Friday, April 30, 2010

A Conference in Potsdam

İhsan Yılmaz
The two words "conference" and "Potsdam" instantly bring to mind the famous gathering that ended World War II as far as Europe was concerned. (Japan surrendered a few months later after two of its cities were atomic bombed.) The conference not only aimed to end the war and build peace, but also practically divided Germany and also Berlin into four influence zones, which would pave the way for the de facto and de jure division of Germany into two parts. The conference I attended this week was not about wars and divisions, but integration and conflict prevention.

First of all, I should note that I was surprised to see so many German academics, senior and junior, following the conference titled "Muslims between Tradition and Modernity: The Gülen Movement as a Bridge between Cultures" for the whole two days. I already knew that Germany was not full of Turkophobic and Islamophobic "[Angela] Merkels" but seeing that so many German academics, politicians and civil society leaders speak highly of the Gülen movement was indeed reassuring for me. In total contradiction to the stereotypical self-conceited image of the Western elite, Germans, German-Turks, other Europeans and several others from many countries confidently discussed how the Gülen movement can contribute to the integration of communities in European cities and if and to what extent the movement will be an essential bridge in the way toward the alliance of civilizations. I think even this attempt to include Fethullah Gülen, his thoughts and the movement inspired by his ideas is a vital step that will not only challenge and hopefully eliminate the prejudices on both sides of the EU accession process, but that it will also help Europe to enrich itself once more as has traditionally been the case.

Even though I have a problem with the title of the conference as it refers to "Muslims between tradition and modernity," and most social scientists now agree that the alleged dichotomy between tradition and modernity is not real, the content of the conference was very diverse and rich and should be commended. While some of the paper presenters rightfully stated that the movement should be constructively criticized, as our Kerim Balci highlighted during the conference, very few could actually raise critical points. I think this is due to the fact that the movement is slowly becoming a commodity in the academic market and many scholars who study and write on the movement are not so knowledgeable about the movement that they can analytically and constructively criticize the movement, which now publicly acknowledges that it needs critics to improve itself. It is a fact that the students of the Muslim world very rarely studied Turkish ― one of the major languages of Muslim heritage and culture ― and focused on either Middle Eastern or South Asian regions. Therefore, we do not have many scholars who would study Gülen in his native language and also the Turkish context. Unfortunately, not all of Gülen's works have been translated into English, and we are also not sure if the ones that have been translated perfectly convey his message to the Western audience. If we bear in mind that great works of important thinkers have been translated several times and that there are several editions, Gülen's works can also similarly be translated. But of course, it would be ideal if scholars studying the Muslim world would learn Turkish as well. For instance, Swedish scholar Klass Grinell, who presented an excellent and thought-provoking paper on the movement and politics, knows Turkish, and one can easily see how he commands both Gülen's literature and the Turkish socio-political context. He reminds me of another Swede, Professor Elisabeth Özdalga, who knows Turkish very well and has produced a number of excellent articles on the movement.

Anyway, the Potsdam Conference highlighted that the Gülen movement has the potential to contribute to conflict prevention, integration and peace in Europe and that both the movement and Western scholars should do more to make sure that we are more exposed to Gülen's ideas and practices.

Gülen: They Can’t Be Objective

Hüseyin Gülerce
We visit the esteemed Fethullah Gülen in his modestly decorated room and are watching the news bulletin on Samanyolu TV. I have been here for the last four days. Mr. Gülen is very ill. His flu has developed into bronchitis. He coughs as if his lungs will come out.

It is very depressing to see him in this situation. He patiently waits until the end of the news bulletin out of respect for his guests. When he heard from the news bulleting what Professor Thomas Michel said in the conference on the Gülen movement, he said, "Foreigners understand [us] correctly, while some of our own people are still lacking in understanding." I asked, "Sir, is it because they do not want to understand?" He replied, "They cannot be objective, Mr. Gülerce." Then, he pointed to some 15 people in the room. "Here are our fellow brothers. They do not carry even a pin lest it may prick someone," he said.

Indeed, I also attended the conference and saw that they were trying to explain this worldwide movement using objective criteria. About three years ago we had attended such a conference in Chicago with about 20 academics and columnists from Turkey. For instance, an academician from Europe had described the Light Houses ― which some people treat as they were some kind of illegal headquarters ― as " places where the movement makes its first contact with all levels of society."

Now the Turkish Olympics have started in Turkey with the attendance of students from 115 countries. This is the true agenda of Turkey for about 10 days. But some newspapers and TV stations will again turn a blind eye to this legendary event and they will not inform their readers or audiences about it.

However, this wonderful event cannot be identified with the name of Mr. Gülen in a manner that is depressing him. "This is a great injustice done to the self-sacrificing teachers, trainers and businessmen and their families. This is the movement and power of Turkey. It is the result of the country's desire to attain the place it deserves in the world," he has said and written repeatedly.

Given the fact the movement has opened schools and dialogue centers in 115 countries, including Russia, the US, the UK and Germany, which have the most capable intelligence services in the world, is it possible to suggest that they do not know what this movement really is and what it is trying to achieve? Can a reasonable person accept the contrary? There are still some people who may say, "They are supported by the US." Turkish has become a universal language and the teachers, who are the best models of our values, make sure that their students love Turkey and Turkish people. This movement is busy building true lobbies for Turkey through love and voluntary acceptance while some people are still occupied with setting traps or plots through mischief.

I still remember that one of our friends who was doing dialogue work in Washington had received an email from a US citizen who wrote, "I see that you do work that is beneficial to humankind, so I want to send money as my contribution." When Mr. Gülen was informed of this email, he said: "People's interest in us is regarded as a gratuity for us. But we do not accept money from foreigners. If we did, this would be disloyalty to the Anatolian people. This clean source should not be shared with others. Accepting nothing from anyone is the honor of our service and it is the expression of our respect for our nation. The nation's involvement is essential. If you can secure the overall involvement of the nation, there will be nothing to be concerned about. Thomas Michel was impressed by a iron worker in Anatolia who said, 'I give what I earn with my hard labor to a school in Africa.' May God protect us from being bad examples."

Mr. Gülen is opening the eyes of Turkey. He is a precious value for us. To defend Gülen does not mean that he needs to be defended. To defend him is to declare that our nation should secure the place it deserves in the international arena and to defend a peaceful world where everyone comes together on the basis of universal human values.

Listening to Gülen

Hüseyin Gülerce
I am listening to the esteemed Fethullah Gülen, sitting just in front of him. Mr. Gülen has long been striving to make sure Muslims resort to the very essence of religion and ethics preached by the Quran and achieve an exemplary quality.

When in a promotion meeting of the Journalists and Writers Foundation in İstanbul in 1994, he said that there would be no retreat from democracy in Turkey and around the world, and his words were regarded by many as striking. It was a first for a spiritual leader of Muslims to stress democracy in such a pronounced manner. Naturally, there were also his critics. They asked: How sincere was he? Was he just pretending to have faith in democracy?

Fifteen years have passed since then. The education and dialogue services advised by Mr. Gülen have reached out to many places around the world. In this scope, students coming from 115 countries will be attending the Turkish Olympiads next week. Irrespectively of their differences in color, language, faith and culture, a new generation of young people can gather together in an atmosphere of fraternity, love and dialogue.

Mr. Gülen has introduced new horizons to devout people concerning democracy. Devout people have never attached such a critical importance to democracy. When we look at the Muslim world, we see that almost all Islamic movements are reactionary ones. On the other hand, Mr. Gülen suggests that we can remain as ourselves and revive our own values and simultaneously integrate with the world. But to do this, we must first analyze Turkey and the world correctly. Second, we must realize that we are living in a world where diversities are becoming more and more salient. We will choose to regard these diversities either as causes for conflict or as additional assets. Mr. Gülen has recommended that Muslims treat them as assets by empathizing with diverse people and creating reasonable grounds for dialogue and peace.

The ways available for this purpose were the expanded freedom of religion and conscience, pluralism, accountability, fair distribution of income and transparency. The common ground would be advanced democracy, which is more human oriented and value laden.

What are duties of Muslims in this quest? Mr. Gülen has two profound answers to this question: First, nothing can be done without dialogue. Indeed, dialogue implies removing the gap in between. Dialogue can be defined as being respectful of everyone's position. Whoever seeks respect for his or her position should pay respect to other people's positions. Second, dialogue is not sufficient as one step forward; we must start to share [our values].

If devout people believe in the importance of dialogue and if they agree to share and meet over universal values, then there is one thing left to do: To "love Creatures out of reverence for their Creator" and embrace everyone with love and try to attain their love.

This is the hard road. It entails transcending oneself. It requires self-sacrifice. It seeks altruism, which is specific to human beings.

This is the road advised by Mr. Gülen: to be model Muslims and reintroduce truly human qualities to human beings with a self-styled movement.

