Talking About Islamic NGOs with the Japanese

Last Updated on Monday, 12 October 2009 07:59 by İhsan Yılmaz, Sunday's Zaman Sunday, 11 October 2009 12:31

Until they contacted me, I did not know that five big Japanese universities, such as Waseda, Toyo and Tokyo, had been undertaking research for five years on faith-based Islamic NGOs and civic initiatives. When the end of the five-year term of the project approached, the academics conducting the project realized that they had failed to include probably the largest faith-based NGO originating from the Muslim world: the faith-based civic movement led by Fethullah Gülen. That is why they approached me and asked if I could deliver a paper, titled "Civil Society, Social Capital, Islamic NGOs in Turkey and their Nationwide and Global Initiatives: The Case of the Gülen Movement," in the project's final workshop.

Professor Nejima Susumu, who has been coordinating the project, told me that about 200 academics have been working on the project and that one of its aims is to underline that despite stereotypical representations, Islam is not about violence and that there is a good deal of a humanistic side to it. He emphasized that the existence of thousands of Islamic NGOs all over the world, engaged in all sorts of activities ranging from poverty eradication to human rights advocacy to interfaith dialogue, is a telling manifestation of this fact.

I discussed in my paper how the Gülen movement, with several of its faith-based NGO initiatives, successfully turned its spiritual, intellectual and human resources into effective social capital and utilized this social capital in promoting interfaith and inter-civilization dialogue as well as in establishing educational institutions from primary schools to universities to attract students of diverse ethnic, religious and socio-economic backgrounds. The movement also mobilized its social capital to establish media outlets, charities and all sorts of other civic organizations to promote democratic participation and dialogue among various sections of the society. In the global arena, the movement has enunciated an inclusive discourse with regards to several different religious, ethnic and ideological groups.

As observed by several Western academics studying the movement, in its sponsorship and support for interfaith and inter-civilizational dialogue, the Gülen movement seeks both to counter the impact of violent radical strains in the contemporary Muslim world and to undermine wherever it can Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations thesis. These are transnational activities, but are global in their reach and potential impact.

I endeavored to show in this paper that while the Gülen movement is directly engaged with interfaith and intercultural activities and works toward a peaceful coexistence and alliance of civilizations, it is simultaneously engaged in concrete educational projects that indirectly foster an understanding of intercultural dialogue, that help peace-building in global zones of conflict and that transform its social capital into sustainable development.

Back in Japan, Professor Susumu told me that they had to relocate one of their five campuses to Tokyo because of the demographic pressure, adding that four universities had to close as they could not attract sufficient numbers of students. Seasoned non-Japanese observers of Japan highlight here that the country has been suffering the side effects of rapid modernization and the much talked about Japanese achievement of fusing tradition with modernization is nowhere to be seen, especially in urban regions. The worst affected area is family life. By 2050 the country's population could shrink from today's 127 million to 70-80 million, with a very large percentage comprising the elderly population, bringing about the total collapse of the country's social security system. Even today 22.2 percent of the population is above 65 years old and the median age is 44.2. The population growth rate is -0.191 percent.

The country is evidently in need of a sense of direction, and who knows, this might be one of the reasons why the Japanese Ministry of Culture has financed the tremendous five-year 200-man project on Islamic NGOs with a hope of inspiration.