time just before he died, under the Erdogan government, which I think speaks volumes as well to wait that long. Yeah. Um, because of course they should be held to account, but maybe not that way and in a more meaningful way.
SPEAKER_00So they have to understand they did put in the constitution that you know they weren't they could not be charged with anything post return back to politics. So they did they really did protect themselves.
SPEAKER_05Reminds me of certain reminds me of certain events in the USA before the last election when people were pardoned before they were even charged with anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, attempted coup in 2016, 15th July, soldiers could have learnt a lot from the 1980 coup and how to undertake a coup. So anyway, just leave it on light notes.
SPEAKER_05What a teaser. I can't wait for that episode because uh we have the 10-year anniversary next year, and I'm sure we will talk about the 2016 failed coup, unlike the 1980 one, which was a successful coup. Please read up about it, uh, tell your friends about uh Putchkas as well, but also go and read Turkey's Political Leaders Authoritarian Tendencies in a Democratic State by our very own Teshkan Gumish.
SPEAKER_00Yes, definitely do. It's Edinburgh University Press, and I look at every key leader from 1950 onwards and definitely and talk about the coups and and and the context that leading up to them and the reasons behind them. So every Everything that we discussed detailed in that book as well.
SPEAKER_05Thank you also, David, for doing all this research and uh growing your moustache.
SPEAKER_00Just be careful. Not a handlebar.
SPEAKER_05Not a handlebar. I've learned about moustaches and also learned that there's different uh names for different coups in Turkey, and I have to really read up on that. Thank you so much, both of you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity, and I think it's been a fantastic, delightful um conversation.
SPEAKER_06Putcast. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram to find out about the latest coup coming your way.
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