The Gülen Network
By François Christophe, July 2013
A religious brotherhood, an educational foundation and a political force all at once, the Gülen movement has acquired such influence in contemporary Turkey that its study has become indispensable to a good understanding of the country. With its three million members, ten million sympathizers and a 25 billion dollars cash flow, this opaque organization is the world’s most influential islamic brotherhood. In 2008, a survey by Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines established that Fethullah Gülen was “the world’s most influential intellectual”; the Imam, for all his proclaimed humility, had actively sought that title by mobilizing his sympathizers in all corners of the world.
The Gülen network — thereby referred to as “the Network” — is sometimes suspected of benefiting from a strong backing by the United States, eager to support any moderate alternative to the radical Islam promoted by the Gulf States. It has extended its reach to more than a hundred countries. Despite its increased stature, the network’s objectives and methods remain fuzzy. In Turkey itself, the brotherhood — called “Hizmet” or “service” by its founder — is leading a patient effort targeting key institutions, such as the police and the judiciary. Its suspected involvement in several recent trials have made it a taboo topic in Turkey.
What could be the ambition of this mysterious movement, and what is its impact on the country’s institutions and business life?
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I. A Polymorphous empire, with secret at its core…
1) The birth and growth of a movement
The Network is one of eight groups derived from the earlier movement of Saïd Nursî (1873–1960), a reformist Sufi thinker, whose work (Risale-I Nur) was marked both by the disintegration of the Ottoman empire and the rise of the secular Republic established by Mustafa Kemal. His movement (“Nur”) embodies a form of resistance to the double process of modernization and state-building, which takes root in the development of individual consciousness. Indeed, Nûrsi sees Republican Turkey as the battleground for “the fight against atheism and materialism”. Although his thought is sophisticated, he accuses “European philosophers” of being in league with the devil.
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Where is Fethullah Gülen from?
Born in 1941 near Izurum, in conservative Eastern Anatolia, Fethullah Gülen is the son of a local imam. Deeply influenced by both Saïd Nursî and a famous XIIIth century Persian mystic, Rûmî, he gave his first sermon at the age of fourteen.
As early as 1971, he catches the secret services’ attention, and he is briefly detained for leading “secret religious activities” and “indoctrinating the youth”, marking the beginning of his trouble with the army.
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In the late 1970s, a variant of the Nur movement appeared in Izmir, one of Turkey’s most liberal cities, where political Islam never took root. In the 1980s, this variant spread to all of the country’s big cities, crystallizing around the figure of Fethullah Gülen, whose sympathizers were already calling him “Hocaefendi” (“Master-Professor”).
In 1981, Gülen put an end to his time as a preacher to wholly devote himself to the growth of his movement, while still delivering a few sermons in the mosques of the country’s largest cities. In 1994, he was involved in creating the Journalists and Writers Foundation, which would later become the centerpiece of his movement’s public relations machine.
When an islamist leader (Necmettin Erbakan) takes over Turkey’s leadership in 1996, Gülen is cautious to keep away from the political turmoil, and refuses to support islamist parties. In spite of this, he is brought before court and accused of “working to overthrow Turkey’s secular government”.
In 1999, Gülen goes into exile in the United States, officially for health reasons, but also to flee his coming judicial trouble. Indeed, the video of one of his speeches is soon brandished as proof of a plot against the Turkish State. Gülen claims that the recording is a fake, but is put on trial in 2000, despite his absence. He will be acquitted.
Today, the “hocaefendi” resides in Saylorsburg, the small Pennsylvania village from which he has presided over the spectacular rise of his movement across the world. His health remains fragile, and his return to Turkey seems unlikely.
2) Core ideas and organizing principles of “gülenism”
Much like the Nur movement from which it is derived, Gülen’s network intends to promote a religious ethic befitting a modern life. Its members act according to well-defined principles: they are not to engage in open proselytism, and should instead lead by example by applying Islamic precepts in everyday life.
Among those precepts, work occupies a special place. Gülen is know to promote a “calvinist” work ethic among his disciples, one that the “Anatolian tigers” from MÜSIAD or AKP would not disavow. Charity is another of the movement’s key values; as to the role incumbent upon men and women, they are strictly differentiated.
