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.