Simon A. Waldman is Lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at King’s College London. Simon and Emre Caliskan are the authors of 'The "New Turkey" and its Discontents' out in December with Hurst Publishers.
Turkey is sending a message that its armed forces are still a strong and capable fighting force, despite large-scale purges of officers of the highest ranks.
The younger generation is seeing their political awakening in a highly divided Turkey and being forced to take sides in a system where democracy and its institutions are the battleground.
It is a sad state of affairs when an elected official is likened to a modern-day Ottoman sultan; however, the comparison is both startling and striking.