If one needs to define what is going on in Turkey in the aftermath of the failed July 15 coup attempt, besides the arrest of the actual putschists, here is an accurate term: The de-Gulenification of Turkey. Just like the de-Baathification process in post-occupation Iraq, the aim is to cleanse the whole public sector from a cadre that is considered to be the enemy of the state.

First, let’s see how Turkey came here. The infiltration of state institutions — especially strategic ones such as the police, the judiciary and the military — by the Gulen community is a fact harped on by secular journalists for decades. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, the infiltration went even further, for Erdogan considered Fethullah Gulen a key ally.

With the defeat of the common secular enemy, these two Islamic powers began to dispute and ultimately resent each other. The AKP had the legitimacy of popular support, while the Gulenists had the cultish self-confidence that they know everything better.

When political war between these two groups broke out in late 2013 with a Gulenist-orchestrated corruption investigation, I took a nonaligned position: The corruption was real, so the AKP had to be honest about it. Meanwhile, it was clear that the Gulenists had indeed created a “parallel state” within the state that had to be cleansed, but their “civic wing,” (schools, charities, media and economic assets) had to be respected. Among the political leaders of the time, only Abdullah Gul seemed to support that position. After the bloody coup attempt of July 15, however, it is impossible to pursue such nuances in Turkey. Even the “civic institutions” of the Gulen community are being seized by the state, for they are seen — not so wrongly so — as breeding grounds for, or the facades of, the dark side within the state.