Sunday, August 17, 2008

CIA Suspicion in Gulen's Refusal

June 27th 2008 Milliyet - Ahu Özyurt - Translated by Mizgin Yilmaz (Rasti)

Among the reasons given by the US State Department's attorneys as to why Gülen's permanent residence application was refused, is the suspicion of CIA financing of his movement.

The reasons for refusal of Fethullah Gülen's I-140 visa application have been revealed. According to US laws, every year a limited visa is given to extraordinary people in business, science, art, education, and sport, for permanent residency and work. Among the reasons for his application refusal, even though Gülen applied for the educational field, it turned out that he has neither any direct activity nor could he support his claim with any documentation to show he had extraordinary skills in this area. The I-140 application that Gulen made on 21 November 2006 has been denied after one year. Gülen, however, reapplied on 18 December 2007. Along with this application, Gülen presented reference letters to the court that had been written by 26 academicians and religious scholars. Some of these are Morton Abramovitz, Graham Fuller, and Mehmet Sağlam. In March 2008, Gülen's appeal was rejected. The court demanded recent information and documentation from the petitioner Gülen and the State Department.

The attorneys for the State Department, Patrick Meehan and Mary Catherine Frye, in their documents stated that "The petitioner indicates that he is a religious scholar and he has activities in the educational field. However, he presented, in addition to the absence of any documentation that proves he is an educator, he surrounds himself with academicians and pays them for speaking and criticizing his ideas in conferences that he organizes." They continued, "The documents that the petitioner presented show that he manages an effective movement in politics and religious issues. However, this special skill is not a field that the I-140 visa requires." The attorneys' defense has been accepted by the court.

Gülen's attorneys petitioned for an interim decision from the court in order to change the decision. As an answer to this petition, the state attorneys stated the following: "The petitioner claims that he has international appeal in the educational field, however not only is he not among extraordinarily skilled educators, he is not even an educator. As he presented, with evidence, he is the leader of a movement that has enormous financial sources and is effective in politics and religious issues. Interfaith dialog and tolerance are not among the requirements for the visa."

[ . . . ]

"There is even CIA suspicion" "Because of the large amount of money that Gülen's movement uses to finance his projects, there are claims that he has secret agreements with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkic governments. There are suspicions that the CIA is a co-payer in financing these projects," claimed the attorneys.

[ . . . ]

Among the documents that the state attorneys presented, there are claims about the Gülen movement's financial structure and it was emphasized that the movement's economic power reached $25 billion. "Schools, newspapers, universities, unions, television channels . . . The relationship among these are being debated. There is no transparency in their work," claimed the attorneys. They continued, "Gülen's own statements indicate that he is a religious man who spreads his philosophy through education; however, he is not an educator."

Gülen’e ret gerekçesinde CIA ile ilişki kuşkusu

June 27th 2008 Milliyet - Ahu Özyurt

ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı adına savunma yaparak Fethullah Gülen’in oturma izni başvurusunun reddedilmesini sağlayan savcıların gerekçeleri arasında, ‘Gülen hareketinin finansmanına CIA’in katıldığı kuşkusu’ da yer aldı

Fethullah Gülen’in ABD İçişleri Bakanlığı’na başvurusunu yaptığı I-140 vizesinin reddedilme nedenleri ortaya çıktı. Amerikan yasaları gereği her sene kısıtlı sayıda verilen ve “iş, bilim, sanat, eğitim ve spor alanında olağanüstü yetenekli” kişilere oturma ve çalışma imkânı sunan vize talebinin reddedilme nedenleri arasında Gülen’in eğitim alanında başvuru yapmasına rağmen bu alanda direkt faaliyette bulunmaması ve bu konudaki “olağanüstü yeteneğini” belgeleyememesi gösterildi.

21 Kasım 2006 tarihinde Gülen’in I-140 vizesi için yaptığı başvuru İçişleri Bakanlığı tarafından bir yıl sonra reddedildi. 18 Aralık 2007’de bir kez daha aynı vize ve oturma izni için başvuran Gülen bu kez toplam 26 akademisyen, din adamı ve aralarında Morton Abramovitz ve Graham Fuller, Mehmet Sağlam gibi isimler tarafından kendisi hakkında yazılmış referans mektuplarını da mahkemeye sundu. Mart 2008’de Gülen’in temyiz isteği reddedildi. Mahkeme davacı Gülen ve davalı İçişleri Bakanlığı’ndan son bilgi ve belgelerini önceki gün tekrar istedi.

