It was just after 10 a.m. Oct. 10 in Turkey’s capital and the citizens of Ankara waited for a democratic rally just outside the central train station. They were in the midst of singing an anthem to commemorate Turkey’s “Bloody Sunday” when explosions boomed. Smoke filled the morning air and citizens screamed as they ran without clear direction, away from the explosions.

Kevin Cole, a DePaul alumnus currently in the Fulbright Scholarship Program, is studying for his master’s in social sciences at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara.  He has been living in Ankara since Sept. 4 and plans to study there for the next year.  Although he was about 30 minutes away from where the bombings took place, the continuing uncertainty and chaos in Ankara terrifies the citizens of Turkey, he said. 

“The Turkish government has announced that its leading suspicion regarding the attack’s perpetrators rests with ISIS,” Cole said. “If this is the case, it would mark a major turn in the way ISIS has operated in Turkey.”

The haunting fact about the Oct. 10 attack is that it took place during a peace rally in the heart of the nation’s capital.  Before Cole left for Ankara, Islamic extremists conducted a surprise attack on July 20, in the rural district of Suruc near Turkey’s border with Syria. The attack killed 33 people and injured more than 100, most of them university students. Back in August, shortly after the attacks, the Turkish government took a stand and allowed the U.S. to launch missiles against ISIS from a Turkish airbase.

“The attack is certainly reminiscent of the suicide bombing in Suruç earlier this summer, which I watched on the news in the U.S. before leaving for Turkey,” Cole said. “However, in my opinion the recent attacks in Ankara hit closer to the geographic and geopolitical ‘home’ of Turkey than the violence in the Southeast.”

Citizens of Ankara have been victims of several terrorist attacks within the last decade.  In 2007, a suicide bombing at a shopping center killed 9 and wounded hundreds.  Another bombing in 2013 at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara killed the perpetrator and a security guard.  The recent attack during a peace rally in Ankara is known as the deadliest attack in Turkey’s modern history.  Due to the shortage of security on Saturday, Turkey sacked Ankara’s top police chief, Kadri Kartal, as well as two other heads of security.

DePaul religious studies professor Laith Saud explained the nation’s divide and the differences between the two parties, Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP), for the upcoming election.

“For those who have more of a disposition to a very strident, secular identity — they (CHP) have a deep disdain for the AKP,” Saud said. “They really don’t like any party that has any semblance of an Islamic impotence.”

Saud said he believes the AKP will continue their power over the CHP because of their popularity and economic success.

“The people who are for the AKP, find secular (CHP) Turks to be ‘inauthentic,’ the AKP are being more influenced to Europe. There’s a cultural divide in the country… when you speak to people who are against the AKP, they believe (the AKP) will ‘take their country backwards.’”

Nezih Altay, a business professor at DePaul and Turkish citizen, said that the violence is nothing new for the Turkish people.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been leading the AKP and Turkey for the past 13 years.  Altay said that the first half of those years were a peaceful time in Turkey but corruption continues to wreak havoc on the government and censorship rules the media. He said that Erdogan has grown to a democratically elected candidate with similar power to a dictator and many are numb to the current situation and the terrorism.

“In terms of numbness against terrorism, yes, (Turkish citizens) are numb but you can ask Israelis or Palestinians the same question and they would probably say the same thing, but you have to move on with your life,” Altay said. “One way of coping with that is developing this defense mechanism where you say ‘it’s not going to happen to me.’”