The West must reach out to Turkey

If you want to see the likely national consensus in Turkey on the Western response to July 15's failed coup attempt, take a look at these lines by Soli Ozel, political scientist and columnist for the centrist daily HaberTurk:

“Both EU politicians and Western media outlets preferred to see July 15 only in the context of the previous political developments. They neglected the invaluable democratic resistance shown by all political parties in a parliament bombed by war planes. That no one came to Turkey from EU institutions (with the exception of a UK minister) to offer solidarity with the Turkish parliament, the founding institution of the nation, shows a lack of sensitivity, empathy and solidarity that cannot be easily digested.”

It might also be helpful to note that Ozel is not a pro-Erdogan Islamist. He is a Turkish Jew, a secular liberal and an outspoken critic of the Erdogan regime. Moreover, he is only one of the many prominent Erdogan critics in Turkey who stood up against the coup attempt and who now are very critical of the feeble Western response to it. Some even think that the West, in particular the United States, was complicit in the coup plot, given the continued support that Fethullah Gulen, who is now nationally seen as the leader of the coup, finds in the West.

The reason for these views is not that all Erdogan's critics have become Erdogan apparatchiks overnight. The reason is rather that they have all been aware of a fact that goes largely unnoticed in the West: Post-Kemalist Turkey, which began to emerge in the second half of the past decade, has been dominated by not one but two Islamist powers: One was Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, which is a political party and mass movement with overtly authoritarian tendencies that are clear to everyone. The other one was the Gulen community, which is a hierarchical and secretive cult whose burning lust for power was concealed by its misleading façade of “moderate Islam.”