Slander Fethullah Gulen with impunity

Fethullah Gulen for the last 30 years of his life has been under an increasing attack by the Elirtist Turkish establishment and its civilian cohorts on the grounds that he has a secret agenda evidence of which is the foundation of schools throughout the world. Only a pathetic paranoid could blame a person for opening schools and educating people with such a ridiculous pretext. This is what the Turkish establishment has succeeded. I always thought that such a matchless sick mentality was only peculiar to Turkey. Alas! To my greatest disappointment I have just noticed that it could be found in the world’s most advanced, best educated, most sophisticated countries like USA.

Some time ago, a rabid example of this paranoia was published in Middle East Quarterly by a lady called Rachel Sharon-Krespin who did a marvelous job of fabrication and disinformation. I will try to analyze such a masterpiece of Disinformation.

Let’s start!

 

1: As Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) begins its seventh year in leadership, Turkey is no longer the secular and democratic country that it was when the party took over. The AKP has conquered the bureaucracy and changed Turkey's fundamental identity.

 

What is the evidence of this argument? What makes a country secular and democratic?

Free elections and all other basic freedoms, right? Could she give us any example of the lack of any one of these freedoms? I don’t think so. Turkey in 2010 is a much more democratic and much safer country where political violence and political assassinations no longer take place. Let’s remember Turkey’s political and internal security conditions of Turkey from 1991 to 2002 when AKP came to power.

PKK (Kurdish Stalinist Secessionist) terrorism was rampant claiming thousand of lives. It is 99 percent over now.

Political assassinations had infested country. Many Turkish intellectuals were murdered and none of the assassins was caught. Neither state nor people ever knew who killed them.

Turkish academicians like Bahriye Ucok, Muammer Aydin, Mehmet Ali Kislali or journalist Ugur Mumcu who were all highly prestigious secularist intellectuals and many others were assassinated. Perpetrators were never found. Between 2003 and 2010, there were only two terrorist attacks on this scale. One of them took place in early 2003 when AKP government had just been established. The assassin was never found. A much more daring assassination took place in May 2006 and one of the top ranking judges of Turkish council of State was murdered and four other were seriously wounded. The attacker was successfully caught before he left the building. For some weeks we believed that this was an attack by a Islamist fundamentalist but it became clear that the assassin had nothing to do with the religion and his mentors and close companions were all former army officers who were known as die-hard secularists. They provided him necessary gun and vital information. The murder of such a high ranking Judge was aimed at provoking violence in the streets and in the ensuing anarchy forcing the government to resign. Their plans failed and they were arrested. The trial is still continuing.

As for secularism, we do not know what erosion took place in this field? Are the women forced to veil? Is the constitution that guaranteed secularism changed? Are those who had secular life style were purged arrested interrogated? Are alcoholic beverages forbidden? Is Ataturk’s image, the founder of Republic and the initiator of secularism defiled? What has happened in Turkey for God’s sake that she claims Turkey is no longer secular?

 

 

2. Prior to the AKP's rise, Ankara oriented itself toward the United States and Europe. Today, despite the rhetoric of European Union accession, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has turned Turkey away from Europe and toward Russia and Iran and reoriented Turkish policy in the Middle East away from sympathy toward Israel and much more toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria.

This argument is more than groundless. It is spineless. AKP is the government that aims and achieves at opening its borders to the outer world by removing visa requirements. This means that more and more foreigners will be able to enter Turkey freely. Can you think that such a country will try to ally with autocratic countries Russia and Iran? AKP on the contrary is moving strongly against those who attempt to stage a coup d’état and bring Turkey into the orbit of Russia. Only a drunkard could claim that Turkey is leaving Western Camp.

“Despite the rhetoric of EU accession” is remarkable. The author is unable to make up her kind about AKP. Has AKP government, unlike previous westernist(!) Turkish governments, made the most serious democratic reforms so far in order to enter EU? YES!

Has AKP sacrificed Northern Cyprus for this purpose?  YES!

What does author says? “Despite the rhetoric of EU accession” Bravo! What a genius!

“Anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic sentiments have increased.”

For example? She definitely knows that AKP is under an increasing attack by the secularist wings that AKP, due to its reforms designed for EU, allows Christian missionary activities in Turkey. The most famous incidence was a speech by Rahsan Ecevit, wife of late Bulent Ecevit who is known for his secularism. She insisted that AKP reforms are undermining Turkey because of missionary activities.

