Bayram Balci
For more than a decade,
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has enjoyed
unwavering support from the religious and social movement of Fethullah
Gülen, a Turkish Islamic scholar. Through a unique, transnational
approach, Gülen and his followers have built up a global web of
influence, creating schools, business associations, and cultural
institutions on virtually every continent.
This vast network has
allowed the Gülen movement to become a global representative of both
conservative Islamic values and “Turkishness,” spreading the country’s
language and culture abroad. It has benefitted Turkey by consolidating
Turkish soft power and advancing Ankara’s interests around the world,
all while increasing the Gülen movement’s popularity and prestige in
both in Turkey and on the international stage.
But over the past few years, cracks have begun to appear in the
AKP–Gülen movement alliance, revealing deep tensions and bringing Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan into direct conflict with Fethullah Gülen.
Now, these erstwhile allies are locked in a power struggle and on the
verge of becoming bitter enemies.
And the Gülen movement’s robust transnational network of support and
influence, once an asset to the AKP, could provide Gülen and his
supporters an avenue to confront the Turkish government.The Gülen Approach
The Gülen movement is the
single most influential socioreligious movement that Turkey has ever
seen, but it is certainly not the first. In the 1970s and 1980s, several
Turkish Islamic organizations, as well as Alevi and Kurdish
associations, took root in Europe, where they almost exclusively
addressed the needs of Turkish migrants, providing various educational,
cultural, and religious services to help these Turks preserve their
religious and cultural identities.
In supporting Turkish migrants, these organizations found
themselves working either in conjunction or in competition with the
Turkish state, which used its own system of aid to maintain a certain
level of control over its expatriate communities. To avoid conflict with
Ankara, these private initiatives focused exclusively on improving the
lives of Turkish migrants and had no real contact or interaction with
the authorities of host countries.
Gülen’s movement, which
emerged in the international sphere in the early 1990s, took a different
approach and adopted a global strategy that set it apart from existing
Turkish organizations. Unlike its predecessors, the Gülen movement’s
ambition from the outset was to move beyond local or expatriate Turks in
order to reach and include the entire host society. It did so by
establishing a presence in a range of areas—from education to commerce
to culture—and creating institutions intended to benefit both members of
host communities and Turkish migrants.
In addition, the movement adopted a unique action plan that largely
surpassed the religious sphere to which previous organizations had
limited themselves. It opted to tailor its strategy to the customs,
needs, and expectations of its host countries, determining references to
religion and Turkishness on a case-by-case basis according to local
sensibilities, the social and ideological environment, and the degree of
openness and acceptance encountered on the ground, which may vary
within the same country. As a result, unlike other Turkish Islamic
movements, the Gülenists have never sought to build mosques and Islamic
schools or to openly preach on Fridays. The Gülen movement refrains from
such overtly religious pursuits even in Muslim countries in Central
Asia and Africa, and in Europe and the United States its religious
nature is almost totally obscured.
For the same reason, the
Gülen movement does not participate in the stormy debates on headscarves
or the place of Islam in Western societies, even when these subjects
polarize European societies with large Islamic communities. To the
contrary, Gülen associations in the West seek to forge closer ties with
Christian and Jewish organizations than with Islamic organizations. This
strategy makes it easier for Gülenists to put down roots in societies
that often saddle Islamic entities with negative connotations. It also
helps them establish special ties with local political, cultural, and
religious figures and with institutions that offer backing and political
support for their integration into host communities. Indeed, working
with non-Islamic organizations that are well established in a given
society often benefits Gülen movement institutions more than trying to
cooperate with Turkish religious associations that may enjoy little
influence or be competitors.
This strategy has proved effective, adaptable, and easily exported.
Host countries have welcomed the Gülen community because it offers
institutions and services that benefit local populations without
attaching religious strings.
In addition, the movement has won the approval of Turkish
diplomats, who have seen Turkey’s soft power increase as the Gülen
movement finds success in new countries. Gülenists have proved
particularly adept at spreading the Turkish language and culture through
their educational initiatives, which form the crux of the movement’s
growing transnational network.