Although these are islamic values, the Hizmet does not always present them as such, as it aims to carry the Prophet’s message to as wide an audience as possible, even if means separating the message from its Koranic bedrock. However, Gülen still fundamentally considers the Koran to be the sole ground of validity of all ideas.
In addition, the brotherhood openly pleads in favor of tolerance and dialogue between the religions of the book, a position which has earned it valuable Western supporters. However, this stand isn’t purely opportunistic; rather, it reflects another belief: that the Ottoman empire was strong because it allowed several religions to coexist in a tolerant environment. From this point of view, tolerance becomes more than an abstract ideal: it is a means for Turkey to regain some of its lost influence. This objective gives us a glimpse of a form of Turkish nationalism which, although it is rarely claimed, is one of the movement’s unifying threads.
The emphasis on education, knowledge and sciences is another governing principle of a network that relies on 2000 schools to radiate around the world. Gülen has spoken out on several occasions to rebuff any conflict between religion and science, going so far as to declare: “Studying physics, mathematics and chemistry is worshipping Allah”.
Officially, the movement strives to stay away from partisan politics, in line with Saïd Nursî’s belief that faith is sullied by its encounter with politics. As a result, Gülen holds a critical stance towards islamism and terrorism. As a matter of fact, Fethullah Gülen was the first muslim figure to denounce the 9/11 attacks (he later ignited a controversy by declaring terrorism to be “as despicable as atheism”).
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An organization allied with the United States?
Gülen’s exodus to the United States coincided with a softening of his stance. Whereas he once called for the dismantling of Turkey’s secular state, he now chooses to focus on tolerance in Islam, the rejection of violence and the urgency of inter-faith dialogue, which he himself implements through a series of meetings with christian and Jewish figures.
In the late 1990s, he urged his disciples to let their wives uncover their head, considering that the hijab is but a minor point of islamic jurisprudence.
At the same time, the brotherhood is regularly endorsed by American politicians, such as Bill Clinton or James Baker, who are treated to high-profile dinners. President Barack Obama himself visited a network-affiliated school in Washington. Lastly, Graham Fuller, former Station Chief for the CIA in Kabul, personally sponsored Gülen’s green card application.
These ties along with the shift in Gülen’s stance are feeding doubts as to the nature of the links between the US and the brotherhood. For part of the kemalist elite, “gülenism” is part of an American plan to give rise to a global alternative to the radical brand of Islam promoted by the Gulf States. Distinct from wahhabism, the movement would be no less threatening for defenders of kemalist secularism. Russia, for its part, considers the movement to be an instrument of the CIA, and since 2008 has banned Gülen schools from its territory.
Regardless of whether or not such suspicions are grounded, the power acquired by the movement over the years has become a source of concern for some American diplomats. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a high US official told The New York Times in 2012: “It is clear they want influence and power. We are concerned there is a hidden agenda to challenge secular Turkey and guide the country in a more Islamic direction.”
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Besides, in accordance with its goal of adapting Nursî’s thought to the modern world, the movement has embraced market economics and globalization. Among the brotherhood’s members and sympathizers, Anatolian entrepreneurs hold a special place, since the organization owes its financial good health to their donations. As to globalization, it has allowed it to extend its reach to all continents.
3) A tentacular network, present across a multitude of countries and sectors
Because of the movement’s opacity, little is known about its structure. Fethullah himself rejects the idea of an organized and structured movement, preferring that of a community of shared values.
The movement’s education network is without doubt the most developed, with nearly 2000 affiliated schools in the United States, in Europe, in Central Asia, in the Middle East and in Africa. Present in nearly 120 countries, these schools offer scholarships, quality equipment and a rigorous education addressed to the local elite and the children of brotherhood members. In France, the private middle school Educ’ Active, in Villeneuve-Saint-George, and the after-school support center Etudes Plus, in Pantin, are part of this network. In the United States, the network is one of the main charter school providers, with 135 affiliated schools. Incidentally, the US is the only country where Gülen schools benefit from public funds.
Those schools offer no religious teachings, and follow their host countries’ school curriculums. They emphasize science, technology and the English language, and they generally perform well in school rankings. These “model” schools serve as the Hizmet’s front window. Officially, donations from Turkish businessmen are enough to fund new schools as well as generous scholarships for poor students.
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Zaman and Today’s Zaman: doublespeak?