After the asr prayer last Sunday I was sitting in front of Mr. Gülen, and what I heard from him for the first time gave me a sense of spiritual relief. "The tenderness of Ali is superior to that of Mevlana," he said. "Refrain from uttering curses or malediction," he advised. I felt a chilling sensation when he added: "Uttering curses is not expected from people of merit as it will degrade one's merit." As he spoke, I felt as though my spirit was being cleansed.

He prayed: "O my God! Lead them to the straight path. Remove their feelings for evil acts and pour goodness into their hearts. If this is Your choosing, it is You who knows best."

Then, he turned to us and continued: "Those who do not know you as such are accusing you out of misconceptions and illusions. They do not act fairly. They blame you when a meteor hits the earth. Nevertheless, we have to act tenderly and compassionately. This is the Prophet's attitude. If we claim to follow the path of the Prophet, then we must not deviate from it. A true conquest is the conquest of hearts. Those conquests that rely on force will end, but the conquest of hearts will prevail."

It was good of me to come to the true source of communion.

Is Soner Çağaptay Walking the Tightrope Between Morality and Subservience?

Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 May 2009 08:40 by Mehmet Yılmaz, Today's Zaman
Soner Çağaptay's Fight Against Turkey
As an enthusiastic Newsweek reader, I would like to express my disappointment over a recent article titled "Behind Turkey's Witch Hunt," written by Soner Çağaptay.

I would like to state at the outset that this article has surely cast doubt on your credibility as a renowned journal, for anybody who is familiar with the societies and politics of Turkey and the United States would instantly notice that most of the author's arguments are flawed and were written with less than benevolent intentions. Evidently, by penning this article, the author has tried to ingratiate himself with certain circles in Turkey that have been trying to dilute and obscure the ongoing Ergenekon case, in which a significant number of white-collar people have been arrested for their alleged involvement in various terrorist activities, aiming to ultimately overthrow the government by plotting a military coup.

The author's main argument is that the current Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government is trying use the Ergenekon case as a means to curb freedoms and more importantly to edge out people who seem to be opposing the AK Party's policies. The author indicates that there is a symbiotic relationship between the AK Party and the Gülen movement, a pacific spiritual social movement which the author wrongly calls a "tarikat" (Islamic order), and that the Turkish National Police Department is nothing but a tool for the realization of the AK Party's goals. The author implies that: i) The National Police Department works under the command of the AK Party government; and ii) The Gülen movement supports the AK Party; so iii) The Gülen movement must also support ― and since it is a powerful movement, it must control ― the National Police Department. Doubtless, the syllogism here is way too simplistic, lacking credible evidence to substantiate it. Still, in an effort to undergird his arguments, the author uses some statistical data selectively and manipulates them to serve his purpose. Such efforts indeed run counter to his expected goal as one cannot help but think that this article is nothing but a manifestation of the author's lack of moral and ethical scruples. For example, in regards to the number of people who are under surveillance, he wrote the following: "On April 26, Turkey's justice minister said that police intelligence listens to the private conversations of 70,000 people; almost one in every 1,000 Turks lives under police scrutiny today. In the United States, that ratio is one in 137,000." The author is wrong about the numbers as evidenced by the justice minister's response at the Turkish Parliament to an interpellation vis-à-vis the number of wiretappings. In his response, the justice minister stated that he has no statistics regarding the number of wiretappings and instead sufficed to say that 12,888 recordings from the years 2006, 2007 and 2008 had been destroyed.

Although the abovementioned ratio, not the numbers, were articulated by Fethi Şimşek, president of the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB), there are two problems with the citation of Mr. Şimsek's statement. First, the author used the information in a self-serving manner, disregarding the fact that Mr. Şimşek also said the number of wiretappings in Turkey is not beyond European standards. Second, not only in this quote but throughout the article, the author deliberately used the term "police" in the discussions of surveillance of people's private communications, when he is expected to know as a "Turkey expert" that the National Police Department is not the only organization involved in surveillance activities in Turkey. For instance, in Turkey all interceptions of wire, oral and electronic communications follow a legal process, i.e., applications are processed by the TİB; accordingly, not only the National Police Department, but also the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the gendarmerie are granted permission to implement these interceptions. In addition, in order to listen to the private conversations of 70,000 people simultaneously, there would be a need for 70,000 people. Since the number of officers in the National Police Department is about 200,000 and the majority of them are not involved in intelligence activities, it is practically impossible for all wiretappings to be done by the police.

Moreover, in recent years there has been a significant improvement with regard to Turkish law enforcement agencies' adherence to democratic policies and implementation, due perhaps, largely, to these agencies' conspicuous efforts to adapt themselves to the globalizing world, as well as to the positive influence of the democratic reforms made for EU accession. Contrary to Çağaptay's portrayal of the situation in Turkey, I feel confident in saying that the common perception among people in Turkey is that the National Police Department, especially, has been working meticulously to make sure that all wiretappings and other surveillance activities are done within the confines of the law. In fact, this kind of work in turn has borne fruit in the sense that the National Police Department was able to capture documents and tapes containing private information, conversations and video recordings that belong to nearly 2,500 prominent Turkish citizens. These data were illegally stored by an army general while he was working as the head of intelligence at the gendarmerie who aimed most probably to use those recordings for blackmailing purposes, or in other words, for his own "witch hunting." In parallel, he was arrested based on his involvement in the Ergenekon group, allegedly a terrorist organization. But somehow, the author and the like choose to remain aloof to these facts and still try to obscure the Ergenekon case by saying that it is not possible to plot a coup with the "few" bombs that were found by the police, while the numbers indeed are flabbergasting.

On the other hand, the author mentions that the ratio with regard to the people under surveillance is one in 137,000 in the United States while it is one in 1,000 in Turkey. This, however, is another demonstration of fact distortion by the author, given that in Turkey almost all interceptions are done because of terrorism-related crimes, whereas by a simple Google search, a careful and well-intentioned person would realize that people involved in terrorism-related crimes are not included on the list of people under surveillance in the United States.

In fact there is an enormous body of literature, as well as serious debate, over the issue of unlawful wiretapping in the United States, which has reached alarming levels, especially after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City. What is ironic, as much as stunning, is not only the distortion of the facts about the figures in the US, but also the author's comparison of Turkey with the United States in the first place. For the notorious civil rights violations under the rubric of "pre-emptive" anti-terrorism measures by the quondam US administration led by former President George W. Bush left indelible marks on the US's image as a benign hegemon or the leader of the free world, and his successor, President Barack Obama, the man of hope, and his security team's efforts to restore that tarnished image seem only to be exacerbating the damage caused by his predecessor.

To give an example, despite some positive initial attempts with regard to upholding individual rights and freedoms, President Obama has lately started to recoil from that position as he has recently suggested the notion of "prolonged detention" on a perilous premise that prolonged detentions are necessary for some people who cannot be incarcerated for their past crimes because the evidence may be tainted. When the euphemisms are stripped away, what President Obama suggested is "indefinite detention without charges" or "preventive incarceration," which is nothing but the continuation of the same old policies of the Bush administration. Thus, as the author has been living in the United States for a long time and following the sociopolitical developments of the country as an expert at a well-known think tank, his indifference to the omission of terrorist-related crimes from the above-mentioned list and his selective usage of the data seem to be more than carelessness on the part of the author.

All in all, while the author's intention, by singling out the police from the group of organizations involved in the interception of private communications in Turkey, seems to serve his attempt to endear himself to the known circles via building a case by creating a link between the police and the Gülen movement ― i.e., the former is controlled by the latter ― you can rest assured that his unsubstantiated arguments have done nothing but marred the impartiality and credibility of your publication. Moreover, I have to admit that given the author's perception of the Gülen movement, i.e., he claims not to share the sinister view of "most Turks" about this movement's spiritual message, the abovementioned link that the author suggests between the police and the Gülen movement perplexes more than it clarifies the reader about the nature of that supposed link. While trying to manipulate the reader by portraying the movement as a pernicious one, mentioning that the court filed a case against Gülen and that Gülen left Turkey and settled in the US, he does not mention that Gülen was acquitted of the charges of creating an illegal organization for the purpose of overthrowing Turkey's secular state and replacing it with one based on Shariah. This, too, stands as another example of the author's selective use of information.

On a penultimate note, I would like to attract your attention to the author's attempt at offering remedies, which is even more problematic, as he suggests that "there is a way out of this conundrum if the AK Party turns Ergenekon into a case that targets only criminals." Clearly, the author presents nescience, or simply acts pretentiously, about the notion of the independence of the judiciary and advocates instead the kibitzing of the ruling party with the ongoing legal process.

Finally, as I urge you to triangulate the information presented in the articles of this author that you plan to publish in the future in your magazine, I hope that you will take this letter merely as constructive criticism.