‘Para karşılığı yazdırıyor’
İçişleri Bakanlığı adına savunma yapan Savcı Patrick Meehan ve Mary Catherine Frye imzasıyla sunulan 4 Haziran 2008 tarihli belgelerde “Davalı, kendisinin din adamı olduğunu ve eğitim alanında çalışmalar yaptığını belirtiyor. Oysa, eğitimci olduğunu gösteren hiçbir belge sunmadığı gibi kendisini akademisyenlerle çevreleyip para karşılığı kendi görüşlerinin tartışıldığı konferanslarda konuşturuyor ya da görüşlerini yazdırıyor” saptaması yapıldı. “Davacı’nın (Gülen) sunduğu deliller göstermektedir ki, kendisi siyaset ve din konularında çok etkili bir hareketi yönetmektedir. Ama bu çok özel yetenekte insanlara verilen vizeyi almasına hak veren bir alan değildir” diyen savcılık makamının kararı kabul gördü.

Gülen’in avukatları bu kararı da bozmak için “ara karar çıkartma” isteminde bulundu. Buna yanıt olarak 18 Haziran’da Savcılık makamınca Pennsylvania Doğu Bölgesi Mahkemesi’ne sunulan belgelerde şöyle denildi: ‘Din ve siyasetle ilgili’ “Davacı eğitim konusunda uluslararası alanda takdir kazandığını iddia etmektedir. Oysa kendisi, ‘olağanüstü yetenekli’ eğitimciler arasında olmadığı gibi eğitimci bile değildir. Kendisi delillerde de sunulduğu gibi büyük ticari kaynakları bulunan etkili dini ve politik bir hareketin lideridir. Dinlerarası diyalog ve tolerans da bu statüde vize verilen alanlar değildir.” Gülen’in “dini hoşgörüyü eğitim kurumlarına içine sokan metotlar geliştirdiği iddiasına” da yer veren savcılık makamı “Ancak davacı, bu metotların ne olduğunu gösteren bir delil sunmamıştır. Yazıları bir müfredat modeli ya da metodoloji içermemektedir. Kendisinin eğitmenlik yaptığını belgeleyen bir delil dahi bulunmamaktadır” dedi. Savcılık makamı ayrıca Londra’da Lordlar Kamarası’nda Gülen için düzenlenen toplantının da sadece o mekânda yapıldığını, Gülen’in Konferansı “İngiliz hükümetinin desteklediği” iddialarının yanıltıcı olduğunu belirtti. Londra’daki Gülen Konferansı’ndaki sunumlardan faydalanan savcılık makamı “deliller de göstermektedir ki, davacı kendi hareketinin organize ettiği ve masraflarını karşıladığı toplantılarda bulduğu desteği kendisini ‘âlim’ olarak göstermekte kullanmaktadır” dedi.

‘CIA şüphesi bile var’
“Gülen hareketinin, yürüttüğü projelerin finansmanında kullanılan paraların büyüklüğü nedeniyle Suudi Arabistan, İran ve Türk hükümetleriyle gizli anlaşma içinde olduğu iddiaları dile getirilmektedir. CIA’in de bu projelere finansal ortaklık ettiği şüpheleri bulunmaktadır” diyen savcılık, Gülen’in sunduğu onlarca destek mektubundan hiçbirinin bir eğitimciden gelmediğini” ileri sürdü.

İkinci buluşma yalan
Gülen’in aldığı ödüllerin gerçek ödül bile sayılmasının şüpheli olduğuna yer veren Savcılık makamı, “Davacı’nın UNESCO ödülünü aldığı törende Papa 2. Jean Paul’le bir kez daha görüştüğü iddiası doğru değildir. Papa, ödül tarihinden altı ay önce ölmüştü” dedi.

Konuşma kasetleri yok
Gülen’in bütün kitaplarını Işık Matbaası’na bastırdığını belirten savcılık makamı, bunların bilimsel çalışma olduğunun söylenemeyeceğini, eğitimle alakası olmadığını, hepsinin dini yayınlar olduğunu belirtirken, Gülen’in eğitim ve sanatsal değer taşıdığı iddia edilen ve Türkiye’de çok tartışma yaratan konuşmalarının video kayıtlarının mahkemeye sunulmadığının altını çizdi.

Gelecek planları belirsiz
Savcılık, iddianamesinin son bölümünde Gülen’in “gelecek planlarını” açıklamadığını, eğitim alanında çalışmaya devam edeceğine dair hiçbir işaret vermediğini yazdı. İddianamede “Kendisi hakkında konferanslar düzenleyip yazılar yazdırması eğitim alanında olağanüstü bir faaliyet sayılmaz” denildi.