Examining the content of articles published in the Turkish and English versions (“Today’s Zaman”) of Zaman newspaper sometimes bring revealing differences to light, suggesting that the movement addresses its Turkish and global audiences differently.
On October 15th, 2008, Zaman traced the origin of the global financial meltdown to a supposed 40 billion dollars wire from Lehman Bank to Israel. This article was not published in the newspaper’s English version. References to “enemies of Islam”, “Mossad conspiracies” and other expressions that seem to contradict the spirit of tolerance officially promoted by Gülen are systematically deleted.
In 2011, Zaman published an interview with Gülen himself, who was calling for the PKK to be dismantled: “knock their homes upside down, destroy their unity, reduce their homes to ashes, may their homes be filled with weeping and supplications, burn and cut off their roots and bring their affairs to an end”. This brutality of those words frightened many Turkish Kurds, who took it to be a call for genocide. Unsurprisingly, this passage was not published in the interview’s English version.
Lastly, in a Zaman interview dating from October, 2010, Gülen, while rejecting accusations that he had infiltrated Turkish institutions, stated: “in the past, the State was infiltrated by those who were not part of the nation”, a cryptic reference to Atatürk that was also missing from the interview’s English version.
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Beyond its schools, the brotherhood relies on several news outlets, including a newspaper published in different languages (Zaman), a magazine (Aksiyon) and a package of TV channels (Samanyolu TV). While these media are not subjected to a strict editorial control, any criticism of the movement would be a red line.
Think tanks, such as the DC-based Rumi Forum, as well as a public relations agency, the Journalists and Writers Foundation, complement the network’s influence apparatus.
Gülen is also present in the business world (TUKSON, Turkish Industrialist Confederation), in islamic finance (Bank Asya), in insurance companies (Isik Sigorta) and investment funds (Asya Finans). In Paris, a group of French-Turkish entrepreneurs (Fatiad) is affiliated with the Gülen galaxy. The network runs several hospitals in Turkey, and brings help to the victims of natural disasters through the humanitarian organization Kimse Yok.
4) Internal organization
The movement relies on three categories of people to develop:
- active sympathizers, estimated at around 10 million people around the world
- members, who are often businessmen and are frequently solicited for donations
- direct employees of the brotherhood: professors, school principals, journalists, lobbyists…
Time and again, Mr. Gülen has repeated that there was no “Gülen movement”, and those inspired by his ideas do not operate within a structured hierarchy. However, it seems that internally, the brotherhood operates under strict hierarchical principles. At the local level, each community is placed under the authority of an “elder brother” (“abi”), who himself answers to a regional authority, which in turn answers to a national authority, which answers to Fethullah Gülen himself.
The movement’s critics consider that in spite of its supposedly decentralized philosophy, its vertical structure is not far removed from that of a sect, demanding blind obedience of all members. The brotherhood, which considers itself “blessed”, is rumored to tolerate no internal dissent. Indeed, while interviewing Hizmet members, journalists and researchers have been struck by their tendency to answer questions in the same way, using the same exact words, as if a script had been handed out to them in advance.
II. The network’s hold over official institutions threatens the proper functioning of Turkey’s democracy
1) The rise of “gülenists” within the Turkish State
The brotherhood’s influence over Turkish institutions is strong, so much so that it is sometimes presented as the “third pillar” of power, together with the AK Parti and the army. While the movement had long been clashing with successive secular governments, the AKP’s rise to power changed things fundamentally: its members were nominated to powerful positions within the government and the state apparatus: ministers, police…
Although estimating it is uneasy, the movement’s presence within the security and intelligence structures is a cause for controversy, as it blatantly contradicts the organization’s repeated self-depiction as “spiritual” and “apolitical”. Within the Turkish police, the intelligence, external relations and human resources department are now said to be infiltrated by the network. According to the diplomatic cables unveiled by WikiLeaks, many Turks avoid any mention of the brotherhood over the phone for fear of wiretapping. Those fears appeared well-grounded when a series of leaks accusing army generals were systematically published by Zaman, Samanyolu as well as other media belonging to Gülen.