Anti American? Really? She again knows very well that AKP government did its best to pass a resolution from the parliament that would allow USA during the second Iraq war to open a second front from Southern Turkey (Northern Iraq). Guess who blocked this resolution in the parliament? The Opposition party in the parliament at the time, RPP, Sharon’s WESTERNIST and SECULARIST party in Turkey. I have just analyzed introduction paragraph of Sharon’s essay so far.

Seemingly, two things are possible.

a- Sharon is as ignorant as darkness about Turkey. But as we see she relied on so many Turkish sources. Supposedly she is aware of what is going on in Turkey.

b- Sharon is trying to manipulate facts and misinform Americans.

In both cases, it is shameful thing on the part of Sharon.

“Behind Turkey's transformation has been not only the impressive AKP political machine but also a shadowy Islamist sect led by the mysterious hocaefendi (master lord) Fethullah Gülen; the sect often bills itself as a proponent of tolerance and dialogue but works toward purposes quite the opposite. Today, Gülen and his backers (Fethullahcılar, Fethullahists) not only seek to influence government but also to become the government.”

Here is the funniest part of such a gross ignorance.

1- Mysterious Hocaefendi (Masterlord)? Why mysterious? His life, his works and his opinions are all known too well. Then why mysterious? Because our dear ignorant author wants to say so. On the other hand hocaefendi does not mean masterlord. It means chief teacher. Masterlord? Great! What a manipulation!

2- “The sect often bills itself as a proponent of tolerance and dialogue but works toward purposes quite the opposite.” What is your evidence? What did they do that you think so? I am really curious. We know that these people so far have always opened schools universities and made publications. They are all public. Any individual American can read those publications and visit those schools. So please let us know what your evidence is. What makes you so smart? So far I have seen nothing smart in your article. A mere nonsense!

She also says these people also want to become government? How? What is the name of their party? What do they promise to the masses as politicians? Mayne I can vote for them. Maybe even Sharon would want to vote for them. Who knows!

“Since his voluntary exile, Gülen has resided on a large, rural estate in eastern Pennsylvania, together with about 100 followers, who guard him and tend to his needs. It is from his U.S. base that Gülen has built his fame and his transnational empire.”

100 bodyguards? She must be talking about a medieval fortress and medieval lord. What a strong imagination. And before 1999, the movement had already opened several hundred schools and a few universities. She must have known that. Ignorance is a nice thing to wash your hands away.

“Today, Turkey has over 85,000 active mosques, one for every 350 citizens—compared to one hospital for every 60,000 citizens—the highest number per capita in the world and, with 90,000 imams, more imams than doctors or teachers.”

It is a good thing to have so many mosques and so many prayer leaders to avoid radicalization of masses. It is quiet natural that there would be more imams than doctors. An imam is the result of high school education while to be doctor you have to attend a university and study some six years at least.

“It has thousands of madrasa-like Imam-Hatip schools and about four thousand more official state-run Qur'an courses, not counting the unofficial Qur'an schools, which may expand the total number tenfold.”

1- Imam hatip schools are not madrasa like. They are just normal schools.  And they are needed to enlighten people about the true aspects of Islam. Turkey is the only country in the world which has nothing to do with Islamic radicalism. I guess our author hates this. Unofficial Qur’an Schools?  There are not any. Once found they closed and members of these so called unofficial Quranic schools are punished. She must have known that. Also, is it a bad thing to learn religion? While an American is freely able to attend religious schools why such a right is denied for Turkish people in Turkey? She is simple trying to portray Turkey as a marginal Islamic country. But she must give us a name of a Turkish radical Islamist organization that organized terrorist activities anywhere in the world.

Stupidity of pseudo Enlightenment and Gulen Schools

The tragedy of Jacobinist(!) Enlightenment which is rampant in Turkey, lies in its failure to understand its own stupidity: the stupidity of endlessly repeating itself, stupidity of relying more on and more age old clichés to define this world and claim intellectual hegemony over those deemed inferior by the Enlightenment fanatics.

Enlightenment by itself is a remarkable word which fails to bring wisdom and acumen to its own so-called adherents.

