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Social media stops a coup

Posted July. 19, 2016 07:12,   

Updated July. 19, 2016 07:12

한국어

In the dawn of May 16, 1961, news announcer Park Jong-se was asleep during night duty at the Central Broadcasting Station in Namsan, Seoul, but had to wake up with surprise. Military police had raided the station, soon followed by an airborne unit. “The military has raised to save our country from an imminent peril. I’d like you to help me make an announcement 5 a.m. sharp,” Gen. Park Chung-hee said, while asking for a handshake. With the 5 a.m. time signal, the 26-year-old announcer read out the declaration, “My fellow Koreans, the military has finally....”

The key to success of a coup was to announce the change of power by taking over broadcast. However, the recent coup attempt in Turkey, which ended in just six hours, shows that coup d’état may already be a thing of the 20th century. The Turkish military took control of the TV station, only to be overturned by the power of social media. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appealed to the public at the vacation spot making the best use of the same social media, which he had tried to oppress. The citizens shared his message and took to the streets to stand up to the armored tanks. Now social media has changed the codes of a coup.

The rebels were thwarted by the speed of online transmission of messages while just focusing on occupying offline facilities. The biggest credit of such a fast suppression of a coup should go to social media. The problem has not ended, however. President Erdogan, who has been in authoritative power for as long as 14 years, is strongly criticized home and abroad for human rights abuses and oppression of media, as well as numerous allegations of corruption and irregularities. There is a concern that he will use the failed coup attempt as a chance to purge the dissidents, especially given his tendency to take all the merits for the good while blaming others for the bad.

According to Foreign Policy magazine, the basic rule of a coup is to control the government leadership, and the second is to tie the hands of the mobile power of the opposition. The consequences of the clumsy move will now fall onto ordinary citizens. Then why did the Turkish public not support the action, a fifth of such an attempt? A New York Times article may have the answer: “The worst democracy is better than the best coup.” We would like to pay tribute to all democracies in the world.



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