Turkey’s Hidden Revolution
How Prime Minister Erdoğan accidentally fostered a generation of Turkish liberals.
By Christopher de Bellaigue|Posted Monday, Aug. 26, 2013, at 1:03 PM
Photo by Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images
On Aug. 5 a court in western Turkey handed down life sentences to a score of retired military officers, including the former chief of the general staff, as well as politicians and media figures, for plotting attacks that would have hurled the country into chaos in preparation for a military coup. The trial was widely regarded as flawed, but the verdicts did not provoke big protests in a nation that until a few years ago held the Army in higher esteem than any other institution. A few days later, at the end of Ramadan, the cities emptied as usual and the resorts were packed. Amid the festivities, the decapitation of the country’s former ruling establishment was largely forgotten.
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