25 milyar dolarlık güç
Savcılığın önceki gün teslim ettiği yeni belgeler arasında da Gülen cemaatinin mali yapısına dair iddialar yer aldı ve cemaatin 25 milyar dolarlık bir büyüklüğe ulaştığına vurgu yaptı. “Okullar, gazete, üniversite, sendikalar, televizyonlar. Bunların birbiriyle ne kadar bağlantılı olduğu tartışılıyor. İş yapma şeklinde hiçbir şeffaflık yok” iddiasını dile getiren Savcılık, “Gülen’in kendi açıklamaları da gösteriyor ki, kendisi felsefesini eğitim yoluyla yayan bir din adamıdır ama eğitimci değildir” dedi.

Naylon üniversite şüphesi
Savcılık, Gülen’in ABD’de kurdurduğu Virginia International University’ye de değindi. Belgede, “Okulun hareketle ilişkisinin hiçbir yerde yer almadığı vurgulanarak, “Bu okulun ne kadar prestijli bir kurum olduğu tartışmalıdır” ifadesi yer aldı.

Referans verenler
Fethullah Gülen’in başvurduğu I-140 vizesine hak ka-zandığını mahkemeye ispat etmek için çok sayıda siyasetçi ve akademisyenden aldığı referans mektubu dosyanın içinde bulunuyor. Gülen’e referans veren isimler şöyle:

George Fidas: CIA’in “Analiz Bölümü Direktörlüğü” görevini yürüttü. Halen ABD?Genelkurmay İstihbarat Konseyi’nde de kadrosu olan Fidas mektubunda, Gülen için “Ahlaki değerleri Allah’a iman ve şiddetli laik eğitimle birleştiriyor” yorumunu yaptı. Fidas George, Washington Üniversitesi Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü’nde de öğretim görevlisi.
Graham Fuller: Eski Ulusal İstihbarat Konseyi Başkan Yardımcısı ve eski CIA Türkiye Masası şeflerinden olan Fuller, aynı zamanda RAND Corporation’ın danışmanı. Gülen için mektubunda, “Ülkedeki tartışmasız en büyük lider. Türkiye’de ve Müslüman dünyasında pek çok okul açtı” dedi.
Morton Abramowitz: ABD’nin eski Ankara Büyükelçisi, halen Carnegie Endowment ve The Century Foundation üyesi. Gülen için yazdığı mektupta, “Gülen hareketinin kurucusu olarak Türkiye’de ve Asya’da eğitime büyük katkıları var” dedi.
Aleksander Karlutsos: ABD Rum Ortodoks Kilisesi Başpiskoposu’nun yardımcısı.
Emin Başer: 8. Cumhurbaşkanı Turgut Özal’ın danışmanı, Kayseri Erciyes Üniversitesi’nde öğretim görevlisi. Mektupta Gülen’in çalışmaları için “İslamın şiddetten uzaklaşması gerektiğini savundu” diye yazdı.
John Obert Voll: Georgetown Üniversitesi İslam-Hıristiyan Anlayış Bölümü Başkanı ve İslam
Tarihi Profesörü.
Ralph ve Richard Lazarus, Dale Eickelman: Darthmouth Üniversitesi Antropoloji Bölümü öğretim üyeleri.
Yıldırım Akbulut: Eski Başbakan ve eski Meclis Başkanı.
Mehmet Sağlam: Eski YÖK Başkanı ve eski Milli Eğitim Bakanı.
Bernadette Andrea: Teksas Üniversitesi İngilizce ve Felsefe Bölümü öğretim üyesi.
Paul Barker: Profesör. Elmhurts College, Teoloji ve Din Bölümü öğretim üyesi.
Rahip Floyd Schoenhals: Evanjelist Kilisesi Arkansas-Oklahoma sinodu.
Murat Saraylı: Eski Türkiye Genç İşadamları Derneği (TÜGİAD) Başkanı.
Rahip Thomas Michael: Katolik Kilisesi Cizvit Tarikatı mensubu. Gülen’in Papa’yla görüşmesine katılmıştı.
Rahip Donald Senior: Katolik Teoloji Birliği Başkanı. James
Kenneth Echols: Chicago Lutheran Teoloji Okulu Başkanı.
Jill Carroll: Profesör. Rice Üniversitesi, Boniuk Dini Hoşgörü Merkezi Başkanı.
Lynn Mitchell: Houston Üniversitesi Dini Çalışmalar Bölümü Direktörü.
Sheryl E. Santos: Teksas Teknik Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Başkanı.
David Capes: Profesör. Houston Baptist Üniversitesi, Hıristiyanlık Çalışmaları ve Felsefe Bölümü Başkanı.
Rahip Terry Mathis: California Üniversitesi Riverside Kampusu rahibi.
James E. Bowley: Millsaps College Dini Çalışmalar Bölümü Başkanı.
Rahip Loye Ashton: Tougaloo College Dini Çalışmalar Bölümü Başkanı.
Lawrence T. Geraty: La Sierra Üniversitesi Onursal Başkanı.
H. Ali Yurtsever: Washington Rumi Forum Başkanı.
Kemal Öksüz: Niagara Foundation (Niagara Vakfı) Başkanı.
John Esposito: Profesör. Georgetown Üniversitesi Prens Al Walid bin Tallal Müslüman-Hıristiyan Anlayış Bölümü Direktörü.