Mehmet Yılmaz is the assistant editor-in-chief of Zaman daily.

Gülen Conferences as Venues for Dialogue

Gülen Conferences as Venues for Dialogue
Conferences are not places where great accomplishments of social science take place. Rarely are they stages of presentation of prior accomplishments of social scientists.

They are usually venues where ideas and scholars meet to set the first stone of a future building. Conferences are not places where a final knot is tied to a continuous string of social acts and their studies; they are, in fact, places where an initial impetus is put in for future study.

That is how I feel about the Potsdam conference that will discuss the possible contributions of the Gülen movement to the solution of the integration problems of Muslims in Europe in particular and the West in general. I will be in Berlin for two days to observe that initial impetus being put into a new kind of discussion, and I am sure I will return with more questions in my mind searching for new answers accompanied by those that will have been answered.

That is my subjective way of perceiving a conference.

The Potsdam conference is going to ask many questions about the Gülen movement. The list of participants shoots down, from the very beginning, claims that these kinds of conferences are organized by sympathizers of the movement for hagiographic reasons. Two names were of particular interest to me: Walter Homolka, a rabbi, professor and executive director of the Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam, and Professor Admiel Kosman of the same college.

The Abraham Geiger College is Germany's only rabbinical seminary and was founded in 1999. It is famous for having trained the first rabbis since the Holocaust. Rabbi Homolka is a Progressive Jew with quite an impressive reputation in Western academia. Professor Kosman is an Orthodox Jew, born in Haifa to a religious family. He teaches the Talmud and the Halacha at the Abraham Geiger College. He is also an established poet dealing with religious issues.

Both these names are now looking at the Gülen movement as a possible solution to the problems of the world. Rabbi Homolka was kind enough to answer my "Why Gülen and why now?" question.

"The issue of Muslim participation in today's Europe is of great importance for the design of a pluralistic future. The Potsdam conference is dedicated to a crucial question: Is it possible for Muslims to live religiously and yet to be integrated into a democratic society that is characterized by the values of the Enlightenment? In the past, the Jews of Europe met the same challenge, about two centuries ago. Our experience in Germany was particularly thorny and ambiguous because the then-majority society was not open for us, Jews. Our conference is trying to trace intellectual possibilities so that the integration of Muslims today can succeed. In particular, we are interested in the Gülen movement as a possible bridge between cultures," he said.

Professor Kosman replied to my question, in a way, positing my belief that conferences are new openings for future possibilities and not final says on past matters. "Our main intention in building this project is to open a window for a new and fresh dialogue between Islam, Judaism and Christianity. We think that … the children of Abraham should find out in the ancient religious sources a set of reasons that will help them to build in the future a different religious type: a religious person who sees the main goal of religious life in being open to the 'other'; a human, sensitive, religious person who holds a set of values which include welcoming differences, respecting disagreements and accepting the variations of human expressions as a divine blessing. In this respect we see the work of Gülen as an essential one for our generation. We believe that the academic discussion is an important stage in clarifying issues that can later be brought to the different educational systems. That, we hope, will help create in the future a new generation of religious leaders -- rabbis, imams and priests who will be able to see openness, a tolerant approach and dialogue as the main commandment of God to the children of Abraham and to the human race all over the world," he wrote in response to my question.

These answers are quite telling. The Gülen movement is no longer an asset of the Turkish-Muslim context. Fethullah Gülen is already a universal value whose ideas and activities open new horizons to non-Turks and non-Muslims all around the world. A particular presentation that refers to Gülen as a "de-colonial political thinker" attracted my attention. De-coloniality is quite a new and flourishing area of social studies, and a study of Gülen's epistemology within the paradigm of de-coloniality can certainly open new horizons to the future of political sciences. But, I have to listen to Dr. Klas Grinell of Gothenburg first, to see whether his presentation is as brain-shaking as his title.

Soner Çağaptay's Fight Against Turkey

Soner Çağaptay's Fight Against Turkey
Soner Çağaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy recently published yet another controversial piece in Newsweek magazine that appears to be seriously distorting the reality regarding the ongoing "Ergenekon" court case in Turkey and targeting the faith-based civil society movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen by alleging that it is controlling the Turkish police.

In his piece, titled "Behind Turkey's Witch Hunt: The Ergenekon case exposes the power of a shadowy Islamic brotherhood that controls the Turkish police," Çağaptay alleges that the current Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government is using the Ergenekon court case to suppress its opponents and that the so-called Gülen movement manipulates the Turkish police force to assist the government.

Çağaptay poses a serious allegation in his article's title, and it should certainly be thoroughly investigated. If what he alleges is true, then it means Turkish democracy is under an imminent threat. However, as one continues to read his article, it becomes all too clear that his purpose is to misinform Newsweek readers about the ongoing Ergenekon court case and, at the same time defame the current AK Party government and the Gülen movement by associating them with various unlawful acts.

Today, the readers of Newsweek should be open-minded enough not to readily subscribe to Çağaptay's apparently baseless and conflicting arguments, and hence take a deeper look into the various Turkish media to gain a better understanding of the ongoing "Ergenekon" case. Similarly, the Gülen movement is not an obscure phenomenon that is hard to find out about. By now, there are perhaps countless academic studies and news reports on the movement. Moreover, the schools and other cultural initiatives inspired by the movement have been operating for more than a decade in more than a hundred countries. Surely, these countries' respective governments and security services would have continuously scrutinized the Gülen movement-inspired organizations with respect to whether they are Islamic or not. So, given the abundance of tools to study the Gülen movement, and given Çağaptay's increasingly biased and less scholarly writings, the more he writes, the less credible he will become.

However, the real problem is that despite his apparent distance from scholarly objectivity, Çağaptay is in a position to significantly influence US public and official opinion on Turkey. He is frequently given opportunities to publish articles and opinion pieces in well-known newspapers and magazines. (His latest article in The Washington Post titled "Turkey's turn from the West" and the above-mentioned article in Newsweek are the latest examples.) The lack of objectivity and scholarship in these published pieces raises questions about the editorial objectivity of the newspapers, journals and magazines in which these pieces are published. He is frequently asked to testify before the US Senate and House foreign relations committees. He seems to be directing the so-called Turkish research program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Probably the gravest of all, at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia, Çağaptay is reportedly training the US diplomats and ranking military officers to be stationed in Turkey. One wonders with what kind of intellectual background about Turkey and Turkish society the US diplomats are starting their duties in their respective posts in Turkey and how this intellectual background is affecting their attitude toward the country's people.

Çağaptay's art of distorting reality

Anybody who is not even slightly informed about the issues that Çağaptay refers to throughout the piece would easily conclude that his purpose is not to objectively and intellectually address them, but to misinform Newsweek readers about the actors involved with the issues and about some others who are not even distantly related to those issues.

Çağaptay rightly reports: "In an early morning raid on April 13, Turkish police arrested more than a dozen middle-aged liberal women working for the Society for Contemporary Life (ÇYDD), a nongovernmental organization that provides educational scholarships to poor teenage girls. The arrests were part of the Ergenekon court case, in which police have arrested hundreds of people, including Army officers, opponents of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, renowned journalists, artists and now these women, charging them with plotting to overthrow the government." However, Çağaptay fails to note that the independent prosecutors of the Turkish judiciary have not indicted -- and consequently the Turkish police have not arrested -- those women for doing charity work and providing scholarship to poor teenage girls, but for plotting with the retired army generals to overthrow Turkey's elected government via a military coup d'état. Therefore, not only those women but also all of the others indicted within the framework of the Ergenekon investigation are naturally the "opponents" of the current AK Party government. After all, they are charged with the crime of seeking to overthrow that government. For this reason, one can conclude that everybody indicted in the Ergenekon investigation are the opponents of the AK Party government, but not every opponent of the AK Party government is indicted due to the Ergenekon investigation.

The charges against the claimed Ergenekon terror network are not limited to plotting to overthrow a democratically elected government. It happens to be the latest alleged crime of the network. Retrospectively, the claimed Ergenekon terror network is charged with being responsible for carrying out kidnappings and assassinations, especially in heavily Kurdish-populated southeastern Turkey. Given the fact that in the last several decades a total of 17,000 individuals have vanished, mostly in this region, it is only reasonable and imperative for the prosecutors to indict for interrogation the individuals who are likely to be involved.

Çağaptay somewhat abruptly tries to tie the Ergenekon investigation to the Gülen movement: "[The Ergenekon investigation] is a tool for the AKP to curb freedoms, and more than anything else illustrates the power of the Gülen tarikat (Islamic order) that now controls the Turkish police and, you guessed it, educational scholarships for the poor." Obviously, Çağaptay does not seem to feel obliged to provide a reasonable explanation either to how the AK Party government uses the investigation to curb the freedoms, or to how the investigation illustrates the alleged power of the Gülen movement to control the police and educational scholarships for the poor. Çağaptay rather wants readers to believe what he says. Or he could be simply aiming to produce written material that could later be used against the Gülen movement.

