Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

Turkey is still reeling from the effects of the failed coup attempt on July 16.

What unfolded on that Friday evening made clear to the world that some military personal were acting out of the chain of command, as opposed to the military as a whole.

Suspicion as to who was responsible for the attempted coup has touched President Obama, who recently publicly denied prior knowledge of the coup. The Turkish president himself has also been accused of staging the coup to revamp his government. However, president Erdogan is keen to pursue U.S.-based cleric Fetullah Gulen,who lives in exile in Pennsylvania, as the mastermind behind the attempted coup. Since then, hundreds of arrests have been made to rid the government of accused Gulen infiltrators from within the judiciary, military and media.

However what remains apparent to most people is how the western media and politicians responded and reacted to what galvanized Turkey into such chaos that evening.

Nearly four years ago in January of 2011 the Egyptian Revolution began. Citizens began an uprising to over throw Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.

It was part of the greater Arab Spring that engulfed the region at that time. The revolution saw many give their life for freedom with many more injured. In the end, it was a success as it led to the ousting of Mubarak. Parliamentary and presidential elections were held and in June of 2012, Egypt’s first-ever democratically elected president was announced: Mohamed Morsi.

Morsi’s background was from the Muslim Brotherhood, a group which also won parliamentary seats in the new Egyptian Parliament. During Morsi’s brief tenure, Egypt experienced freedoms it had never seen, from freedom of press and the ability to criticize the government, to allowing any peaceful protests to occur against the government or president.

What The West Can Learn From The Attempted Turkish Coup

The Rise And Fall Of Egypt’s Democracy