Gülen hangi vize için başvurdu?
Fethullah Gülen’e ABD’de süresiz oturma ve çalışma olasılığı vermesi için başvurulan I-140 statüsündeki vize, bilim, sanat, iş, eğitim ve spor alanlarında olağanüstü yetenek gösteren, uluslararası saygınlığı olan, bu faaliyetlerini ABD’de sürdürmek isteyen ve ABD’nin de bu faaliyetlerden faydalanacağı kişilere veriliyor.

Are Islam and Kemalism Compatible? How two systems have impacted the Kurdish question?

KurdishMedia.com 27/11/2007 - By Aland Mizell

A student of Islam realizes that in the mind of the average Muslim, Islam is much more than just a religion: it is a way of life because under its framework, politics, social behavior, and economics are fused. Kemalism is an ideology, devised by Mustafal Kemal Ataturk, founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. In a post-Ottoman period, his regime administered the government based on his pillars of separation of church and state. However, the principle doctrine of Islam could best be defined by the absolute rule under God, a political system called a theocracy. Is it possible that Islam and Kemalism can coexist? Why do some Islamic politicians like Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and some Islamic sects like the Fethullah Gulen movement insist that Kemalism is compatible with Islam? The goal of the contemporary Islamic movement is to eliminate all authority other than that of Allah and his prophet and to eliminate nationalism in all its shapes and forms, in particular nation states in order to unite all Muslims under the single Islamic state. If that is not its purpose, then why is the largest Islamic movement--that of Gülen-opening schools all over the world to teach Islam?

In the global effort to establish Quranic law, Sharia law not only limits religious and political freedom, but also makes second-class citizens of non-Muslims. For Muslims, Sharia rule is not an option; it is an obligation, Sharia is the code of law for the Muslims’ way of life that Allah revealed for mankind and commanded Muslims to follow. Muslims believe that Sharia law comes from Allah while they see all other legal systems as being man-made laws. On the other hand, Kemalism advocates a secular state, as proclaimed by the Turkish Grand National Assembly on the day it declared the Republic of Turkey to be an independent, secular republic with a constitution.

Islam and Kemalism are not compatible, because for Muslims, Islamic law covers all aspects of human beings and does not change over time since they view it as a universal, perfect, and complete system. Kemalism operates on man-made law, and man-made law starts from the few and then is embraced in the minds of the many over time. In addition, man-made laws can be changed over time as Kemalism recognizes in its goal of maintaining a progressive and modern state. Therefore, the pragmatic approach of Kemalism depends on the circumstances and times, so that advancement and reform become key principles. However, today Kemalism is slowly diminishing. It is the first time in the history of the secular state of Turkey that a woman wearing a headscarf will live in the secular palace, a highly emblematic shift. Nevertheless, the current Muslim administration does not tell the truth about its ultimate goal that some day they will dismiss all Kemalist pillars when they accrue enough power or the support of the majority. As an Islamist, Erdogan is absolved from revealing his global goal.

Islam teaches that there is absolute truth as well as relative truth. The absolute does not change regardless of time and place. However, relative truth can be change depending on time, space, conditions, and people. Those two kinds of truth exist in Islam allowing anyone to avoid telling the truth. If those two concepts of truth exist in Islam, how can one determine which is absolute and which is relative? Muslims see no problem with showing two different faces when it comes to presenting the truth. This position also makes it easy to understand how Muslims can say one thing but live another. To them it is not a lie, but just a different perspective.