A Focus on Education
Since its founding, the Gülen movement’s primary emphasis has been
on education, which plays a central role in its identity and contributes
to its increasing power around the world. The movement devotes the
largest share of its human and financial resources to the establishment
of various educational centers, schools, universities, and campus
residence halls.
The Gülen approach to education aptly demonstrates the group’s
global strategy—Gülen movement schools are open to both Turkish migrants
and citizens of host countries, and they avoid advancing a religious
agenda. These schools aim to help Turkish migrants succeed in their host
societies without losing sight of their Turkish roots, and at the same
time they promote social unity by serving the needs of migrants and
local students alike. The success of Gülen movement schools stems both
from the success of the students (and the satisfaction of the parents)
and from the prestige and goodwill they enjoy among local and political
authorities for promoting integration and acting as a social mediator.
These schools also afford the Gülen movement sway over host
societies. The movement has no contemporary equivalent in the Muslim
world in terms of the social influence it wields in educating new
elites. Of course, it is difficult to measure the success of its
attempts to educate new elites, but the many alumni of Gülen schools
enrolled at Turkish as well as American universities—not to mention the
fact that a number of these students, after completing their university
studies, obtain influential positions at diplomatic or international
institutions—suggest that the group’s objectives are being met.
Gülen movement schools are
often more successful at spreading the tenets of Turkishness, such as
the Turkish language and culture, than educational initiatives sponsored
by the Turkish government itself. Most Gülen schools are boarding
schools, so even outside of classroom hours students are surrounded by
their Turkish teachers and tutors. In comparison, the Turkish
government—which runs two universities, one in Bishkek and one in Almaty,
and a handful of secondary schools—targets older teens and young adults
in school or university settings and therefore cannot compete in terms
of impact.
The movement’s success in this area is fundamental to understanding
its influence in Turkey. Gülenists have managed to tap into a sense of
Turkish nationalism by spreading the country’s language and culture
around the world, and this has earned them respect and legitimacy among
the Turkish public, well beyond Gülen’s followers. Unlike English,
Spanish, or even Arabic, Turkish is not a widely spoken language, but
the proliferation of Gülen schools has increased the language’s
prominence and popularity around the world. Even Turks who are secular
and rather hostile to Fethullah Gülen have been seen shedding tears of
emotion upon hearing the songs of their youth sung in Turkish by Kyrgyz
or African children.
And to further win over Turkish public opinion, each year the movement sponsors a Turkish-language Olympiad in
Turkey in which students from Gülen schools all over the world compete.
Widely covered by the media, this event advances a positive image of
the movement among the Turkish public and political class as much as it
promotes the Turkish language and culture.
The Movement’s Central Asian Roots
The efforts and foresight of Gülen’s community in putting down
strong roots in Central Asia contributed to the remarkable expansion of
Turkish influence that has taken place in the Turkic republics of
Central Asia since 1991. In fact, the Gülen movement contributes the
most to Turkey’s soft power in
this vital Central Asian region, where Ankara has not been as
successful as it had hoped in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s
collapse.
The Gülen movement developed alongside the emergence of new nations
with populations that spoke either Turkish or another language in the
Turkic linguistic family. These countries created for Turkey a
potentially natural sphere of influence extending from the Mediterranean
to the Chinese border. Central Asia became the first laboratory for the
Gülen movement, which seized the historic moment and became massively
involved in education, economics, and media in this region.
In a reflection of the movement’s larger priorities, the Gülen
community has invested heavily in its educational endeavors in Central
Asia. Gülen movement schools are helping meet the region’s demand for
new elites, and they are also spreading Gülen’s vision of Turkishness.
The Gülen movement currently
runs some 30 primary and secondary schools in Kazakhstan, about fifteen
in Kyrgyzstan, at least as many in Azerbaijan, and about ten in
Tajikistan. Uzbekistan had more than fifteen Gülen schools until they
were completely shut down in 2001 following a general deterioration in
Turkish-Uzbek relations for reasons that largely had nothing to do with
Gülen schools. In Turkmenistan in 2011, only two of the country’s ten
Gülen schools survived the Turkmen government’s decision to reduce the
movement’s clout and reform the national public education system. Just
outside the region, the Gülen movement also runs four high schools and
one university in Georgia.