The first thing that strikes one is Çağaptay's description of the Gülen movement as a tarikat (Islamic order) and his allegation that the Turkish police are a part of that Islamic order simply because the police do their job by arresting the suspects as warranted by the prosecutors.

As a civil society movement that promotes interfaith and intercultural dialogue through a worldwide network of NGOs, which involves Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists and others, and which mobilizes the philanthropists to open schools, hospitals and other charity organizations in more than a hundred countries, the Gülen movement looks somewhat different from a tarikat.

If not, then the late Pope John Paul II, who invited Gülen to the Vatican in 1997 as a gesture to promote interfaith dialogue, Chief Rabbi of Israel Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, who became a champion of the interfaith dialogue initiated by Gülen, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew, who publicly joined Gülen in promoting interfaith dialogue, the late Turkish Jewish businessman and industrialist Uzeyir Garih, who reportedly vouched for Gülen-inspired school to be opened in Moscow, and many others who have not seemed quite of Muslim origin should also be the members of the Islamic order alleged by Çağaptay.

Çağaptay's art of labeling

Moreover, it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to discern how Çağaptay links the Turkish police to the Gülen movement. He does not provide a reasonable explanation for this argument, or better to say, "allegation." Nor does he seem interested in doing so. Throughout the piece, Çağaptay uses various key terms and tries to associate them with the Gülen movement, thereby bolstering the suspicion that his intention is merely to produce written material in the media, so that those who think along the same lines as him can manipulate those materials in the future in their persecution of Gülen and those who have been inspired by his thoughts and ideas.

"Most Turks have a sinister view of the spiritual message of this tarikat," says Çağaptay in an attempt to create a view that the Gülen movement is a controversial phenomenon that is not welcomed by the majority of the Turkish people. As a matter of fact, a recent survey by Akbar Ahmed of American University has demonstrated that 84 percent of Turkish society has a highly favorable opinion of Gülen and the civil society initiatives he has inspired. Similarly, "Thanks to missionary and volunteer work, the Gülen tarikat obtained social and political power globally over the decades," says Çağaptay in an attempt to create a view that the Gülen-inspired schools are doing missionary work and seeking political power in the respective countries where they operate. Finally, Çağaptay tries to associate the Ergenekon investigation with the Joseph McCarthy trials in the US, and thereby attempts to create a view that the current AK Party government has created a state of fear by exploiting the investigation.

Çağaptay's true intentions are implicit in his last statement: "There is a way out of this conundrum if the AKP turns Ergenekon into a case that targets only criminals." Çağaptay contradicts himself by acknowledging that the government can and should manipulate the legal investigation by asking the AK Party government to intervene in the Ergenekon investigation. He also appears ignorant of the fact that the prosecutors indict the suspects to find the true criminals.

Mehmet Kalyoncu is an international relations analyst and author of the book "A Civilian Response to Ethno-Religious Conflict: The Gülen Movement in Southeast Turkey."

A Lonely Man in A Rest Home

Harun Tokak
Spring arrived like a whimsical queen and was watching the festival of the Judas trees on the hillsides along the Bosporus. When my dear friend Cemal and I stepped down the red cobblestone-paved stairs to reach the Artigiana Rest Home, an official greeted us. 'We have informed Monsieur Marovich that you have arrived. He is alone in his room,' he said Monsieur Marovich had spent the last 50 years of his life on Ölçek Sokak, located behind the Notre Dame de Sion French College in Harbiye. The children in the neighborhood greatly respected him. Indeed, he deserved respect in abundance for his exalted spirit. From a building with a door that opened to a small street shadowed by the overarching branches of a line of plane trees, glories of his soul would rise up like the smell of lilies toward the sky.

His white shirt and his carefully knotted tie would mingle in perfect harmony with his black suit, and his white hair would add another dimension to his maturity and exaltation. A profound delicacy, sensitiveness, sense of duty and humility were easily discerned from his manners. He would show care even to the smallest creature that most people would consider insignificant. Naturally, he would show special attention to every new person introduced to him.

Everyone wanted to be close to him. His arrival at conferences and his smiles would be welcomed like a sweet breeze in one's soul. Everyone would wait in patience to hear his wise words, which he would choose carefully, taking into consideration the theme of every conference.

His words would touch people's souls.

The meaningful speech he gave during the Harran Meetings held in Urfa in April 2000 is still remembered by everyone who was in the audience. During the opening ceremony of the meeting, conducted among the ruins of the first university established on the Harran plain, a soft breeze was carrying dust particles it had collected from here and there, pouring them on the crowd. He came to the rostrum with his black suit covered in dust.

"O God! You have covered our heads and clothes with the dust of Harran on this spring day. Cover in the same manner the sins we and our ancestors have committed so that our aged world can see spring once again," he said in a supplication that also served to remove the dust on our hearts.

George Marovich

Vatican’s İstanbul representative George Marovich

He had perfect respect toward God. While we were saying our daily prayers, he would come and stand behind us, joining our worship in his own unique way. He would do this particularly during "tight and difficult" times.

"I know that Muslims wake up before dawn to worship God. I, too, wake up at the same hour so that my supplications mingle with theirs," he would say. He loved all prophets. He was extremely happy whenever leaders from major world religions came together in İstanbul to pray to God for peace and hold fast-breaking dinners together other.

He nurtured a special love toward Fethullah Gülen Hocaefendi for his pioneering efforts in this respect.

"He is the Mevlana of our age," he would say.

His most ambitious project was to arrange a meeting between Gülen and Pope John Paul II.

He was summoned to appear before a court "on charges of arranging a meeting between Gülen and the pope."

This was the first time he appeared before a judge. Ahead of the hearing, he had cut a bundle of roses from the garden of his house and placed them in the room where he would pray to God and unburden his heart:

"O God! Jesus [peace be upon him] and Muhammad [peace and blessing be upon him] are now hand in hand in Paradise, walking in the company of angels. Then, why shouldn't we extend our hands to our Muslim sisters and brothers.

"Two-thousand years ago, about the mission of Jesus, the Apostles had said, 'O God! Note us as witnesses.’

"The person against whom I will testify is like Jesus. He, too, cries too much and smiles less. He, too, has not been understood by people. Like Jesus, he does not care about having children. But he has a big heart embracing all humankind. His heart is full of love for his nation. Against such a great person, my testimony must be clear and white like my hair. O God! Soothe my excitement, remove indecision from my tongue and accept my testimony! You, O God of leaning roses! Help me so that that love is not crucified."

When the judge asked, "How did you get to know Fethullah Gülen?" he replied: "I first knew him from the press. What he was talking about started to attract my attention. He was talking about love, faith and intercultural dialogue. I paid a visit to him and got a chance to know him better. Then I started to love him more, as I understood that he was a man of peace and love. Mr. Judge, we learned from him that Islam was based on love and tolerance. He has considerably influenced our Christian community. He has made us love Islam and Muhammad [peace and blessings be upon him]. As you might appreciate, such a person should be loved by all men."

In those days, one needed much courage to say these words. Yet he undertook his testimony before history and did not swerve under the burden of his responsibility. He was standing upright at a time when the hopes and dreams of the country were being shattered under the blows of a military coup.

He loved this country and had faith in its people.

On the day he accepted Turkish citizenship, he felt extremely happy, saying, "Another big dream of mine has come true."

Every year he would go to Rome and spend his summer holiday there. In July 2007, he cast his vote in the general elections before he flew to Rome.

Several days passed after his arrival in Rome. This historic city was bathing in the heat of summer. While he was standing with his close friends on a platform in a train station, he was mercilessly pushed from the platform toward an oncoming train. As he saw the wheels moving toward him, he thought his time to meet the Lord of Eternity had come.

The locomotive was moving toward him like a fire-spurting dragon. He thought that the bitter sound he heard was the last sound he would hear in this world.

After a series of operations, he felt well enough to return to İstanbul. Although he was told that traveling in his state would be too risky, he wanted to return to İstanbul and die there. He received treatment at a private hospital for a long time. Now he receives treatment from physiotherapists at the Artigiana Rest Home in Şişli.

Considerable time had passed since my last visit. A few days ago, my dear friend Cemal and I paid a visit to him. The sky was clear and beautiful. Spring had arrived like a whimsical queen and was watching the festival of the Judas trees on the hillsides along the Bosporus. When we stepped down the red cobblestone-paved stairs to reach the rest home, an official greeted us. "We have informed Monsieur Marovich that you have arrived. He is alone in his room," he said.