Islam and Kemalism also differ in terms of social, philosophical, cultural, and economic values. In search of world dominance through law, Islam will use religion as a tool to tap into the emotion of fear to keep other ethnicities, particularly the Kurds, within the fences of the faith and to mobilize them against the common enemy; both concepts of relative truth and of fear have helped the Islamic strategy. That is why there are many Kurds being recruited by the Gulen religious community and being programmed in his ideology. This is the only way Turks could defeat the Kurds, not by F16s, bombs, or chemical weapons but by brainwashing and indoctrinating them with Islamic ideology, taking away their Kurdish identity and replacing it with an Islamic identity. Thus far they are being very successful. If Kurds have not rebelled in Turkey yet, it is because of their Islamic belief used as a card against them. However, now Kurds are coming to realize that there is discrimination against them. Even though Muslims do not encourage discrimination, Kurds are, nevertheless, the victim of discrimination. Martin van Bruinessen, as well as Robert Olson, argue that even the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925 was not a purely Kurdish nationalistic one; the motivation behind the rebellion, led by shaykhs of sufi orders, was predominantly a religious factor and more anti-Ataturk because they wanted a more Islamic Caliphate. Now as then, the Kurdish identity is subsumed under the Islamic one.

Although formally inaugurated by Ataturk in 1923, Kemalism dates back to the Ottoman Empire in1889. Known as Tazminat, the reorganization attempted to reform the Ottoman Empire, creating a social class first from military students and then from professionals. The Tazminat reforms, however, preserved the main Islamic institutions such as Islamic law, courts, and schools, so some nationalities within the empire, such as the Armenians, agitated for independence. Ataturk formed the Young Turk movement and produced a new leadership under the Turkish republic. He established the Six Pillars of Kemalism or Ataturkism: 1) republicanism, 2) secularism, 3) nationalism, 4) populism, 5) reformism, and 6) statism. Republicanism argues for only a republican regime for Turkey emphasizing not a multinational system but a nation state. The second pillar, secularism, radically changed the young republic by forbidding a state religion and therefore secular control of law and education, abolishing the Caliphate, and replacing Sharia law with Swiss Civil Law and Italian Penal Code. Further, secularism required a new alphabet, a western style of dress, the emancipation of women, and the Turkification of the Quran, so that the five prayer times were in Turkish rather than in Arabic. Nationalism, the third pillar, proposed the idea that the Turkish language defines the nation and inextricably linked this principle with militarism. Populism promoted the sovereignty of the state and the mutual responsibility of the state and individuals. The fifth pillar, reformism, advanced the notion that revolutionizing the republic will incrementally and orderly transform the society into a western life style and consequently bring about economical development and advancement of science. The last pillar, statism or etatism, supported the idea that the state should not play a passive role in social, economical, cultural, and educational activities when the interest of the state is involved. Ataturk organized the administration of the new Turkish nation as an authoritarian system with the hope of modernizing the Turkish society on the model of a western, secular style order and of defining the Turkish nation as part of western civilization.

If the concept of secularism opposes religion or the presence of ecclesiastical authorities and simultaneously exercises public authority, what role is left for religion in a secular society in Turkey? Has religion declined and has attrition occurred? Is religion no longer important other than just as a part of the culture in Turkey? Or is secularism doomed to decline? If an observer looks at Turkey today, he will note that the executive family has deep convictions about religion, signaled by a radical shift in that for the first time ever a first lady with a headscarf will live in the Presidential Palace, ironically while universities carry out the ban against women wearing scarves on campuses, part of the Kemalist reform putting restrictions on the Islamic dress code that dates back to the early 1930s. However, the wife of President Gul is a hardcore Islamist and wears a headscarf at the Kemalist Palace. Why will Erdogan and Gul not tackle the headscarf issue?

Several questions arise. Where does secularism come from? Why did secularism develop mostly in western societies but not in the Muslim world? Can secularism as articulated by Ataturk coexist with an Islamic administration? Today many Muslims argue that Realism does not oppose the practice of Islam but instead make it a private matter, but not one that clashes with the state. However, Ataturk saw Islam as the biggest obstacle to Turkey’s being westernized and modernized, so he created a nation without an official religion. Ataturk closed the door on the Islamic Ottoman cultural heritage and the educated elites. Turks were socialized to see Islam as a major threat to Kemalism, based on ethno nationalism influenced by the European experience, and as a threat to progress and development. Yet, at the same time Kemalism denied the existence of the Kurds by categorizing them as Mountain Turks. As a result, Turks under the Kemalism ideology used many strategies to hide or to eradicate Kurdish identity, such measures as forbidding the use of the language, purifying village names, banning Kurdish traditions and the Kurdish language, and introducing restrictions on Kurdish names.

