[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
If you have the chance to talk to a staunchly secular Turk these days and want to hear something mind-boggling, just ask him a simple question: “What the hell is this Gülen movement?”
It is very likely that you will then listen to a chilling conspiracy theory about how this evil cadre of “Islamists” is taking over Turkey step by step. You will learn how they have “infiltrated” every state institution, from the police to the judiciary, and now are defusing the power of the military, the last bastion of secularism.
You might even hear that the 69-year-old Mr. Fethullah Gülen, who has lived in the United States since 1999, is similar to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the sense that he will soon come back to bless an “Islamic revolution” prepared by his disciples.
The Imam in America
But if you want to get your facts right, don’t stop there. Ask the same Turkish ultra-secularist about the role of the U.S. in this evil scheme. It is very likely that he will tell you that Gülen is “supported by the CIA.” He will explain you how America wants to create “moderate Islamic regimes” in the Middle East, along with an independent Kurdistan – and, of course, a Greater Israel – and how Gülen perfectly fits into all these plots. Your friend will even quote a recent bestseller titled “Amerika’daki İmam” (The Imam in America) by Ergün Poyraz, a staunch Kemalist, to “prove” all this.
To me, however, all this rather sounds a bit like The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the notorious anti-Semitic forgery. In both The Protocols and the conspiracy theories about Gülen, the theme is similar: There is a cunning enemy that is secretly, yet steadily achieving its plan for total domination. The enemy never sleeps, always schemes and works “everywhere… behind every institution.”
I, as you can imagine, have a different explanation for the Gülen movement.
First, I believe that its extent and influence is exaggerated. I actually know this from personal experience: Despite the fact that I have stated many times that I am not a follower of Gülen, or anybody else, I routinely get aggressive comments, and even hate mail, from Kemalists who take it for granted that I am yet another “Gülen lackey.”
In fact, Turkey’s ultra-secularists have lately come to believe that anybody who is conservative, pro-Islamic or even just critical of the military must be a “Gülenist.” Recently, even a more refined Kemalist commentator defined the anti-militarist daily Taraf as a “pro-Gülen newspaper.” One could rather define it as the Turkish paper with the highest number of atheists and agnostics among its editors and writers.
The truth is that with a few million followers, and lots of schools, media outlets and business networks, the Gülen movement is certainly powerful, but not all-dominant in any part of society. Within the Islamic camp, they are just one of the many different communities. For the secularists, all of these people can be the same – they all pray too often and their wives wear the hated headscarf. But there are actually various groups of Naqshbandis, Qadiris, “Süleymancıs,” “Erbakancıs” or “Nurcus.” The Gülenists are just one of the several offshoots of the latter tradition.
But what do they aim for Turkey? While the secularist answer is, “to dominate, stupid,” I think they rather want to have a hospitable environment in which they can survive and grow.
To see why, you should look at the group’s origins. Islamic thinker Said Nursi (1878-1960), who laid the foundations for Gülen’s thinking, was a very apolitical figure who believed Islam can best be served in this age by an intellectual and spiritual struggle against atheism and moral decadence. Even this most moderate form of Islam was unacceptable for Kemalism, so, in the latter’s heyday (1925-50), Nursi was repeatedly imprisoned for his books. He and his followers, whose stated goal was “to save people’s afterlife” by preaching “the truths of faith,” only took a deep breath in 1950, when the center-right Democrat Party came to power.
A secret agenda?
Since then, both the followers of Nursi, and of Gülen, who further modernized Nursi’s thoughts and created a global movement out of them, have supported center-right governments. They, meanwhile, distanced themselves from the Islamist parties founded by Necmettin Erbakan, whom they saw as a radical troublemaker. The reason was that the Nursi-Gülen tradition doesn’t envision an “Islamic state.” It rather seeks a liberal-democratic state that will be tolerant to its missionary work, which it carries out through publications, charity and education.