When we opened the door, he was sleeping alone in his bed. He was utterly exhausted and his face, slightly animated with a weak smile, had sagged. He had raised his quilt up to his breast and his luminous face was smiling like an innocent baby dreaming of angels in his sleep.

This spiritual man with utterly whitened hair was alone, completely alone. He was like a saint whose tomb had gone luminously white. This bright-faced man, who had nurtured enough love for all the people in the world, was sleeping peacefully. There was majesty in this tranquility.

We did not want to wake him up. We started to chat in muffled voices in the adjacent room. Yet it must be that he felt our presence and his eyes shone when he saw us.

He was glad to see us.

But he could not stand or walk without help from another person. This wise man, who would send soft breezes into everyone’s hearts with his sweet speeches at conferences, was now in this room alone. After chatting for a while, he said, "We did not read our daily prayer," and showed us the prayer book, "Cevşen," in his drawer. He could not bend to take it.

"O God, who sends cures to troubled people! O God, who brings relief to grieving spirits! O God, who causes dejected hearts to rejoice! There is none other than You to help us."

Before we departed, he took our hands into his considerably weakened, feeble and luminous hands and stared into our eyes.

True love is clean, pure and eternal and brings about mutual peace.

His eyes were full of love and peace.

This article was published in Harun Tokak's column in the Yeni Şafak daily.

Is the Gülen Movement a Civil Society Initiative?

Muhammed Çetin
Civil society is described "as an arena of friendships, clubs, churches, business associations, unions, human rights groups and other voluntary associations beyond the household but outside the state … [providing] citizens with opportunities to learn the democratic habits of free assembly, non-coercive dialogue and socioeconomic initiative."[1]

The terms "civil society sector" or "civil society organization" cover a broad array of organizations that are essentially private, that is, outside the institutional structures of government. They are also distinct from business organizations: They are not primarily commercial ventures set up principally to distribute profits to their directors or owners. They are self-governing and people are free to join or support them voluntarily.[2]

Despite their diversity, the services and institutions (SMOs) provided by the Gülen Movement share important common features that justify identifying them in the social civic sector. They are not part of the governmental apparatus, and, unlike other private institutions, they are set up to serve the public, not to generate profits for those involved in them.[3] In line with the definition given above, the SMOs embody a commitment to freedom and personal initiative; they encourage and enable people to make full use of their legal rights of citizenship to act on their own authority so as to improve the quality of their own lives and the lives of others in general.[4]

Gülen-inspired SMOs are not primarily commercial. They emphasize solidarity for service projects and collectively organized altruism. They embody the idea or ideal that people have responsibilities not only to themselves, but also to the communities of which they are a part. Within the legal space as given, the Gülen Movement combines private structure and public purpose, providing society with private institutions that are serving essentially public purposes. The SMOs' connections to a great number of citizens and their multiple-belonging and professionalized networks within the civil society sector enhance the Movement's flexibility and capacity to encourage and channel private initiatives in support of public educational purposes and philanthropic services.

The Gülen Movement is distinguished by its substantial and sustained contribution to the potential of citizens to apply their energies to discover and implement new solutions following their own development agendas. It has boosted voluntary participation, multiplied networks of committed citizens in mutually trusting relationships, pursued through respectful dialogue and collaborative effort, the shared goal of improving community services.[5] The Movement is thus an agent, on behalf of the country as a whole, for the accumulation of "social capital." In explaining the term, R.D. Putnam says "social capital" refers to connections among individuals — social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called "civic virtue." The difference is that "social capital" calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a dense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital.[6]

Weller draws attention to the fact that "although often overlooked in the social and political constructs of modernity," faith and faith-inspired organizations "form a substantial part of civic society and … contribute significantly to the preservation and development of both bonding and bridging social capital" in civic society volunteerism, the third sector and democracy.[7] The voluntary aspect of association is an important dimension of the Gülen Movement.[8] Individuals freely join associations and services of their choice, and they are also free to exit, without cost. Whether the underlying motivation for such voluntary participation is self-fulfillment, self-expression, self-development or something else, it is expressive of the individualistic nature of the concept of civil society.[9]

The fact that, as a thoroughly civic, autonomous initiative, the Movement is situated entirely outside the conventional channels of political representation — party, government, state, etc. — does not mean that it therefore stands in some way against the political, governmental or democratic system.[10] This would be a grave misreading of the reality of the diffused civic networks of collective action. Through the non-profit-oriented management of its educational and cultural institutions, the Movement distinguishes itself sharply from political actors and formal state institutions and agencies.[11] Its forms of collective action are multiple, variable and simultaneously located at several different levels of the social space. They do not contend with, or for space in, government or state institutions or agencies. They deal with human beings individually in the public space through independent, legally constituted civic organizations.[12] The Movement's field of action — the origin, source and target of what it does — is the individual human being in the private sphere.[13] The natural consequences of this action extend to the civil-public sphere. Its approach is "bottom-up,"[14] namely, transforming individuals through education to facilitate the consolidation of a peaceful, harmonious and inclusive society as a result of an enlightened public sphere. It is not the "top-down" approach characteristic of state or government agency. That is indeed the rationale for Gülen's emphasis on the primacy of education among the movement's commitments:

As the solution of every problem in this life ultimately depends on human beings, education is the most effective vehicle, regardless of whether we have a paralyzed social and political system or we have one that operates like clockwork.[15]

In short, the Gülen Movement's work demonstrates a shift in orientation from macro-politics to micro-practices.[16] While the Movement's origin and services arise from a civil society-based faith initiative, its discourse and practice affirm the idea that religion and the state are and can be separate in Islam, and that this does not endanger the faith but, in fact, protects it and its followers from exploitation and may strengthen it.[17] After his analysis of the transnational social movements originating from Muslim communities, Hendrick concludes:

The Gülen Movement emerged as the most successful purveyor of Turkey's improvisation of Islamic modernity, a civil/cosmopolitan Islamic activist movement that seeks to realize its goals of global transformation via "moral investment" in the global economy, "moral education" in the physical sciences, and moral convergence with "other" groups via tolerance and dialogue.[18]

The common features shared by its SMOs justify identifying the Gülen Movement as a civic initiative and a civil society movement.

[1] R. W. Hefner, ed., Democratic Civility: The History and Cross-Cultural Possibility of a Modern Political Ideal (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998)

[2] L. M. Salamon, W. Sokolowski, and R. List, The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, 2003), ii, 7-9

[3] At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2000, Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit recognized how Gülen-inspired schools serving as NGOs contribute to the well-being and cultures of Turkey and other countries (G. Bacık and B. Aras, "Exile: A Keyword in Understanding Turkish Politics," The Muslim World 92-3/4 (2002): 381-418)

[4] J. Irvine, "The Gülen Movement and Turkish Integration in Germany," in Muslim Citizens of the Globalized World: Contributions of the Gülen Movement, eds. R. A. Hunt and Y. A. Aslandoğan (Somerset: The Light, 2007), 59, 67-72; S. Tekalan, "A Movement of Volunteers" (paper presented at the "Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice" conference, Houston, Texas, Nov. 12-13, 2005), 3; Y. A. Aslandoğan and M. Çetin, "The Educational Philosophy of Gülen in Thought and Practice," in Hunt and Aslandoğan, 59

[5] A. Ünal and A. Williams, Advocate of Dialogue (Fairfax: Fountain, 2000), 21, 318; M. Çetin, "Voluntary Altruistic Action: Its Symbolic Challenge against Sinecures of Vested Interests" (paper presented at the second annual "Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice" conference, Norman, Okla., Nov. 3-5, 2006), 1-21; Fethullah Gülen, Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance (Somerset: The Light, 2004), 210-14

[6] R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000),19

[7] P. G. Weller, "Religions and Social Capital: Theses on Religion(s), State(s) and Society(ies) with Particular Reference to the United Kingdom and the European Union," Journal of International Migration and Integration 9-2 (2005): 272

[8] A. J. Stephenson, "Leaving Footprints in Houston: Answers to Questions on Women and the Gülen Movement," in Hunt and Aslandoğan, 58-60; Fethullah Gülen, The Statue of Our Souls: Revival in Islamic Thought and Activism (Somerset: The Light, 2005), 43-8; J. Irvine, "The Gülen Movement and Turkish Integration in Germany," in Hunt and Aslandoğan, 65

[9] C. Sirianni and L. Friedland, "Civil Society," The Civil Practices Network, www.cpn.org/tools/dictionary/civilsociety.html

[10] U. Kömeçoğlu, "A Sociologically Interpretative Approach to the Fethullah Gülen Community Movement" (MA Thesis, Boğaziçi University, 1997), 65, 78, 86

[11] Ünal and Williams, Advocate of Dialogue, iii, 326; G. E. Fuller, "Turkey's Strategic Model: Myths and Realities," The Washington Quarterly 27-3 (2004): 53

[12] T. Michel, "Sufism and Modernity in the Thought of Fethullah Gülen," in The Muslim World, Special Issue: Islam in Contemporary Turkey: The Contributions of Gülen, ed. Z. Saritoprak (London: Blackwell; The Muslim World 95-3, 2005), 351

[13] Ünal and Williams, Advocate of Dialogue, 313

[14] Ibid., 156-7; L. Sykiainen, "Democracy and the Dialogue between Western and Islamic Legal Cultures: Fethullah Gülen's Efforts for Tolerance" (paper presented at the second international "Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice" conference, Dallas, Texas., March 4-5, 2006), 116; E. Altinoğlu, "Fethullah Gülen's Perception of State and Society" (MA thesis, Boğaziçi University, 1999), 102; I. Yilmaz, "State, Law, Civil Society and Islam In Contemporary Turkey," in Saritoprak, 397

[15] Gülen, Toward a Global Civilization, 199

[16] N. Göle, "Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries," Public Culture 14-1 (2002): 173

[17] Ünal and Williams, Advocate of Dialogue, 36; L. Ashton, "Defending Religious Diversity and Tolerance in America Today: Lessons from Fethullah Gülen" (paper presented at the "Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in Thought and Practice" conference, Houston, Texas, Nov. 12-13, 2005), 3-4.