Still, Ataturk is the hero of modern Turkey. Many Turks essentially worship his picture everywhere placing busts or statues of him in every park, school, office, and using quotations from his well-known speeches. Visitors to Turkey tour his mausoleum, Antikabir, regarded by Turks with affection and pride because he undertook the task of completely remaking a society to be more advanced, progressive, and westernized. That is why he abolished the Sultanates’ religious school and Islamic laws, forbade the scarf in the public, made Sunday the official day, and outlawed polygamy. Ataturk tried to create a society without class and privilege, but that has not happened in Turkey; instead the elite control the masses by the military and a few bureaucrats, as one of the Ataturk pillars. Ironically, halkcilik means that the policy must be in the interest of the people and that it denies class distinctions. When any casual observer looks at the unemployment, poverty, and illiteracy, he will note that they have massively underprivileged many Kurds who live in slums and refugee accommodations even after Ataturk’s pillars have governed Turks for more than 80 years. Ataturk promised the Kurds an independent homeland at the Treaty of Serves, signed by the Allies of the World War I. Today, the Turkish Constitution demands that every citizen of the country must identify himself or herself as a Turk; if anyone does not call himself a Turk, he is considered a traitor or a terrorist.

If a person says, “I am Kurdish,” then he is considered to be creating terrorism because Islam disclaims racism, but other Turks have the right to call themselves Turks without being accused of being terrorists, yet not the Kurds. In Islam, all Muslims are part of the Ummat or community, but no one can be a Kurd; instead, every one is a Muslim. Other questions need to be asked. Who is to blame for Turkey’s troubled relationship with the Kurdish people? Is it Ataturk’s policy of secularism, or is it the Muslims who are to blame? Are both guilty?

Religion is what people ought to do as a result of existence, nature, and the will of God. Can the relationship between politics and religion have legitimacy? Turkish political Islam is only minimally democratic; therefore it does not accommodate the reality of the Kurd. The idea of nationalism uses and abuses religious themes. It is true that the majority of Kurds are Muslim, and they are not ashamed of that; however, they should be proud to be who they are. Does realism still exist in Turkey? When will Kemalism go away like other regimes did? What will replace Kemalism? Is it Islam? Or is democracy a bus to Islam as President Gul once said? Even Ataturk himself did not publicly express to the Turks how he would execute his plan until he gained power to implement his vision and pillars. Ataturk and his followers held the view that religion is not compatible with modern science but that Kemalism is compatible with modernity. He and his followers started to execute their plan step by step, much like today the Muslims also incrementally implement their ideology into the political system in Turkey. Thus, Kemal introduced the Kemalist ideology by the top down approach; however, today Muslims use the bottom up approach to bring widespread recognition to their ideology because the bottom up approach gives space for religion in the public sphere. Today Fethullah Gulen represents the bottom up approach using the writings of Said Nursi, a Kurd, and bringing about a social transformation in Turkey. He has recruited millions of followers, transforming their minds and making them understand this popular approach. Gulen’s movement may be the product of Saidi Kurdi; however, he believes that only Turks can truly represent Islam, so, therefore, he is using Turkish nationalism with a pan-Turkish mentality. He believes that Turks must be economically independent. His plan to solve the Kurdish problem is to indoctrinate them and brainwash them into Islam, so they will consider their religion above their ethnic identity. However many Kurds are Muslims and cannot understand why Kurds cannot Muslims as well as Kurds. Also Gulen’s followers do not mention much about Said Kurdi or do not clearly discuss Said Kurdi’s biography. Said Kurdi himself did not accept Ataturk ‘s reforms and rejected Ataturk as part of his own reform. To bring about his Pan-Turkish Islam, Gulen did not have his followers just read or pray five times a day; he wanted action and practice of his principles, so he created institutions and schools, incrementally spreading them over the nation, so that now he has taken over the government in Turkey though his followers Erdogen and Gul. He used Said Nursi ‘s books when they were declared illegal in Turkey, but now the government celebrates those same readings and the ideology underpinning them. Does Kemalism still exist in Turkey or Islam? Can two diametrically opposed ideologies coexist?