2) Generals on trial: a revenge against kemalist elites
The network used its presence among police intelligence and the judiciary to conduct targeted operations, specifically aimed at the army. In the form of judicial investigations, they are abundantly propagated by gülenist media, themselves responsible for initiating those investigations by publishing police leaks. Over the last few years, several cases such as the Ergenekon trials have implicated active or retired military men, accused of plotting the government’s overthrow. Often marked by the use of anachronisms and crudely fabricated evidence, those trials are sometimes wrongly viewed as a breakthrough of Turkey’s democracy as they have come to represent the end of the army’s prominent role over State affairs.
Given that the brotherhood played an active role in this series of trials, its relations with the military are set to remain contentious, at least until the former is better represented within the latter. For the time being, the army purges twice a year its members suspected of ties with islamist groups and tariqats (orders of sufism).
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The Ergenekon case
More than any other, the “Ergenekon case” fed suspicions of collusion between the brotherhood and the police. In 2007, the latter initiated a wave of arrests against the members of “Ergenekon”, a mysterious organization accused of fomenting a series of assassinations and the overthrow of the AKP government (in national folklore, “Ergenekon” refers to the cradle of the Turkish nation, an Altaï Valley where it was born). Among the people arrested were not just criminals, hardline nationalists and military men, but also academics, secular militants, and journalists… For instance, the police burst into the home of Türkan Saylan, a doctor and a feminist and secular militant, who was then seriously ill. In May 2009, 142 people were officially charged with belonging to “Ergenekon, the armed terrorist organization”.
The surprising diversity of the operation’s targets has raised doubts as to the credibility of charges and the very existence of the Ergenekon organization. Most of the people who have been arrested remain in jail to this day, but few have been officially charged. According to Gareth Jenkins, an expert at the Institute for Security and Development Policy, there is no proof that the organization described in the indictments truly exists. If the accused share something in common, it is their hostility to the AKP, not their belonging to the so-called organization.
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Beyond the army, it usually does not take long for Gülen critics to run into trouble with Turkey’s justice system. In 2010, Hanefi Avci, a former police commissioner, denounced Gülen’s infiltration of the police in a book, before he was himself charged with belonging to Ergenekon and arrested. In March of the following year, two reporters who were investigating links between the brotherhood and the police, Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener, were arrested as well. Their book, “the Imam’s army”, was banned, and existing copies were seized. Later released, Ahmet Sik was recently assaulted and severely wounded as he was covering the protests on Taksim Square.
Fethullah Gülen regularly denies that his organization ever wanted to “infiltrate” the police and the judiciary, without denying that it is well represented within those institutions. Instead, he provides an alternative explanation: since his schools perform so well, one should expect their students to take on high-level positions…
However, in a secretly-recorded clip aired by Turkish television in 1999 (the famous clip that led him to face judicial proceedings), Gülen stated: “You must move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers. (…) You must wait for the time when you are complete, and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it. You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey. Until that time, any step taken would be too early. (…) Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all in confidence, trusting your loyalty and secrecy.”
Gülen has always contested the tape’s authenticity, claiming that the audio had been fabricated.
3) Relations with the AKP: a natural alliance or an alliance of convenience?
Ties between the AKP and the brotherhood are complex ones. Fethullah Gülen insists that his organization is politically unaffiliated, and as such supports no party. Nevertheless, both movements have benefited from being mutually supportive: on the one hand, with AKP’s rise to power the Hizmet was able to get jobs at key institutions for some of its members; on the other hand, Gülen’s organization has actively supported the AKP at every major election, relying on the power of its media and financial assets. After winning his referendum on constitutional reform n 2010, Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not fail to thank “his friends across the ocean”. In addition, in a document addressed to Turkish embassies, President Abdullah Gül encourages Turkey’s diplomatic community to take part in events organized by the brotherhood in their country of residence.
Such mutual support is “natural” given the ideological closeness of two movements, both supportive of globalization, free markets and Turkey’s entry into the EU. They are both critical of political Islam as embodied by Necmettin Erbakan, as well as of the active “secularism” defended by the kemalists.
Such proximity has nevertheless given rise to a genuine rivalry between the two movements, with differences of views and strategy regularly surfacing. Those tensions revolve around Erdogan’s personality, deemed unreliable. In 2010, Fethullah Gülen had criticized the Turkish government for letting a humanitarian flotilla advance toward Gaza, before being brutally pushed back by the Israeli army: in his words, “[the flotilla] is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters”. More recently, Gülen has prompted the government to “act intelligently” in the face of the Gezi Park uprising, declaring: “if you are facing an invasion of ants, you can’t disregard it thinking that they are ‘ants’”. Calling the protesters “deprived”, he nevertheless considered some of their demands to be “reasonable”. Lastly, Zaman newspaper regularly publishes articles critical of the government, particularly when it comes to the environmental impact of Istanbul’s major urban projects.
