The Two Faces of Gulen and the Gulen Movement
Positions taken by Fethullah Gulen and the Gulen Movement seem to mutate according to expediency. Some examples are listed here.
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Gulen does not support any political party
"Mr. Gulen insists that his movement keeps equal distance from every Turkish government, seeking no office --- and also from foreign governments." - from the New York Times, June 11, 2010 |
Gulen supports the AKP:
"Recently, the movement largely dropped its neutrality principle and supported the AK Party in the national elections of July 22, 2007." - from the website of Fethullah Gulen |
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The Gulen Movement has no political aspirations
"I do not have and have never had any relationship with a movement that has political aspirations," he said. - from the Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2010 |
The Gulen Movement has political aspirations
"Half a dozen U.S. Senators and a few dozens of U.S. Representatives made a strong showing at the reception and the Gülen Movement hinted that its new assembly has some muscles to flex in Washington already." -from the Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review, May 14, 2010 "Last month, Mr. Gülen's followers founded the Assembly of Turkic American Federations in Washington, a lobbying and umbrella organization..." - from the Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2010 |
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Gulen was against the 1980 coup
"Stating that the perpetrators of all the military takeovers in Turkey -- Sept. 12, 1980, March 12, 1971 and May 27, 1960 -- staged these coups to seize power and maintain their authority, Gülen said: “Some people needed seas of blood to sail their ships. They split the sons of this nation into camps of leftists and rightists and they made them clash. In the end, they made use of the blood and tears they led to in establishing their own pavilion [of command],” he said. Terming the coups as “the products of a miserable mentality,” Gülen underlined that those who carried out bloody coups and shed the blood of sons of this country by splitting them into camps are the same who are feeding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) now." - from Today's Zaman, August 2, 2010 |
Gulen supported the 1980 coup
"Gülen sympathised with the 1980 coup too, regarding it as appropriate and necessary that the state protect itself and its citizens against the chaos and violence that was threatening to engulf Turkish society." - from a Gulen conference paper on the website of Fethullah Gulen |
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The Gulen Movement is not primarily a Turkish movement
"The Turkish aspect of it is unavoidable, but not the main point." - Gulenist sympathizer speaking to journalist Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star, May 28, 2010 |
The Gulen Movement is primarily a Turkish movement
"The Gülen movement, first and foremost, is a Turkish movement, ..." -from an article on the Rumi Forum website |
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The Gulen Movement is pro-Western (in English)
"The movement has constructed a pro-globalization and pro-Western attitude as a result of its interaction with international opportunity structures and its tolerant normative framework." -from a paper on the Gulen website |
The Gulen Movement is anti-Western (in Arabic)
"Several articles exhibit a bit of the obsessive antagonism towards the West that can be found in some Muslim circles. The West as a whole is characterized as a black hole of materialistic impulses with no appreciation for spirituality or religiosity of any kind. This anti-westernism might be a strategy for Hira' to appeal to the strongly anti-American sentiment in the Arab world, but it risks undermining the universal religiosity that the magazine claims for Islam." - from a Gulen conference paper on Hira Magazine, an Arabic-language Gulen Movement publication |