Gülen’s new decree for the Kurdish problem in Southeastern Turkey: Steal the mind, leave the body

KurdishMedia.com 06/01/2008 - By Aland Mizell

Recently the Turkish based Zaman newspaper reported that Fethullah Gulen had filled planes with Turkey’s top businessmen and flown them to southeastern Turkey so they could go door to door to distribute meat and other foods to the poor in key cities. What is the impetus for this generosity? How could an Islamic scholar command such obedience and power? There is an African proverb that says whoever controls the mind controls the seat of power because the mind is the emperor of the body. An individual does not form a dictatorship in order to guarantee revolution; instead this activist makes a revolution to create a dictatorship. Today, Fethullah Gulen, founder of an Islamic educational movement and spiritual leader of tens of thousands of devotees around the world, has made a social revolution in Turkey. He is now one of the most influential people in Turkey. His followers will act upon whatever he says, doing what he wills. Most of his followers almost worship him. Some of them even dream about him, because they believe that if you have a dream about him, you are dreaming about Muhammad. Most of them believe that Gulen is the Mehdi or the century’s holy man, doing extraordinary things and predicting the future. Is it really true? Can Gulen predict the future? Why did Gulen not do anything for three decades to stop the bloodshed and violence in Southeastern Turkey that has taken more than 30,0000 lives, mostly Kurds, left millions of Kurds homeless, and destroyed the crops? Or does Gulen have good sources of information within the government? According to one of his closest confidents, Hussein Gulerce, Gulen’s empire is “a movement of love that unites people around the world by universal values for new human revival and establishes peace instead of conflict; it builds bridges and isles of peace and breaks the waters both at home and in the world at large, so wherever there is fire, the warriors in an army of love immediately run to the spot as spiritual firemen” (Huseyin Gulerce, Today Zaman, 11/29/07).

Today southeastern Turkey is in flames; the Kurdish people one more time are being labeled as terrorists. What kind of bridge of love and isles of peace is Gulen building in southeastern Turkey? Did Gulen ever dare to stand up against the unjust military presence involved in burning houses, kidnapping Kurds, raping women, and depriving everyone of the most important right of speaking their own language? Did he ever mention in public that the Turkish government is wrong and that Erdogen’s policy is oppressive? Mr. Gulerce argues that Gulen knew this danger decades ago and that is why Gulen opened schools in the region. So the question is, “How did Gulen help the Kurdish people by opening schools?” Yes, it is true that Gulen indoctrinates thousands of poor but very smart Kurds to deny their existence as a Kurd by not saying, “I am Kurd,” but instead teaches them to say, “I am Turk” Assimilating them so that they leave their identity behind is like stealing their mind but leaving their body, capturing their souls but leaving them only their empty wicker cage after the bird has gone. Can a body function without a mind? Gulen’s education system is doing just that by indoctrinating young Kurdish minds in southeastern Turkey but never speaking up against oppression and unjust treatment of Kurds. Why does Gulen now see the importance of winning the hearts and minds of Kurds by his tactic of distributing meat and sending businessmen to the region? It is because Gulen saw that danger is coming and that Kurds are wakening up from the drug of religion, no longer believing all the lies and deceptions but rather speaking up for justice and the right treatment of Kurds. Also, Gulen saw that the Kurds are gaining power on the ground that they did not have twenty years ago. Today there are more than fifty-two Kurdish mayors and municipal leaders who would speak without any fear against the government policies. Twenty years ago, there were no mayors, such as Osman Baydemir, who would speak against the government’s wrong policies and would dare to tour Europe and U.S. to allow for the voice of Kurds to be heard. Gulen’s biggest fear is losing power over minds, and that is why his Zaman followers and media defame the Kurdish people’s character. That is why he advised those with such wealth to go to southeastern Turkey to spend the Feast of Sacrifice Eid there to distribute the meat of sacrificed animals to poor Kurdish people by going to door to door. Gulen gave a new decree and a new kind of mobilization to assimilate Kurds and to steal their minds by injecting religious ideology and by causing them to sell their birthright.