The recent alliance between members of this tradition and the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government should be understood within this context. Members of the Gülen movement supports the AKP because they know that the alternative (a military coup, or a military-orchestrated restoration government) will crack down on them severely, as happened in the late 1990s. This is a survival strategy, in other words, rather than a plot to dominate.
Finally, if the group really has a “secret agenda” to turn Turkey into a “Shariah state,” then it is in deep trouble. For it now has schools in more than 100 countries, most of them non-Muslim and any radical thing it does in Turkey would ruin its reputation and faith mission throughout the whole world.
So, perhaps, the Gülen movement has to dominate the whole world first in order to take over Turkey!
But, well, your secularist Turkish friends might say, isn’t that what all “learned elders” conspire for?
The question that I heard ask however is, if Gulen really favors liberal democracies over islamist regimes, why did he set up school throughout the world but not in places like Iran, Saudi Arabia or Qatar, which may be receptive to this message?
If he had set up all his schools in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia then those people would still point to this as proof that his organisation is working to bring an Islamist tyranny to Turkey. It’s not that paranoid Turkish secularist nationalists first look at the facts and then try to make a conclusion that fits the facts, instead they make their conclusion first and then just try to make the facts fit their already decided conclusion no matter how silly it gets. That’s why these people think the whole world is plotting against them.
The answer is that “Islamist regimes” do not consider those who favor liberal-democracy “real Muslims”.
This was the reason why “Gulen” schools were closed down by Taliban in Afghanistan, are not allowed in Iran, Saudi Arabi, and get threats from radicals in Pakistan.
The point is,for the Gülen circle liberalism is not an end in itself but a tool to deconstruct national unity in order to establish a world-wide Islamic regime in which they are to be the leaders. They have declared this megalo-idea! openly many times.
As to Nursi’s books, they are pure superstition. He defends views like this: The invention of centrifuge machine by which we get water from land is due to a sign from scripture in which God said to Moses ‘Hit the stone with your stick.” And the invention of the airplane is due to another sign in scripture saying “We gave the wind for the use of prophet Suleyman” etc. (İsmail Kara, Between Religion and Modernization, Dergah Publishing House, p.50.)
The term ‘islamist’ with has no real meaning whatsoever although people love throwing that term around every time muslims or Islam is discussed.
Question? Why this movement did not open schools in Middle Eastern Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran?
Answer: They want to. But They are unable to. Because political regimes in many Arabic countries, great many of them are highly authoritarian and repressive or at the least intolerant to others, are very antagonistic to Turks.
On the other hand if this movement opened schools in Iran or Saudi Arabia their self appointed or state sponsored enemies would more easily brand them as the agents of fundamantalist Islam of Iran or Saudi Arabia.
there was one such country: Taliban’s Afghanistan. The schools were established before Taliban took over. The movement tried to keep these schools open. But the Taliban regime closed these schools on the grounds that the movement was not an Islamic one because the curriculum in these schools had nothing to do with the curriculum demanded by Taliban.
A funny comment: “The point is,for the Gülen circle liberalism is not an end in itself but a tool to deconstruct national unity in order to establish a world-wide Islamic regime in which they are to be the leaders. ”
In fact you are wrong. Gulen wants to establish an inter-galactic Islamic regime. He does not do it in order not to upset you.
Gelibolu: They would if they could.
Your answer to a secularist who answered your question with “to dominate stupid” brought a smile to my face, because your comment after that holds the whole truth when you said, and I quote, “I think they rather want to have a hospitable environment in which to survive and grow”….WOW did you know that every known PARASITE to mankind IS looking for that kind of environment, to survive, grow and to SPREAD. Wheather it is plant, bacterial or human. Every parasite.
So, what you are saying is that it is ok with you that an extremist religious parasite takes hold of root in my precious country to take it where no man had been before… To hell ???
Please visit the following links to get the up-to-date and accurate information about Fethullah Gulen and The Gulen Movement.
Fethullah Gulen Movement
Fethullah Gulen’s Brief Biography