In the future, the brotherhood could support other parties, without necessarily burning bridges with Erdogan’s party, particularly if new tensions arise with the army.
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Through the numerous media affiliated with his movement, Fethullah Gülen regularly reaffirms his support for democracy, and Islam’s compatibility with democracy. However, the influence acquired by the brotherhood, which is now well represented within the police and the judiciary, is so great that it has seemingly become an obstacle to the proper working of Turkey’s democratic institutions. According to Süheyl Batum, the former President of Bahçesehir university, “a group this influential and closed isn’t good for democracy”.
However, it does not necessarily follow that the brotherhood’s aim is to establish an Islamic State. For Joshua Hendrick, one of the lead experts on the topic, the network is above all seeking to establish a form of social control. In Anatolia, where the movement has a strong presence, non-sympathizers are feeling the pressure. Businessmen without ties to the network or the AKP are left out of public contracts.
During the course of a long-term effort conducted with total opacity, the brotherhood has established parallel structures within official institutions of the Turkish State. The way it operates is far removed from the principles it officially advocates. This thirst for power and control is likely to be the main raison d’être of this secret and elitist movement, which reaches every continent, and shares a pronounced Turkish nationalism.
Beyond power itself, it remains unclear what the movement’s objectives may be. For some, its very success can be explained by its open-ended nature, which could very well lead to a liberal practice of religion or to fundamentalism. On the other hand, other observers consider gülenism to be a brand of islamism, reminding that on more than one occasion, the movement has failed to demonstrate the tolerance it so emphatically preaches. However, what is well-established is the brotherhood’s conservatism; in this respect, the Hocaefendi’s statement on terrorism being “as despicable as atheism” is particularly telling.
Books
- Ahmet Sik, The Imam’s Army (excerpts), March 2011
Newspapers and magazines
- Claire Berlinski, “Who Is Fethullah Gülen ?” in City Journal, fall 2012
- Suzy Hansen, “The Global Imam” in The New Republic, November 10th, 2010
- Brian Knowlton, “Turk Who Leads a Movement Has Advocates and Critics” in The New York Times, June 11th, 2010
- San Bilefsky & Sebnem Arsu, “Turkey Feels Sway of Reclusive Cleric in the US” in The New York Times, April 24th, 2012
- The Economist, “The Gulenists Fight Back” in The Economist, May 18th 2013
- Joe Lauria, “Reclusive Turkish Imam Criticizes Gaza Flotilla” in The Wall Street Journal, June 4th 2010
- Hürriyet Daily News, “Don’t Underestimate The ‘Invasion Of Ants’”, June 2013
- Guillaume Perrier, “Les Jésuites de l’Islam” in Revue XXI, n°6, Spring 2009
- Guillaume Perrier, “Les éclaireurs de l’Islam” in Le Monde, December 30th 2009
- Guillaume Perrier, “Turquie : la confrérie de l’ombre” in Le Monde, June 8th 2011
Academia
- Ahmet T. Kuru, “Changing Perspectives on Islamism and Secularism in Turkey : The
Gülen Movement & The AK Party”, San Diego State University, 2007
Think tanks
- Club du Millénaire, Louis-Marie Bureau, Lara Deger, Simon Rumel, “Le mouvement
Gülen : esquisse de définition, enjeux et défis”, March 2011
Internet sources
- Stratfor, “Gülen’s Movement: Turkey’s Third Power”, November 18th, 2009
Available at: http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/1532300_gulen-movement-turkey-s-thirdpower-.html
- William Armstrong, openDemocracy, “A Temporary Alliance? The AKP, Fethullah Gülen and religion in Turkish Politics”, May 11th, 2012
Available at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/william-armstrong/temporary-allianceakp-fethullah-g%C3%BClen-and-religion-in-turkish-politics
- Arun With A View, “A Moscow Show Trial On The Bosphorus”, March 12th 2012
Disponible sur : http://arunwithaview.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/a-moscow-show-trial-onthe-bosphorus/