In this short essay I will attempt to analyze such a case.  One of those so called enlightened Turks, Burhan Gurdogan, argues that Fethullah Gulen is a religious reactionary and he brings some issue forward relating to him. I will attempt to show how his arguments are biased, groundless and ignorant.

He argues that Fethullah Gulen is a cult who has his own adherents who operate on a certain plan. Let see what it is

 

Stupidity No 1: “This cult ensures that those members who join them end up pledging their allegiance while they are at young ages, paving the way for them to get a proper education and prepare them so they can get any position at government agencies.”

Every Turkish citizen has the right to enter at government agencies as long as S/he is qualified. The ranks are open to everybody. This is one of the most basic pillars of democracy but the so-called author is unaware of this fact. 

 

Stupidity No 2:  “With this method, they avoid a direct conflict and argument between the state and themselves, and simultaneously place cult members into the various government agencies, also known as Trojan horses, and have them act completely in the interest of the cult in order to help “capture” the agencies they are working inside of.”

If the author thinks that the agencies are something capturable who or what other groups have captured those agencies so far? What is this Trojan horse syndrome? Why Trojan Horse? Why do you think these Turkish citizens are Trojan horses in the Turkish state/government agencies? Who or what gives you such a right to call Turkish citizens “Trojan horse”? Don’t you think that to call law-abiding honest citizens as Trojan horse is fascism? Seemingly our enlightened lawyer is unaware of what Fascism is. 

 

Stupidity No 3 or an act of Heinousness: “When we look at Fethullah Gulen’s (the leader of the Gulen movement) speech, on June 18, 1999, his advice to his followers included suggestions to not act until gaining all the power of every constitutional organization in Turkey; that shows there is a methodical plan going on.”

Turkish democracy has unfortunately experienced a series of military coup d’états since 1960 the last of which took place at the end of 1990s and the military and its civilian cohorts very actively moved against democracy parliament and people. As part of this coup those who grabbed power and captured state agencies (remember Mr. Gurdogan’s paranoia of losing the state agencies)  arbitrarily purghed civilian or military officials with the most ridiculous pretexts like reading not approved and sanctioned newspapers but alternative media papers. As a result of this witchcraft hundreds of thousands of people were purged demoted dismissed without a court verdict. As an opinion leader Fethullah Gulen at the time was asked what to do in the face of this dictatorship and arbitrariness and he told people to draw a low profile and told the audience that this a negative tide that haunted Turkish democracy and most basic liberties which will lose its momentum soon. Fethullah Gulen by preaching moderation and low profile in fact was doing what Mr. Gurdogan hated. Fethullah Gulen was avoiding provocations, conflict and preaching patience.

 

Stupidity No. 4: “Gulen movement has become the owner of nearly a thousand schools in the world and the controller of a serious amount of capital.”

So? What is wrong with this? Why are you against opening schools? Could you let us know who has the highest privilege of owning or controlling capital? What is illegal here? 

 

Stupidity No. 5: “According to Jane’s Defense Weekly, a publication from the leading U.S. security and intelligence organization, the Gulen movement controls $25bn in various companies and assets.”

Jane’s Defence Weekly took these figures from the most avowed and most fanatic enemies of Fethullah Gulen in Turkey who arbitrarily exaggerated figures in order to increase paranoia against Fethullah Gulen.

 

Stupidity No. 6: “They are organized in poor African countries especially, and they succeed by obtaining a grip on the resources of those countries.”

Oh Yeah! What a shame! By the way how do they obtain a grip on the resources of those countries? Any specific example? Or is this sentence is a result of your ignorance and blind hatred? Another detail is that they are also organized in European Countries and USA as well. Can we claim that they are obtaining a grip on the resources of those countries? What a stupidity! 

 

Stupidity No. 7:  “The movement does not balk at any expense in order to give its followers the best education they can; it sends them to developed foreign countries like the United Kingdom or the United States to get the best education available and to learn English.”

Do you see the crime here? To educate people, to send the youth to the countries where they could get best education.

 

Stupidity No. 8: “One of the main reasons the AKP has become the first party in the elections two times in a row is the coalescence of all the cults in Turkey giving their votes to the same party.”