In addition, Central Asia has several private universities administered
by figures who emerged from or are close to the Gülenists. Regardless
of their location, these establishments are financially backed by
hundreds of small- and medium-sized enterprises whose leaders are
influenced to varying degrees by Fethullah Gülen’s ideas.
The mission of Gülen
schools in Central Asia is exclusively educational. They stress
information technology and the sciences, which are taught in English.
The social sciences and humanities are taught in vernacular languages,
including Russian—still a lingua franca in Central Asia—and Turkish.
Selective and elitist, they attract the best students, who are
hand-picked and often hail from the highest levels of Central Asian
society.
The quality of Gülen
movement schools in the region is widely appreciated. The teachers’
missionary spirit and dedication have placed Gülen’s establishments
among the most highly ranked schools in terms of students’ success on
college entrance exams in Central Asia. Most of their graduates attend
the region’s leading universities, and some even win scholarships to
study in Turkey, Europe, or the United States. As a result, these
schools win the trust and support of parents, who are often influential
figures in their countries and thus guarantee the schools’ continued
prestige and the goodwill of Central Asian authorities.
In addition to schools,
the Gülen network in Central Asia includes a number of business
associations that contribute to the movement’s success and increase
economic ties between Turkey and the region. In the early 1990s, when
Turkey was first discovering Central Asia, businessmen associated with
the Gülen movement were already on the ground, striving to develop a
whole network of joint ventures. The robust economic ties the Gülen
movement created first in Central Asia and then around the world have
made it easier for Turkey to open up to foreign countries. Ankara has
done so in collaboration with business associations close to Gülen that
can provide advice and contacts on the ground thanks to the Gülen
schools and companies that are familiar with the terrain.
Gülenists in Europe
The Gülen movement’s
success in Central Asia opened the door to other parts of the world,
notably Western Europe. Gülen’s community, the latest Turkish
socioreligious movement to establish itself in the region, is also the
most dynamic and best organized. Its activities in a variety of areas,
including education, commerce, and culture, place the Gülen movement at
the forefront of Turkish activism on the continent.
The Gülen movement’s
commitment to not flaunting its Islamic identity has been crucial to its
success in Europe. Other Turkish movements center their efforts in
Europe on Islam, such as the Suleymanci community, which was founded by
twentieth-century Islamic scholar Süleyman Tunahan, or Millî Görüş, an
organization inspired by Turkish Islamist politician Necmettin Erbakan.
They run mosques and provide religious services to Turkish migrants. The
Gülen community, by contrast, invests in the management of schools and
cultural centers rather than mosques. It also targets an audience that
is not limited to Turkish migrants, fostering interaction and the
integration of Turks in Europe by opening all of its establishments to
anyone without discrimination.
Foremost among these institutions are Gülen movement schools.
Entrepreneurs influenced by Gülen’s ideas have created private schools
throughout Europe. Germany has a dozen of these Gülen private schools,
and similar establishments operate in France, Belgium, the Netherlands,
and northern Europe. They provide a secular education in accordance with
the standards, curricula, and laws established by the authorities of
each host country.
The Gülen movement’s educational network in Europe also includes hundreds of dershane,
or private centers that tutor secondary-school students to improve
their academic performance and prepare them for university entrance
exams. These institutions frequently offer weekend classes to assist
vulnerable children from underprivileged social backgrounds, hailing
often but not only from Turkish immigrant families. The dershane thus
make it possible for these vulnerable young people to go to college
while simultaneously helping Turkish migrants integrate into their host
societies.
In tandem with these
educational endeavors, Turkish entrepreneurs and businessmen affiliated
with the Gülen movement have organized associations in practically every
European country to encourage economic cooperation with Turkey. In
France, they have formed the French-Turkish Businessmen Societyto foster professional collaboration between entrepreneurs from both nations. Similar organizations exist in the Netherlands and other European countries.
The Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey (TUSKON
), an employer organization affiliated with the Gülen movement, has
offices around the world, including in Brussels. While less influential
than the Turkish Industry and Business Association, a similarly
multinational organization that promotes public enterprise but that is
decidedly secular, TUSKON is nonetheless conducting successful activism
on behalf of Turkish companies. In Europe, it supports small
associations of Turkish entrepreneurs that regularly organize meetings,
forums, and trips to Turkey, thereby facilitating investments between
Europe and Turkey.
In the cultural sphere, the Gülen community in Europe has opened a
number of interreligious dialogue centers to promote Turkey and the
ideas of Fethullah Gülen. The Plateforme de Paris in
France and several similar associations in Germany and Belgium
regularly host lectures and debates in which academics, religious
figures, politicians, local elected officials, and journalists speak
about various subjects. These centers often hold events during
Ramadan—particularly fast-breaking evening meals, or iftar—as
well as dinners and luncheons throughout the year that allow Turks and
Europeans to meet, establish ties, and engage in intercultural dialogue.
In addition, since 2010 there has been a Fethullah Gülen Chair for
Intercultural Studies at the University of Leuven in Belgium whose
mission consists of promoting Gülen’s ideas through various initiatives,
such as conferences and publications.
All told, the Gülen
movement’s activities in Europe allow it to effectively promote Turkish
soft power in the region. This is particularly important to Ankara
because Europe—even though it continues to block Turkey’s candidacy to
the EU—remains Ankara’s neighbor and essential partner.
Complicated Activism in the United States
The presence and activism of the Gülen movement is even more
complex and intense in the United States than it is in Europe. This is
due in part to the large number of Gülen establishments, but it is also
due to the presence of Gülen himself.
Fethullah Gülen arrived in
the United States in 1999, ostensibly for health reasons but also to
escape a political atmosphere in which the Turkish military was cracking
down on various religious groups. Since then, he has been living in
Pennsylvania. His choice to live out his self-imposed exile in the
United States can be explained by the large number of his followers who
were already in America at the time and by the opportunities the
country’s open, liberal democracy offers to Gülen and his movement to
amass influence through powerful lobbying instruments in Washington.
In the United States as
elsewhere, Gülenists’ primary focus is on education. But the Gülen
movement’s educational initiatives in the United States have proved more
controversial than virtually any of the institutions emanating from or
inspired by Gülen’s ideas around the world.
There are more than 140
charter schools in the United States, located across the country and
especially in Texas, that are linked to the Gülen movement. These
charter schools are troubled public schools that have been turned
over—some would say sold—to private operators, which may be
corporations, associations, churches, or, in the case at hand, companies
whose leaders are known for their adherence to Gülen’s ideas. However,
it is difficult to prove that these schools belong to the Gülen movement
because many of the individuals operating them deny any links to Fethullah Gülen.
The Turkish companies that run these charter schools also insist
that there is no reason to call them “Gülenist” because the teachers
keep their religious convictions to themselves. Indeed, even some of the
parents of the young Americans who attend these schools appear to be
completely oblivious to thereligious and cultural nature of the movement.
The lack of transparency with which many of these schools operate has given rise to several FBI investigations,
notably on the exclusive and wrongful recruitment of teachers from
Turkey. However, accusations of wrongdoing and irregularities in visa
applications for Turkish teachers have all proved unfounded, and
currently all charter schools with suspected ties to Gülen continue to
operate.
Outside the educational arena, the Gülen movement participates in
economic, cultural, and political activism in the United States. An
economic showcase for the movement worldwide, TUSKON has
an office in Washington, DC, that hosts forums and facilitates
cooperation between Turkish and American entrepreneurs. In addition, the
movement has created numerous organizations that help promote its
lobbying efforts in the United States by spreading Gülen’s ideas in
Washington.
Gülen movement supporters founded the Turkic American Alliance,
which is headquartered in downtown Washington, as an umbrella
organization to gather hundreds of Turkish-American cultural and
educational associations nationwide. These organizations regularly host
cultural events and sometimes conferences on Turkey or Turkish-American
relations. As its name indicates—“Turkic” rather than “Turkish”—it aims
to expand its activities to the other Turkic republics. On December 11,
2013, for example, it hosted the United States–Kazakhstan Convention in
partnership with the Kazakh embassy. Although a recent creation (it was
established in 2010), the Turkic-American Alliance is much more active
and visible than the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations, an umbrella movement founded by the first Turkish expatriates and considered to be more secular.
