The "He said July 15 was theatre" claim
Out of context
Claim
Fact
The remark appears in the first written statement published after the coup attempt of 15 July 2016. The word really was used; we do not deny this. The dispute is over what was meant.
Those who passed the remark on loaded it with two different meanings: "there was no coup" or "the government staged the coup". Kuytul's intent is neither of these, and he explained it himself in an interview he gave when roughly twenty-five days had passed since the coup:
"There is theatre, but I did not say it in the sense that the Government is doing theatre."
What he meant is this: the coup plotters' preparations were known, they were provoked and, by being brought face to face with the people, they were lured into a trap. That is, if there is a play being staged, the actors are the coup plotters and the writers are others. In his own words, "they are making these people act in that theatre."
He does not question the reality of the coup attempt at all. In the first answer of that same interview he describes coups as injustice and usurpation; on 21 July 2016 he held a press statement against the coup attempt.
Why the "Out of context" label?
The part that is true: the word "theatre" is not fabricated, it really was uttered. We are not hiding this.
The part that is not a fault: what the remark meant was explained openly by the one who made it, in an interview whose recording is available. The meaning of a sentence is the meaning given to it by the one who uttered it. The claim ignores the explanation, leaves the word standing alone in the open, and loads it with a meaning its own author rejects.
First, let us grant the remark
On this page we will not write "he said no such thing". It was said. In the first written statement published after the night of 15 July 2016 the word "theatre" appears, and the text is there in plain sight.
The problem with the claim is not the existence of the remark, but the remark being left on its own. The word has been taken; the explanation beside it has not.
Who is acting in the theatre?
When roughly twenty-five days had passed since the coup, that is, in the interview conducted in August 2016, he was asked about this expression directly. The first sentence of the answer rejects both readings of the claim at once:
"There is theatre, but I did not say it in the sense that the Government is doing theatre. I meant that this event is not in fact as it appears, that there are other things behind it."
The picture he meant is this: those who attempted the coup were encouraged into it, they were allowed to go ahead even though their plans were known, and they were lured into a trap by being brought face to face with the people. Those made to perform on the stage are the coup plotters; the ones who wrote the play are those who dragged them there.
What was this view based on?
In the interview he sets out his reasons one by one:
- Instead of taking members of the government into custody, the coup plotters chose to hold the bridge.
- While the coup appeared to be directed at the government, the coup's own generals were taken hostage.
- That MİT had reported the coup preparations to the General Staff at around 16.00 on the same day became public knowledge afterwards.
- In an army where Turkey's total number of generals was around 375, the number of generals linked to the attempt was announced as 151; that an uprising on this scale should fall apart within a few hours did not square with the seriousness of the planning.
The conclusion he drew from these is summed up in the sentence "no coup is planned in such an absurd way". What he said is not that the event did not happen, but that it is more complicated than it appears.
Nor does he present this assessment as established fact. The qualifiers "in my opinion" and "in my judgement" that he placed at the start of his sentences remain in the text. For someone speaking twenty-five days after the coup, while a great deal was still uncertain, to mark his own interpretation as an interpretation is the exact opposite of the categorical attitude the claim implies.
It does not mean saying "there was no coup"
This is the most easily refuted side of the claim. The person said to deny the reality of the coup describes the coup, in that same interview, as follows: taking by force of arms the authority of those whom the people elected, that is, usurpation; and usurpation is not permissible. He explains one by one that this is contrary to Islam, to justice and to the law of social change.
The same line is visible in practice too. A first statement was made on the night of the coup, and on 21 July 2016 a press statement against the coup attempt was held. One does not come across someone making a statement in the square against something he thinks did not happen.
So why was it misunderstood?
Because "theatre" is a word used in everyday language for two separate jobs: both to say that an event never happened at all, and to say that what did happen has something else behind the curtain. Kuytul meant the second and explained it at the first opportunity. Those who spread the claim preferred the first.
It is true that the remark, left on its own, is open to being misunderstood. But what determines the meaning of a statement is not the interpretation preferred by the one who hears it, but what the one who made it said — especially when that person has explained his intent in detail in an interview whose recording is available.
Other claims produced in the same period by the same method: The "He knew about the coup in advance" claim and The "A coup-loving foundation" claim and the Directorate General of Foundations review.