Has Erdogan achieved his goal to build his 'New Turkey'?
As Turkey marks the fifth anniversary of the July 15, 2016, failed coup attempt, the putsch has served as a founding myth for Erdogan’s "New Turkey."
Some dates serve as milestones. For Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, July 15 is one of them. The failed coup attempt to remove Erdogan on July 15, 2016, has become the founding myth of "New Turkey" in his historiography.
For five years, the anniversary of July 15 has become a celebration of Erdogan's victory that helped him to replace the country's parliamentary democracy with his one-man rule under his executive presidency. The date also marks the commemoration of the 251 "martyrs" who lost their lives in suppressing the coup attempt.
Commemorative ceremonies were all around the country, especially in Istanbul where the most significant number of casualties occurred, particularly during the clashes on the Bosporus Bridge linking the Asian continent to Europe.
The year 2021 is no exception to the efforts of Erdogan and his regime in the endeavor to celebrate and simultaneously commemorate July 15. A super-production movie titled “Safak Vakti” (“At the Dawn”) on the heroic popular resistance against the coup attempt, which emerged at Erdogan’s call against the plotters, landed in theaters on July 15, 2021. In his daylong speeches marking the commemoration, Erdogan resorted to an epic narrative.
