It has been seven years since military tanks rolled across the bridges over the Istanbul Strait and fighter jets fired on Turkish civilians. July 15 marks the seventh anniversary of a failed coup attempt that has left a permanent mark on the collective psyche of Türkiye, its politics and diplomacy.
According to the official data, 252 people, many of them civilians, were killed and at least 2,700 wounded, as they stood up to a renegade group of armed soldiers loyal to the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO). They came in armoured vehicles, unleashing machine guns against their fellow countrymen.
Anyone who was in Istanbul, Türkiye’s biggest city and home to grandiose Ottoman palaces and beautiful mosques, will talk about the fear low-flying F-16 jets struck in their hearts as they zoomed past breaking the sound barrier.
But despite those fears, thousands poured out onto the streets of major cities, including the capital Ankara, because they would have none of it.
As it became apparent that the FETO terror group wanted to dislodge a democratically elected government, tens of thousands of Turkish people came out of their homes around midnight to protest against the coup attempt.
They fought at key locations of Istanbul and Ankara, confronting the armed FETO members on bridges, outside the parliament building, and other significant locations. Thousands of protesters came out armed with nothing but their courage. Shocking mobile phone recordings made rounds on social media: a civilian man was run over by a tank as he stood in front of it; a woman was shot dead in cold blood; police commandos including many female officers lost their lives defending their posts and headquarters.
The coup plotters loyal to the terror group bombed the parliament building in Ankara and made an attempt on the life of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who barely managed to survive what many consider was either an assassination or kidnapping plot.
In subsequent weeks after the coup failed, Turkish prosecutors gathered evidence confirming that the treason was led by the US-based Fetullah Gulen, the head of FETO terror group.
Türkiye’s politics and history have been marred by multiple coups. Its first democratically elected leader, the former prime minister Adnan Menderes, was executed by the junta in 1961 — after the country’s first military coup.
By 2016, it was a different people, a faction of the military loyal to a terror group, was up against. Turkish public had struggled hard for democracy and had seen its benefits in the shape of rapid economic development, infrastructure expansion, construction of subways and improvement in public transportation. The country had a lot at stake on the night of July 15.
Yet Türkiye’s defiance in the face of adversity was not appreciated by some of its closest friends — governments that never tire of commemorating the Tank Man of Tiananmen Square conveniently ignored the sacrifice of Turkish civilians.
Türkiye’s western allies, including its NATO partners, were too slow in condemning the coup — a fact that Joe Biden, who back then was US vice president, acknowledged during his visit to Türkiye a month after the coup.
For Ankara, which played an important role in the fight against Daesh terror group, the silence over the failed coup was nothing short of a betrayal.
The US, which is Türkiye's traditional ally since the end of World War II, did little to investigate the FETO leader Gulen, who continues to live in the state of Pennsylvania, his vast network of businesses in the US undeterred.
On its part, Türkiye says it has provided all the needed evidence to Washington to start legal proceedings against the FETO leader.
Despite the lack of support from Western allies, the Turkish people displayed a remarkable resolve in defending their democracy.
For millions of Turks to rise up in such an unprecedented manner meant they have collectively sent out a message: one that says never again!