[18] J. D. Hendrick, "The Regulated Potential of Kinetic Islam: Antitheses in Global Islamic Activism," in Hunt and Aslandoğan, 30

A Response to Rachel Sharon-Krespin's 'Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition: Turkey's Islamist Danger' (2)



Last Updated on Saturday, 21 February 2009 10:25
by Greg Barton, Today's Zaman
Greg Barton
It is deeply misleading and offensive to claim that "Fethullah Gülen is an imam who considers himself a prophet." This is a very strong assertion but the evidence given in support of it does not go beyond hearsay and is certainly entirely out of keeping with the vast corpus of material published by and about Gülen.

Were it to be true it would involve both a vast conspiracy of silence and profound doctrinal deviation on the part of the millions involved with the movement. This is frankly not plausible.

It is also misleading to say that Gülen's "formal education is limited to five years of elementary school." It is true that his early classroom education was cut short when his family moved to the village of Alvarli in the impoverished province of Erzurum. Conditions in Turkey's mountainous far east in the 1940s was difficult. But it is noteworthy that Gülen went on to complete the official imam hatip exams and graduate from secondary school. Gülen certainly benefited from his studies with well-established Islamic scholars, but he is also a voracious reader and autodidact. A prolific author accomplished at writing for both ordinary laypeople and for scholars his Quranic scholarship and studies of Said Nursi are highly regarded by academic experts.

By any measure he is not just one Turkey's most significant contemporary intellectuals but also one of the world's leading modern Islamic intellectuals. It is, of course, reasonable to disagree with him, but it is foolish to dismiss him as a lightweight.

Sharon-Krespin makes brief reference to Nursi. She is correct in associating Gülen with Nursi's legacy, but the way in which she discusses Nursi's views suggests either deep prejudice or deep ignorance.

It is not clear where Sharon-Krespin gets the ideas that Gülen's followers "even refrain from marrying until age fifty per his instructions." Her account suggests a dour and joyless community earnestly following their leader's instructions without thinking for themselves. As a scholar of religion, I fully acknowledge that such groups do exist (including within the world of Protestant Christianity with which I am associated), but in my observation the Gülen movement is not such a group. In my dealings with members of the movement, I am struck by their consistent good humor and occasionally even mischievous sense of fun. These are people who love life and enjoy each others' company. Yes, they do tend to dress in a more conservative fashion - although not exclusively so - which is hardly surprising given the social origins of the movement and, like the vast majority of observant Muslims around the world, they do not drink alcohol. But to spend time in their company is to be reminded that one needs neither alcohol nor secular cool to enjoy laughter and good humor. Social conservatism is not necessarily a sign of fundamentalism.

The Gülen movement's contributions to education are indeed impressive but seem more than a little exaggerated here. And presenting them as being part of an "education jihad" based on indoctrination is more than a little unfair as it grossly misrepresents the consistently secular content of what is taught in the classrooms and the overall ethos of the schools. Different scholars will, naturally enough, have different positions on this. My own position, having observed the movement over the past five years is that it represents precisely the sort of non-Islamist, progressive, civil society movement that Muslim world needs at this point in history if it is to engage with democratic, secular, modernity. In my reading, the educational programs can be understood as broadly paralleling earlier examples of Christian and Jewish educational philanthropy in the West.

Perhaps this makes me a non-credible observer as one of the many "friends, ideological fellow-travellers, and co-opted journalists and academics." If that is the case, it would appear that I am in good company.

Professor Greg Barton is a Herb Feith research professor for the study of Indonesia and acting director at the Centre for Islam and the Modern World.

A Response to Rachel Sharon-Krespin's 'Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition: Turkey's Islamist Danger' (1)

Greg Barton
My heart sank as I read the recent article by Rachel Sharon-Krespin, "Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition: Turkey's Islamist Danger" (Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2009, pp. 55-66).

If she is right, then we might as well abandon all reasonable hope of seeing progressive civil society organizations emerging in the Muslim world anytime soon. Judging from this piece by Sharon-Krespin and earlier works by her colleagues Michael Rubin and Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Quarterly, these commentators appear to have been uncritically swayed by the views and dark fears of secular ultra-nationalists when it comes to their assessment of Turkish affairs.

Rubin and Pipes are smart guys, and I agree with much of what they write in other contexts. Nevertheless, I take a generally more optimistic position on contemporary Islamic movements than they do and am not at all persuaded that we are witnessing a "clash of civilizations." I think that it is a mistake on every level to live in such fear of Islam that we see danger in every corner, even where it does not exist, and fail to see the good that plainly does exist. Even so, I see myself as a realist - I am no fan of Islamist politics and activism in any form - although I would argue that some forms are preferable to others - and would be the first to be concerned if I thought that what Sharon-Krespin was arguing was indeed true.

I loathe the violence and hatred of the militant Islamist groups that have arisen out of the Muslim Brotherhood and regard jihadi terrorism as a real and continuing threat. I am not, however, convinced that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is in fact Islamist (I would see it being better understood as being post-Islamist) in the manner of Necmettin Erbakan and the Milli Görüş movement that preceded it. But I would not claim to be an expert on Turkish politics and have not studied matters carefully enough to form a proper assessment of the AK Party.

When it comes to the Gülen movement, however, I feel a good deal more confident in my reading of the movement's true character and intentions. And, frankly, I am simply not persuaded by the Sharon-Krespin line. She certainly writes sufficiently well that were I completely unfamiliar with the issues I might be inclined to believe her. The 58 footnotes accompanying her article give it an air of substance and credibility. But on closer examination the article appears to be little more than a pastiche of partisan and prejudiced assertions and the references don't offer the academic support that their sheer volume initially suggests.

I have done a moderate amount of research on the Gülen movement over the past five years, in the context of spending 20 years studying similar Islamic movements in Asia, and feel, to my own satisfaction, that I have obtained a fairly good understanding of the movement. Like virtually everything of consequence in Turkish society, Fethullah Gülen and the movement associated with him attracts diverse responses from a nation still recovering from a turbulent history marked by deep polarization. The ultranationalist right, including elements of the military, views civil-sphere movements in general, and religion-based movements in particular, with deep suspicion. Moreover, the somewhat fractured and polarized nature of Turkish society, though considerably moderated now, manifests itself in reports in the newspapers and other organs of the various camps habitually identifying vast conspiracies and hidden agenda linked to rival camps. It is not surprising then that Gülen continues to be viewed with suspicion by some within the Turkish establishment. But basing a scholarly article, even in part, on sensationalist stories run in staunchly secular newspapers like Cumhuriyet and ultranationalist tabloids like Milliyet and Hürriyet is misleading.

For what it is worth, the following are my brief responses to some of the key assertions made by Sharon-Krespin, in the order in which they appear in her article:

The Gülen movement has been comparatively well studied over the past decade and has become increasingly self-reflexive. I have found the movement to be remarkably open and have not found research access at all difficult, nor have I ever felt pressured to take a particular line in what I write or say about it. If the movement really was hiding dark secrets and conspiratorial ambitions then I think that I would have discovered at least a little about them by now. Just as importantly, there is nothing I have seen that would lead me to describe it as being an Islamist movement. It is clearly, in certain respects, a socially conservative and pietistic movement, but it nevertheless stands diametrically opposed to Islamism. The fact that Gülen was openly critical of Erbakan as prime minister, disagreeing with the (relatively soft) Islamist policies of the Virtue Party (FP) and the Milli Görüş (National Vision) movement associated with Erbakan is but one of many pieces of evidence pointing to his aversion to Islamist ideas.

