Everyone has their own version of Sept. 12. Looking at what has been written, one can see that everyone is trying to vindicate their own position, wrong deeds and ideological camp through their victimhood instead of carrying out a self-criticism on their past and asking “where did we do wrong?" The shape in flesh and bones was Kenan Evren as the source of all evil. After he took out his uniform, left his authority and became retired, and after the establishment of the transformation of the oligarchic structure , which is his legacy, within the system , then everyone was able to talk.

The Sept. 12, 1980 coup d'état, which came to the fore in Kenan Evren's personality, had a particular place among other coups. It was probably the last hierarchical intervention of the established order, as we know it, in terms of renewing itself and transforming the system because the coup d'état of May 27, 1960 that preceded the Sept. 12 overthrow the hierarchy within the army; it was a coup d'état that the officers at the lower ranks realized by finding a general with difficulty. Although a government overthrow independent of the system in a NATO member country, particularly at the time, was unthinkable, its way of operation pushed the form. In that regard, it did not find any societal support but it did divide the society into two. The fact that the coup d'état had an language/politics that would offend extensive masses of people and the rage against the executions and the feeling of victimhood effected why the Republican People's Party (CHP) was never elected with the public vote again.

Even though the following Memorandum of March 12 took place on a different ground, it was at the end an intervention of a junta into the government against another kind of junta. With this aspect, it was more an internal feud of the confused military bureaucracy rather than the restoration of the system. Therefore, it would not lead a permanent mark on the society as much as the '60 coup d'état despite certain arrangements.

The Sept. 12 coup under Evren's leadership is utterly a restoration movement under the Cold War circumstances. It was a highly planned and hierarchical coup where the goals and the means to achieve them were calculated.

The suppression and torture of the Evren coup was so intense, that the victimization it brought prevented the organizational and ideological structures from performing self-criticism. To put it more rightly, the leftist and rightist structures finding shelter under this violence and torture literature have considerably avoided facing their past.

Particularly the victimhood language of the left is so superficial and widespread that it is as if there had never been a group that never took a gun and shed blood. The effectiveness of the left movement, particularly in media and art circles, ensured that the conscientious and intellectual reaction to the coup turned into a language of victimhood.

By the way, the most interesting paradox, which is not usually mentioned, is the fact that the nationalist-idealist front and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) proponents were truly cheated .

The people who went out to the streets, gave their lives and shed blood when necessary for the protection of the state found themselves in prison and under torture with the break whistle.

Given the fact that the reading of the consequences of the Evren coup is carried out from the perspective of leftist victimhood and leftist intelligentsia, single-sided deductions are produced.

- The most important cause and effect relationship of the Sept. 12 coup is the fact that Turkey took a step towards the neo-liberal period. With this aspect, economic grounds and the economic-political transformation of the system is an important factor. For instance, only those who could well read the decisions of Jan. 24 1980 could see the inevitability of a coup d'état.

- The story that Sept. 12 was a project of a green belt, which has become an urban legend, is not solely explanatory. Having forgotten that Turkey is a NATO member, and part of the Western system,it is not sufficient to add another belt, and this is not just insufficient but it is misleading.

- Explaining post-coup d'état social and political inclinations as the revival of the Turk-Islam synthesis against pure communism, as opposed to what is thought, falls short.

- With Sept. 12, for the first time the state went through a process of controlled recognition of religion and pulling it towards the center through acknowledgment of the religious reality. The actual reason for this is the possible effects of Islamic movements that were on the rise over the world under the 1980 circumstances. The radicalizing effect of the Iranian revolution made a new design on the traditional structures in Turkey obligatory in terms of the regime. The Sept. 12 regime redesigned the certain traditional sufist structures, especially Nur communities, according to this political model.

- Rightist conservative structures, namely the social structures that could carry Özalism, were encouraged for the implementation of neo-liberal politics; at least some of them were passed unchallenged.

- To assume that the sole ground for and goal of the Evren coup d'état was the green belt, a period when the Soviet system gave signals of losing the war against the U.S., is a self-centered political blindness. What is more natural than the establishment of political and societal projects on this reality in a Muslim country, no matter what kind of government is in power?

- The fact that the leftist side that was said to be the target of Sept. 12 was pulled into the system particularly in media and certain sections in bureaucracy is as much paradoxical as the situation of nationalist-idealists.

- Kenan Evren has certain characteristics that distinguished him from other coup stagers. Although he came from a uniform-wearing tradition, his eloquence immediately drew attention. By mingling with the public and by propounding speeches, he tried to infuse the coup into people.

- Following the environment that leftist and rightist groups together brought on the verge of civil war or that the proponents of the coup waited for it to ripen at the background in the pre-coup period, the discourse of protecting the state in the people's consciousness made the job of those who executed the coup easier.

Consequently, there are the wealthy and the prosperous in powerful positions who can generate a great deal of grounds that will legitimize a period where the lives of many people were made miserable with an approval from the U.S. and where human dignity was suppressed. No answer can be given to the cry of a person who is unjustly sentenced, executed and who passes away while being tortured.

The preparation of the conservation-rightist section to implement neo-liberal politics, allowing for a moderate Islam base in order to block the Islamist movements , and opening up space for leftist structures in certain critical areas within the system constitute the frames of changes in the big picture.

Those who cannot rightly evaluate Sept. 12 can correctly evaluate neither the government-Gülen-led group tussle nor the neo-liberal transformations, nor the post-Kemalist process.