Which is the lesser of the two evils in Turkey?

The headline in today's paper says it all: "TURKEY IN TURMOIL". Except that it might have added: "AGAIN!"

Much like with many a Latin American country, one instinctively know that, if Turkey appears to be going though a relatively stable and democratic period, it is only matter of time before that illusion collapses, probably violently. True to form, Recep Tayyip Ergogan's leadership, which admittedly began with some promise, has morphed in recent years into a pro-Islamic autocracy of the worst kind, and the country exploded this weekend with a military coup, as it has so often before (1960, 1971, 1980, 1987).

The coup, however, was poorly planned and is now recognized to have failed. Bizarrely (but effectively), Erdogan took to FaceTime, Twitter and Facebook to stir up popular support and opposition to the military putsch. The canny Erdogan will use the coup attempt as a means of cementing his own power still further, carrying out reprisals against the military perpetrators and against the opposition Gulen party (which was not responsible for the coup, but which Erdogan will conveniently blame anyway).

Within 24 hours, nearly 3,000 soldiers (including high-ranking officers) have already been arrested, and nearly 3,000 judges have been summarily dismissed. More, and worse, will follow. Erdogan has stated categorically, "What is being perpetrated is a treason and a rebellion. They will pay a heavy price." There are dark rumours that he is also thinking about bringing back the death penalty to deal with the situation.

Some observers are going so far as hypothesizing that Erdogan himself rigged and manufactured the whole thing so that he has an excuse to clamp down on his opponents. He certainly seems to have had a long and detailed list of who was to be detained and dismissed ready at hand.

While it is difficult to condone a military coup under any circumstances, this particular one does have nuances which make any kind of blanket judgement fraught with peril. Perhaps counter-intuitively, the Turkish army has historically been the guardian of democracy, intervening when leaders overstep their bounds or begin to lead the country along an excessively theocratic Islamicist path, in an attempt to preserve the secular democracy prescribed by the modern republic's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Usually, it has relinquished power quickly and returned the country to democratic rule, and that was its stated aim in this case too.

Granted they acted outside the rule of law and without the explicit sanction of the voting public, but their intention was to save their country from an increasingly autocratic and erratic demagogue, and "to ensure and restore constitutional order, democracy, human rights and freedoms". Erdogan is, these days, a truly awful leader - heavy-handed, censorious, autocratic and increasingly religious - and his trajectory is towards even greater enormities in the future. Should the free world be lending support to this kind of a dictator?

Who is to say, then, which is the lesser of the two evils? Governments throughout the world have unanimously condemned the coup, as protocol dictates they must. But there must be a good few heaving a rather wistful sigh right now in the aftermath of the coup's failure.

UPDATE

A week later and Erdogan has instituted a state of emergency that allows him to detain suspects without charge for 30 days, and he has now detained or extended at least 60,000 state employees, and has closed down at least 1,000 private schools and 1,200 associations, including 19 trade unions, 15 universities, and 35 medical institutes. Despite howls of indignation from the world at large, Erdogan insists that he is only targeting those "100% identified" with those behind the coup (by which he means Gulen). He is also trying to drag the USA into the mess by insisting that it extradites Fethulah Gulen, who lives a quiet life in a small town in northern Pennsylvania, despite a complete lack of evidence that he was involved at all in the coup.

Erdogan's reaction has probably made Turkey non grata in Europe (it is currently in the process of applying for EU membership), and is in the process of making the country a pariah state in the eyes of most of the world. Good job, Recep!