Translating hocaefendi as "master lord," as is done in this article, is a bit misleading - teachers are regularly referred to as "hoca" in Turkish Islamic circles and "effendi" is used freely in conversation in much the same way as the word "sir" is in America. Certainly, Gülen is regarded with great respect and affection within the movement, but this is in keeping with the pattern of pious Muslim society in Turkey and across the Muslim world, and parallels common Christian and Jewish practice.

In my observation, the Gülen movement's commitment to dialogue and tolerance is profound and genuine. In fact, I know of no other large Islamic movement anywhere that is so consistently and convincingly committed to dialogue. After years of interaction with them, I can't believe that this is all merely part of some vast charade or a stalking-horse for political ambition. I would suspect that the vast majority of Gülen movement members are personally supportive of the AK Party (after all, Turkish citizens have to vote for one party or another and the AK Party is no doubt felt by many to be the best choice available) - but this is very different from saying that the movement, despite its frequent denials, is in fact party-political. I simply don't see any compelling evidence that the movement wants "to become the government."

The figures quoted of Turkey having 85,000 active mosques - one for every 350 citizens seems plausible, if a little on the high side, but it needs to be understood that Gülen himself has for 30 years encouraged his followers to use their charitable giving to build schools rather than mosques on the grounds that Turkey already has plenty of mosques but lacks as sufficient number of good schools.

Moreover, conflating the position of Gülen and the Gülen movement with the policies and (alleged) intentions of the AK Party government, as this article does repeatedly, is neither fair nor reasonable. The dynamics here are altogether more complex than that, and speak as much to the relative robustness of democracy in Turkey today as they do to its weakness.

Importantly, more than ever, what is happening in Turkey gives us hope for the potential of Islam to support liberal democracy. It is not sufficient to merely assert, as Sharon-Krespin does, that "it is not clear whether the Fethullahist cemaat [community] supports the AKP or is the ruling force behind the behind the AKP. Either way, however, the effect is the same."

Similarly, it is all too easy to simply assert of Gülen that "he is a financial heavyweight, controlling an unregulated and opaque budget estimated at $25 billion." The claim is followed by a footnoted reference to an academic paper that not only gives no evidence for the fantastic figure of $25 billion quoted but rather makes a nuanced and convincing argument about how that pattern of philanthropic giving within the Gülen movement conforms to the general patterns on social and religious philanthropy in the West, as well as confirming with traditional Turkish Islamic conventions.

Professor Greg Barton is a Herb Feith research professor for the study of Indonesia and acting director at the Centre for Islam and the Modern World.

Jane's Gülen Movement Analysis: An Orientalist Misreading (2)

İhsan Yılmaz
An analysis by Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst of the Gülen movement, titled "Gülen movement: Turkey's third power," repeatedly calls the movement Islamist. But this term is not the best term to define the movement and is also misleading. Islamism is a controversial term. Even though the term has been used for a long time, the distinction between Islam, Islamic and Islamism is unfortunately sometimes blurred and difficult to discern as some writers use them interchangeably.

The term generally refers to the ideologization of Islam and political Islam and the instrumental use of Islam in politics. Islamism enunciates the view that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. As in the case of Jane's analysis, the term Islamism is also employed to refer to observant and socially active Muslims as well, regardless of whether these people see Islam as an ideology, a political project to be implemented or perceive and live Islam just like any other religion's followers see their religion.

If we label socially active observant Muslims as Islamists, then we will end up considering almost all observant Muslims as Islamists. In short, such usage of the term blurs the differences between individuals who take Islam as an ideology and condones its instrumentalist use of politics and individuals who simply see life as a divine test and try to follow the religion's basic tenets such as giving alms, helping the needy, trying to tackle socio-economic inequalities and so on. One wonders why similar Christians are not called "Christian-ist." If we remember how the popes and the Catholic Church played a political role in the Middle Ages (the pope is still the head of a state), it is futile to mention the oft-repeated false claim that "unlike Christianity, Islam is a political religion." Thus, the term loses its academic quality to discern minority Muslims who see Islam as a political project from the majority of observant but apolitical Muslims.

In the case of Fethullah Gülen - a well-respected Turkish intellectual and scholar - it is usually used by his adversaries to imply that Gülen is after political projects such as toppling the government. Gülen has repeatedly stated that the ideologization of Islam and its use as an instrument in politics harm Islam first; furthermore, he condemns the politicization of religion.

The movement has reportedly stayed away from politics and has severely been criticized by Islamists as being CIA-funded Muslims who try to pacify other Muslims. As a matter of fact, with only one or two exceptions, who define Islamism very loosely, academics who studied the movement do not label it Islamist. We should also take into account that the movement has non-Muslim sympathizers, volunteers and even donors, a phenomenon that is directly opposite of the exclusivist Islamist ideology.

A transparent movement

Jane's analysis also claims that the movement is highly coordinated and centralized. Gülen and his circle of friends deny this, but this claim has been frequently raised by Gülen's adversaries. To date, these claims have not been substantiated with credible evidence but are still repeated to imply that there is a secretive organization. On the contrary, the movement is transparent; everything it does is publicly known.

It has also been claimed, as repeated by Jane's analysis, that there are many Gülen followers in the civil service but that they hide their true identity. This is a complicated issue and without knowing the intricacies of Turkey is difficult to understand. First of all, Gülen has been publicly preaching for the last 50 years almost. His sermons have been copied in the millions and sold. He has dozens of books which have sold millions of copies. Several surveys have indicated that about 80 percent of the population sympathizes with his views. If we talk about representative bureaucracy, as would be expected to exist in a typical democracy, it is only natural that there would be many Gülen sympathizers in the civil service. But it is important to underline what kinds of views these people have.

If we do not resort to conspiracy theories and stay within the limits of reason, we would see that Gülen and his movement have been supporting democracy, a liberal market economy, a secular state, freedoms, human rights and so on since the emergence of the movement. But these people also worry about the afterlife, have spiritual concerns and endeavor to be religiously observant individuals in their daily lives. There are several similar individuals and groups around the world. With this in mind, Gülen is a competent Zeitgeist-friendly guide because he blends human rights, fundamental freedoms, several aspects of modernity, spirituality and Islam.

Forty percent of the American population from all walks of life reportedly regularly goes to church. Why then should it be surprising to see similar Muslims in Turkey. If we jettison the essentialist idea that Islam is intrinsically and inherently bad, then we will agree that there can be good Muslims who are at peace with modern life, democracy, freedoms and secularism. If these civil servants who are suspected of being Gülen followers break the law or do not undertake their duties responsibly, they should be caught and punished. But with blanket accusations without any evidence, anyone can accuse everyone and this is what happened in Turkey during the Feb. 28, 1997 process. Peer rivalries among civil servants who did not have anything to do with practicing Islam, let alone being Gülen followers, led these civil servants to backstab each other by claiming that such and such a person is a Gülen follower and should be fired. Upon closer inspection, the accused were sometimes discovered to be alcoholics or even staunch Islamophobes.

I was also puzzled to read that Jane's analysis states that many people shy away from discussing the group publicly. This is completely contrary to the truth and makes one wonder why an analysis that claims to be objective would state such a false claim without double-checking with objective sources. I am also curious to know if the writer of the analysis can follow the media in Turkish. Every year, more than 1,000 news items and comments appear in the media about the movement. Several of them are written by people who disagree with Gülen. Some of these pieces are not only biased, but outright hostile, libelous and full of unproven accusations. There are dozens of Web sites in Turkish full of libelous material about Gülen and the movement, ranging from accusing Gülen of being a secret Catholic cardinal to the movement being funded by the CIA, from Tony Blair's prospective role in the movement to the movement's "true" Korean Moon sect identity! Simply put, the movement is the most publicly discussed (both revered and insulted) group in Turkey.

The analysis also states that Gülen said that "every method and path is acceptable, [including] lying to people." This claim in unbelievable as even staunch Gülen enemies do not put forth such claims. I wonder where the analyst got this from. I am shocked to see how an analysis that is expected to be more or less objective can include such an allegation without a shred of evidence and without a single reference. Astonishingly, it puts forth the statement as a commonly accepted fact and does not even try to use careful wording by at least saying "it is alleged that…"

The analysis also states that "[i]n the 1990s, Gülen clashed with Turkey's secular democracy." I am clueless as to whether I am reading a gossip column or a serious academic piece. The analysis is referring to the Feb. 28, 1997 process but does not even give us exact dates. This process has been called a postmodern coup by everyone, including the generals who carried it out. In it, the military simply toppled the democratically elected government and went after almost all observant Muslims, businessmen, civil servants and so on.