The Rumi Forum,
another DC-based organization with close ties to the Gülen movement,
features regular lectures and debates on religious, political, and
cultural topics. Once a year, in conjunction with other organizations
affiliated with the movement, this forum—initially devoted to promoting
interreligious dialogue—hosts a major conference on Gülen’s ideas. These
conferences are often prepared with theCenter for Muslim-Christian Understanding at
Georgetown University, a Jesuit institution that has long provided
support to Gülen, with the assistance of academics such as John Voll, John Esposito, and Father Thomas Michel.
The boards of directors of
both the Turkic American Alliance and the Rumi Forum, as well as the
guests they attract, include prestigious and influential academics,
businessmen, and elected officials.
These groups also organize regular trips to Turkey in which
journalists, researchers, and sometimes even politicians are welcomed in
different towns in a full-on charm offensive promoting both the country
and the movement.
A more recently established Gülen think tank, the Rethink Institute,
is also advancing Gülen’s ideas in Washington. The institute promotes
both the country and the movement through research and debates on
hot-button Turkish issues, and it organizes seminars and conferences
that defend the Gülen movement’s point of view on these matters.
These various instruments
have afforded the Gülen movement a level of political influence in
Washington that secular and government-affiliated Turkish organizations
cannot rival. The Gülen movement’s lobbying instruments have proved more
capable of attracting high-level U.S. officials to their many social
and cultural events than organizations affiliated with the Turkish
government, such as the Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research,
a Washington-based think tank designed to promote U.S.-Turkey
relations. This fact, especially when combined with its educational and
economic activism in the United States, gives the Gülen movement
political leverage in Washington that Turkey cannot ignore.
New Frontiers in Africa
Africa, which holds for Turkey the promise of both new economic
opportunities in emerging markets and potential political allies in the
United Nations, is the most recent target of Gülen movement activism.
Both the Turkish government and the Gülen movement have dramatically
expanded their influence in Africa over the past decade.
Turkey’s interest in Africa is
recent. The Ottoman Empire was influential for a time in North Africa
but never had a presence in sub-Saharan Africa. In general, the Turkish Republic paid
little attention to the continent in the years after its formation.
Only in 1998 did the Turkish government inaugurate a new Africa policy.
This policy only really
took off after the AKP government came to power in 2002. Between 2002
and 2013, the number of Turkish embassies in Africa grew from nineteen
to 34. Several summit meetings with African leaders took place in
Turkey, aimed mainly at strengthening trade.
Gülen’s followers were in
the vanguard of this Turkish soft-power offensive. It was the movement’s
establishment and successes on the continent that inspired Ankara to
turn to Africa. Indeed, well before the AKP’s rise to power, Gülenists
had already opened schools in Africa, using the same model and strategy
that had worked elsewhere.
Gülen associations now run nearly 40 Turkish schools throughout
the continent, in both French- and English-speaking areas and among
both Muslim and Christian populations. Like their educational programs
elsewhere, these Gülen schools focus on providing an excellent, modern
education, including in foreign languages and sciences, without the
slightest religious content. Authorities and parents demand a quality
secular education that teaches openness to the world. On the strength of
their success, a Gülen university opened its doors in Kenya.
Both Turkish policy and Gülen’s efforts in Africa are focused on
training new elites and establishing economic relations with emerging
countries, claiming that Turkey’s objective on that continent is to
cooperate, not to dominate. In reality, however, there is a certain
resemblance between Western missionary schools, once numerous in Africa,
and Gülen schools. Gülen movement schools may not engage in religious
proselytism, but they do seek to promote a positive image of Islam and
Turkey, in part by employing conservative Islamic teachers. In this,
they boast the same spirit as Western missionary schools (albeit in a
Turkish, moderate Islamic version).
On the economic front, more and more members of Gülen-affiliated
businessmen’s associations regularly travel between Turkey and Africa to
facilitate trade. It is these associations that sponsored the first
Turkish schools in Africa.