 The author is very enthusiastically distorting history and reality. Military coup d’état in 1997 had brought a number of political parties into power in a coalition government which had their own conflicting desires about the power and state. As a result of rampant corruption by the coalition parties Turkey experienced its worst economic crisis in 2001 and the economy shrank in one night more than two times. Hundreds of thousands of shop owners went bankrupt; millions of people all of a sudden lost their jobs. The conditions forced to government to declare early elections and Turkish voters lost their confidence to those corrupt government parties who collaborated with the generals of coup d’état and sought for a fresh start and new leadership. Recep Tayyip Erdogan who had been arrested in 1999 for ten months due to one of his speeches in a political demonstration, despite myriad of obstacles created by elitist establishment managed to win the general elections in 2002. Here is the short history of those elections and the author Mr. Gundogan just thinks that we Turkish people are too illiterate to know these facts.

 

Stupidity No. 9: “In its first term, the AKP government did not show its real (Gulen) face and they succeeded in deceiving the Turkish public that the government is modern and democratic; yet, after gaining all the power of the constitutional organizations, the AKP began to show its true self, and it has begun to act parallel with cult movements.”

 From the very beginning best educated segments of the Turkish society and civilian/military bureaucracy showed its hostility to this popularly elected government. The elections AKP won took place on 3 November 2002. The ambitious generals started to make plans for a new military coup d’état in early 2003 to topple down popularly elected government. These plans were prevented by the democratic minded then chief of staff Hilmi Ozkek who is widely hated by the Jacobinist Elite of Turkey who think they are the real masters and owners of the country and state, not the people. As we see from the very beginning AKP faced with a stiff oppositions from the mass media and the educated white Turks who though AKP was the party of the masses not the elite.

 

Stupidity No. 10: “First, the AKP began a cleaning process with the media, starting with Cem Uzan, then they confiscated all the companies from big media bosses.”

 Cem Uzan was the most daringly corrupt businessman in Turkey who made a fortune during the privatization period in 1980-90s by blackmailing state authorities thanks to his mass media organs. In the mean time Cem Uzan managed to embezzle 9 billion US dollars of American Motorola Company which became an international scandal and caused an enormous loss of prestige for the other Turkish businessmen who experienced difficulties in establishing business partnerships with either European or American companies which were aware of Cem Uzan scandal. He also refused to pay his debts to the state and in order not pay, he blackmailed the coalitions government which was increasingly losing popularity due to the economic crisis and corruption. But When AKP in 2003 started a strong government, Tayyip Erdogan acted firmly and urged Cen UZan to pay his taxes and his debts to the state. Long story short, the government lost its patience and after a long legal procedure and court verdicts got back those state firms formerly sold to Cem Uzan family during the privatization period.

 

Stupidity No. 11: “This process ended by driving the Dogan Media Company to the edge by punishing them with a $5.9bn tax fine. All of those confiscated companies have now been sold to the business men who are connected to the Gulen Movement.”

 Dogan Media Company is owned by Dogan Holding which also makes business with the state. The same story repeated itself here and for many years Dogan Holding has refused to pay taxes to the state and they again have used their mass media organs to blackmail the governments since early 1990s. In nearly 20 years the taxes that to be paid to the state accumulated to nearly 5 billion dollars which Dogan Holding still refused to pay and they demanded an unjust a tax pardon.

 

Stupidity No. 11:“Following those incidents, many scholars, men of science, and military personnel have been thrown in jail due to the laws and regulations that are passed from the National Assembly in the middle of the night, and they are forced to deal with thousands of pages of cases; the only common thing among those people arrested is that all of them are opposed to the AKP and cults.”

  In Turkey there is a long tradition of military coup d’états all of which followed the same pattern. According to which the military would take over and the academicians and high judges would support them and serve them obediently. In 1960, 1971, 1980, 1998 coup d’états army took over civilians rushed to serve them. Another coup d’état was in the making between 2003-2007 and civilians and military officials came together they made the plans of a coup d’état against the government but these plans were leaked and these conspiratorial groups were arrested.

Also Turkey was a fertile ground of political assassinations between 1989 and 2003. The perpetrators of these political assassinations were surprisingly(!) never caught. Under AKP there was only one such political assassination when AKP government was barely two months old, in January 2003. There were some other political assassinations between 2003 and 2007, the perpetrators of which were all caught and brought to trial. The current wave of arrests started after their trial and confessions. Hard evidences were captured by the security forces during this period with plans and assassinations, and bombs and guns etc.

Mr Gundogan must explain the existence of those plans, assassinations, and bombings.