Turkey Coup Final Blog Reflection

Turkey Coup Final Blog Reflection

By: Safya Osman

Over the course of the semester, my blog group and I covered the failed July military coup in Turkey that has led to the state’s mass purge of its citizens. We began our initial post by discussing Turkey and President Erdogan’s movement towards a more Islamist government and the resulting clash between left and right-wing groups in the state that led to the coup. We highlight the military and Peace Council’s feelings of protection for Turkey’s democracy and their desire for a secular government. We then explore the immediate implications the coup has for global politics, including the threat it poses to NATO members in the fight against ISIS. In our subsequent post we further delve into the government’s response to the coup and the great criticism the state has received as a result. We further explain the issues these pose for Turkey as the state is accused of breaking the fundamental ideals of democracy. In our final group post, we place emphasis on Kurdish groups being targeted by Turkey’s mass purge and its implications for both the state and the international community. We note that while Turkey has had a history of being perceived as a model for the Muslim world for its democratic government, their apparent move towards authoritarianism hinders their chances of joining the European Union and further distances them from the West.

            As a group, we concerned our research to which portion of the post each of us would be covering. While I initially began this project focusing on the events within the coup, our group decided to shift over the responsibilities to create a more even workload for each member. Because I mostly dealt with analysis and the coup’s relation to international politics later, I focused my research on various news outlets and their perspectives on the happenings in Turkey. Most of my research derived from news operations like BBC News and Al Jazeera that were independent from governments so that I may explore information apart from foreign influence. However, when studying the impact Turkey’s failed coup and President Erdogan’s actions has had on the European Commission and NATO, I extended my research to cover Western news outlets and their perspectives as well as Turkish news and websites. In this way, working as a group influenced the way I approached research as I concerned myself in most part to the various views regarding the topic. Also, within our group, each member did well to share news articles she had found interesting, and we would find that most of our gathered information matched up. In this way, our research covered similar ideas while still encompassing different perspectives, and guided me towards branching outside of my topic.

            I began this project out of fascination with Turkey after visiting the country during the summer just a few days after the attempted coup. I saw flags throughout the entire state highlighting the great nationalism citizens felt and I saw the efforts put into rebuilding the state’s stability after the attempted coup – efforts that included rewarding the citizens with free public transportation for a week. As I learned more about the topic, however, I found that the state was facing greater unrest than it seemed as a result of the President’s imposed state of emergency that permits a mass purge of the state’s citizens and news outlets. Although this information has not been at the forefront of much news, the situation continues to worsen as NATO allies and the European Commission refrain from imposing actions to protect Turkey’s citizens as they worry of losing a partner in the fight against ISIS. Similarly, as President Erdogan continues to accuse the United States of housing coup organizers, a greater distance between Turkey and the West is formed. What could have been a great step towards removing the “West and the Rest” perspective by having the first Muslim state enter the European Union is now halted as ideals between Muslim states and European states clash. The project did well to help me understand not only Turkey’s positions in international politics, but also the various factors that influence how various states respond to oppression. By working in a group, I had been able to acquire more resources as well as understand NATO and the EU as a whole in how they operate, as I was often confused with how Turkey and the two worked together. It was also helpful to share the workload, however, I had found it important to specifically delegate the responsibilities of each group member as there was early confusion regarding which group member would cover which section. Nonetheless, this assignment taught me much about international politics as a whole and did well to prepare me for group projects I may encounter in the future.