The movement has also invested heavily in humanitarian assistance
in Africa, notably in Somalia, Niger, and South Africa. The humanitarian
organization Kimse Yokmu, which is affiliated with the Gülen movement, has diverse projects in several African countries.
What Gülen’s Success Means for Turkey
In Ankara, the ruling AKP,
not to mention Erdoğan himself, has recognized the formidable global
influence of the Gülen community and the ways in which this influence
benefits Turkey.
In this, the party follows in the footsteps of previous Turkish
diplomats and officials. Even before the AKP came to power, Ankara
recognized the political and economic pragmatism of cooperating with
Gülen institutions that could help promote Turkey’s interests abroad.
During the early 1990s, even the most secular ambassadors to Central
Asia, who would have been quick to criticize Gülen’s ideas on
ideological grounds, realized the amount of influence Gülenists enjoyed
in the former Soviet states and generally supported their work.
Other Turkish officials,
such as Turgut Özal, president of Turkey from 1989 to 1993, have been
personally committed to Gülen schools. Özal urged Turkish authorities to
facilitate Gülen’s educational projects abroad. During their official
visits to Central Asia and elsewhere, Özal’s successors, whether secular
or conservative, have never failed to visit Gülen schools and meet
their students and the Turkish communities they serve.
Now, the Gülen movement’s success on the international scene makes
it even more difficult for officials in Ankara to snub or dismiss
Fethullah Gülen and his legions of followers. As a result, many AKP
officials openly participate in Gülen movement endeavors, increasingly
associating themselves with events organized by Gülen schools and the
entire Gülen network. Abroad, Turkish diplomats and Gülen networks work
together to promote the interests of Turkey and mutually assist each
other.
But not everyone is happy about this collaboration, which has begun
to exacerbate an underlying rivalry between the Gülen movement and some
secular and Kemalist circles in Ankara. These individuals recognize the
movement’s role in enhancing Turkish soft power, but they fear its
conservatism—at least relative to their own secular values—and do not
necessarily appreciate the image of Turkey it gives abroad. Above all,
they mistrust the political clout that the Gülen movement’s
international success gives it on the national scene.
These concerns have led Ankara to ramp up its own efforts at
creating an influential global network. In Central Asia, for instance,
the Turkish government has endeavored to create its own web of
influence. It founded an official network of Turkish cultural centers,
Yunus Emre, in 2007, although this was well after the Gülen movement had
established itself in the region. An influential leader of the movement
recently affirmed during a private interview in Washington, DC, that
the Yunus Emre centers were conceived by the AKP government to compete with the movement’s activities abroad.
An Uncertain Future
The desire of some AKP
officials to check the Gülen movement’s international influence has only
increased with the current crisis between Erdoğan and Fethullah Gülen.
The activities of the Gülen movement abroad may represent the best
aspect of Turkey’s soft power and help extend the country’s influence
beyond its borders, but these measures benefited the AKP only as long as
the Gülen-Erdoğan team was functional. Now, their alliance has ended.
The power struggle between
Gülen and Erdoğan will not be limited to the Turkish theater and will
very likely extend abroad. But while the prime minister has considerable
resources in Turkey to reduce the clout of the Gülen movement, he
cannot compete with the movement’s global influence. A fierce battle
lies ahead, and it is hard to predict who will come out the winner.
Currently, the prime
minister is facing an image crisis at home that may afford Gülen an
advantage in this contest. Erdoğan has come to be perceived as an
increasingly authoritarian head of state, particularly since the
beginning of his third term. The Gülen movement, which has managed to
keep its reputation intact by presenting itself as a champion in the
fight against corruption and wrongdoing, could take advantage of
Erdoğan’s weakened position and emerge victorious in its contest with
the government and the AKP. But that would be a major gamble.
Taking down Erdoğan would
be a decisively political move, and one that could discredit the Gülen
movement after decades of affirming that it is apolitical. Its carefully
cultivated image as a civil society organization working for peace and
intercultural and interreligious dialogue could shatter, and it would
risk slowing or even halting the prodigious progress it has made over
the past twenty years. It could cost Gülen the global network—and all
the attendant international and domestic influence—he has spent two
decades building.
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