Was it a set-up? The cynic in me asks. Turkey’s failed coup which lasted little more than a few hours will only solidify the power of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Islamist autocrat and wannabe neo-Ottoman caliph.
It’s not often that the failure of a military coup will lead to less freedom, less democracy, and less civil rights than a military government, but that is exactly what will happen in Turkey.
Thanks to the failed coup, Erdogan will now be able to close his grip on the nation, expunging the last vestiges of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s vision of a modern, secular-constitutioned Turkey. Erdogan now has the excuse to finish the Islamisation of the nation that he desires, and to vanquish any critical or dissenting voices that may stand in his way.
Erdogan’s Islamised Turkey is hardly what a weakened Europe wants on the edges of its borders, moreover, as a member of NATO. But Erdogan’s Turkey is hardly what Turkey wants or needs at the moment, either.
While Erdogan extends his grip on power, and attempts to fashion himself as Turkey’s caliph for the 21st Century, expect more violence in and outside of the nation’s borders, as well as deeper civil and economic instability as a new dark age begins.
Photo by theglobalpanorama 