Upon orders from the generals, some liberal journalists who did not agree with the generals - such as respected journalist Cengiz Candar - were wrongly accused of being supporters of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). One of the accused, Akın Birdal, the head of a human rights group, survived an assassination attempt. The assassin is now in jail together with some generals on charges of being ultranationalist Ergenekon terrorist organization members. During the Feb. 28 process, $50 billion (almost one-fifth of the gross domestic product [GDP] at the time) of the Treasury were reportedly embezzled by bankers who were secularist supporters of the army. Generals also invited the judiciary to their headquarters and briefed them on the dangers of the alleged Islamist threat. The generals - without any democratic or civilian supervision - signed several lucrative contracts and military agreements with Israel. They also chased Gülen, whom they saw as a threat because he was independent of the military influence. A court case accused Gülen of being the head of a terrorist organization and of working toward overthrowing the government lasted about 10 years. The prosecution was publicly supported by the generals (Chief of Staff Gen. Hüseyin Kıvrıkoğlu, who today stands accused of being the number one of the terrorist Ergenekon organization, publicly accused Gülen. Any undergraduate student of military-politics relations in Turkey knows what this means) but the prosecutor could not prove any of his claims and Gülen was acquitted by the staunchly secularist judiciary that imprisoned Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for only reciting a poem. To disregard all these and say without any evidence that "[i]n the 1990s, Gülen clashed with Turkey's secular democracy" is - with all due respect to the analyst - only laughable. The analyst's claim that "[i]n 1998, Gülen was forced to leave Turkey to avoid prosecution" is also wrong as he left the country several months before the case was filed.

Claims of a transformation

The analysis goes on to say that "[i]n the US, Gülen's message subsequently went through a significant transformation. He rejected some of his earlier rhetoric on dismantling the secular state, turning instead to emphasizing tolerance in Islam, as well as interfaith dialogue with Judaism and Christianity, and shunned violence." There isn't a single truth in these sentences. A dedicated enemy of Gülen, Cumhuriyet daily's Hikmet Çetinkaya, has been following Gülen since the 1970s and has had to pay Gülen substantial sums in compensation because of his fabricated news stories but even he never claimed that Gülen was pro-violence at any point of his life. Gülen never spoke about dismantling the secular state. Although his adversaries have always claimed this, courts have always ruled that they compensate Gülen for libel/slander.

As I wrote yesterday, Gülen started his dialogue activities at least four to five years before he moved to the US and Said Nursi, a prolific scholar of Islam, whom Gülen respects and sees as one of his intellectual mentors, was engaged in dialog activities in the 1950s. Gülen is also known for advising his friends to not clash with "communist" youth in the 1970s, underlining that these young people were also patriots but in the wrong way. Thus, to say that Gülen shunned violence after he moved to the US is a fatal mistake as Gülen never advocated violence. He has always been in the spotlight and government intelligence agencies quite possibly monitored him very closely, but to date, no one has accused him of being pro-violence.

The analysis changes into a gossip piece once more when it claims that "[i]n the late 1990s, he told his male followers their wives could uncover their hair." This is the first time I have heard such a claim. The analyst seems to be totally unaware of what happened in Turkey and his informants seem to have abused his lack of knowledge. The analyst never mentions that headscarved adult female students are not allowed to enter universities in Turkey. When asked on the issue, Gülen said that if these women face a dilemma between getting an education and uncovering their hair, he would say that education is important and that although covering the hair is still obligatory, it is not one of the essential pillars of Islam such as believing in one God. In my opinion, Gülen was simply making use of a new understanding of the darura (necessity) tool in Islamic law, which states that under severe conditions, the prohibited could be permissible. A classical example given to illustrate this is that if a Muslim faces starvation in a desert and has only pork to eat, he is not only permitted to eat it, but has to eat it to avoid death. Gülen's legal opinion on the headscarf is a similar case, based on darura, a temporary permission applicable to individuals under duress.

Gülen has consistently stated that covering the hair is obligatory. The language used in the analysis is also suspect in that it reads "he told his male followers their wives could uncover their hair." He spoke on this issue to reporters, the public and everyone else. Radicals blamed him and ultra-secularists loved him. Gülen is also known to have spoken with women. To say that he spoke to his male followers not only gives the impression that he is after some secret clandestine things, it also implies that he does not need to address women directly, leading the reader to assume several stereotypical obscurantist views of Muslims.

The analysis reaches climax in flipping everything upside down when it asserts that "some publicly deny affinity or membership with the movement. They do not mention his name openly, but may refer to him as ‘hocaefendi' (master hodja) or ‘he'." Every piece of literature on Gülen mentions that his followers and sympathizers affectionately call him hocaefendi (respected teacher) because of their respect for him and not to hide that they like him.

Furthermore, in Turkey, if you ask anyone on the street who hocaefendi is, 90 percent of them would tell you that it is Gülen. Even though any Islamic scholar and mosque imam can be and is also called hocaefendi, Gülen is the most famous one. Additionally, addressing anyone as hocaefendi - Gülen or otherwise - makes any person an anti-secularist in the eyes of ultra-secularists anyway.

The analyst seems to be totally unaware of the Ergenekon case and why some generals have become anti-American. It is becoming more and more obvious with every passing day that they are upset with the US because it does not allow for a military coup to take place in Turkey. It is an exaggeration to say that "Gülen and other FGC [Fethullah Gülen community] leaders' freewheeling presence in the US is a major source of anti-US feeling within the ranks of the Turkish military." As mentioned in the analysis, there are numerous schools, hospitals, media outlets, etc. that are affiliated with the movement. If they are doing anything illegal, the generals can easily go after them. It is obvious that the presence of Gülen in the US is a minor issue. Some of the generals are reportedly not happy with democracy in Turkey. If allowed to establish their dictatorship, they would handle Gülen and the rest. All they want is a coup, not Gülen.

The analysis also gives the impression that all the movement does is give scholarships to poor students and then convince them to emulate the movement's ideals. The analyst does not appear to know that all Gülen schools are private institutions and that they charge average tuitions fees. Only the upper middle class can send its children to these schools and they do because of the quality of education provided. Only 20 percent of the students who are from more modest backgrounds get scholarships.

The analysis claims that "[t]he schools represent the movement's charity arm," but this is wrong. Although there are several charities associated with the movement, the schools are owned by for-profit private limited companies of businessmen who publicly state that they endeavor to implement Gülen's idea of educating the masses by opening schools. The analysis gives the impression that it gives away donations and charity and that people are thus attracted to the movement. This is a very cynical and materialistic evaluation of these people and is also insulting. Several sociologists have noted that these people have religious and spiritual motivations, not materialistic ones, and that in most cases they are donors, not receivers of benefits. It has been reported several times that the majority of the people who are affiliated with the movement are from urban middle classes that do not need benefits. There could of course be rotten apples in every human organization, but this is an exception, not the rule. However, even speaking of this requires evidence. In a movement that is based on voluntary altruistic behavior, these rotten apples could not go unnoticed for long.

The analysis also claims that since Gülen moved to the US "the movement has explicitly stayed away from anti-Americanism, a telltale sign of Islamist movements globally." The analyst is not aware that the movement has never been anti-American and has always been accused of being funded or at least helped by the CIA. Moreover, several policies of the Bush administration were criticized both by Gülen in the US and media outlets of the movement, similar to the millions of Americans.

The analyst also claims that "the movement's English language outlets serving the West, such as Today's Zaman, and Turkish language press outlets serving Turkey, such as Zaman, have different editorial lines on the FGC messages." The analyst seems to be unaware of Today's Zaman's mission. The daily states that it is published to help readers understand Turkey better. All news coverage and comments would naturally be influenced by this motto. To imply that Today's Zaman is hiding some things that are published in the Turkish daily Zaman is also an insult to foreign readers who know Turkish. There are at least dozens of them in American and Israeli embassies and they could easily catch Today's Zaman red-handed every day.

Moreover, anti-Bush unilateralism and anti-Israeli massacre comments appear in Today's Zaman regularly and one can at least peruse my column for this purpose. The analyst has to prove his allegation of double discourse by showing any piece of anti-tolerance, anti-interfaith dialogue, anti-EU, anti-human rights, etc. in the Turkish daily Zaman. In a similar vein, the analyst claims that "the two papers diverged in their coverage of the 2008-09 Israel-Gaza war." These two papers are not of course identical, they have separate teams of editors. But the archives of both dailies are on the Internet and one can easily see that both of them have been extremely critical of the recent Israeli massacre of Gazans. Several columnists, including myself and our editor-in-chief, repeatedly condemned the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The analysis finishes by alleging that "[t]he movement will keep confronting the military more vigorously until it manages to get its members and sympathizers into the military." Testing the validity of this claim is very easy. The movement states that it is not an enemy of the military, but challenges undemocratic and corrupt coup-seeking generals. Let us see if the movement continues to criticize these generals if they agree to conform to EU standards.