Gulen believes that if Turkey does not solve the southeast’s social and economic problems, then the Kurdish people there will look somewhere else for answers like the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Northern Iraq. Therefore, he posits that if the government stops unemployment as part of the Kurdish problem, then the Kurds will not look toward other places. Especially now that there is tension between the Kurds and the Turks because many Turks see Kurds as terrorists and killers, Gulen has tried to be the good guy and give a decree to let his followers spend the Eid with Kurdish people in southeastern Turkey. For many years Turkey tried to solve the Kurdish problems in two ways: (1) by military force and (2) by religion. The Turkish military has been striking the Kurdistan Worker Party camps in Northern Iraq for weeks and thereby violating the territorial integrity of Southern Kurdistan in Iraq. As the media, government, and military report, the military operations are very successful and will root out the PKK this time. The Turkish military has conducted the same operations in the past, but they did not change anything. Why should it make a difference this time? In other words, what makes this operation different from other operations in the past? Many argue that for many years the government did not want to solve the PKK problem, because if the military did so, then there would be no reason for the military’s presence. Thus, the military benefits from the situation there. The Turkish government believes that this time the world is behind them, especially that the United States and Israel will help Turkey to eradicate the Kurdish problem. This is a false hope; as long as the Kurds in Turkey are socially, economically and culturally not free, the Kurdish questions will not be solved, and as a corollary, the U.S. and Israel will use the Kurdish card for a long term for their national interest. No one is certain that these military operations will bring solutions to the Kurdish question. It is a fact that the Kurdish question never will be solved with military operations, as many Turks recognize. As long as military operations continue, the Kurdish problem will remain unresolved because now Turkey is trying to solve the Kurdish problem by labeling it a terrorist issue and always blaming the Kurds for all the problems, but never realizing the Turkish government has carried out the wrong policy toward Kurds. As we recently witnessed, some Turkish government officials, including retired generals, former presidents, and the leader of the 1980 coup, Kenan Evren; former Chief of General Staff, Hilmi Ozkok; and others admitted that they used the wrong method and policy to solve the Kurdish problem. They admitted that the wrong policy in the region caused the issue to deteriorate and indeed that three decades of the presence of the military in the region has only exacerbated the violence and hatred. As long as Turks do not accept the Kurdish people as a unique culture and people of the region cannot speak their language and exercise their culture without being labeled a terrorist or traitor, the problem will remain and be unsolved. The Turkish government must have a program for integration and policies that will remove stereotypes of the Kurdish people.

The second way used to tackle the Kurdish question is religion and ideology, which has been very effective for many decades. If today, many Kurds do not associate themselves with violence, terrorist activities, or any kind of prejudice, it is because Islam strongly rejects racism, prejudices, and superiority. However, some Islamic sects like Gulen’s use religion as the proverbial opium for the masses to oppress the Kurdish people. His rhetoric claims that Islam does not sanction an inferior or a superior status. In Islam, an individual is deemed superior only if he is close to God. The Qur’an states that God created all nations and tribes, and therefore no individuals or nations are to be favored because of their wealth, power, or race, but only because of their faith and piety (Qur’an 49:13). Therefore, only infidels are inferior, but Gulen goes further alleging that Islam can be best represented only by the Turks, thus claiming the superiority of the Turks. The Kurd will be chastised for establishing his identity in terms of his ethnicity and be challenged to think of himself as a Muslim only, united with his Islamic brotherhood, as the Qur’an requires. If he claims a shared allegiance to his ethnic heritage, he will be charged with being prejudiced and reminded of his brotherhood; thus Gulen tanquilizes his followers into submission. Kurds will be oppressed while the religious demagogies keep silent with the same tactics. When it comes to the Kurdish question, the world will note that illiteracy, the mortality rate, and unemployment are high. Many Kurds are living with their cattle in the winter because they cannot afford to buy enough coal or wood to provide heat for their children during the freezing winter.

These advocates of homogeneity and opponents of racism tried to turn attention to their Muslim brotherhood by obliterating Kurdishness. Now they have launched a campaign against giant Kurdish politicians and have tried to show that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the true represent of the Kurdish people, not the DTP [pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party in Turkey] members. Gulen never cared about the Kurdish problem, and for three decades he never talked about the Kurdish suffering and the barriers that prevent Kurds from enjoying social, economic and political freedom. Why is Gulen now nervous and very excited about helping the suffering Kurdish people? Kurds have suffered for thirty years. Why did his followers not do these kinds of charity back then? The exigency today is that Gulen believes that DTP Kurdish party is getting stronger and that the Kuridsh politicians are now more outspoken about their problem. The second reason is that Gulen is disturbed by Northern Kurdistan’s development, and Kurds are building schools, banks, and roads and thereby getting prosperous. Gulen does not want to lose power. Despite all the media’s enmity, the government’s harsh policies, and the ten percent threshold for elections, significantly, the Kurdish people have sent more than twenty Kurds to Parliament to be their voice. It is true that Gulen does have a depth of knowledge about Islam but also that he uses it to his advantage. When the question of the Kurds comes on the table, Fethullah Gülen sends a mixed message. He tries to assimilate Kurds by emphasizing the Ottoman ideology in his schools, causing many Kurds to see themselves as Osmanli Turks rather than as Kurdish. Mr. Gülen privileges Turkish identity over Islamic religion. Gülen Turkifies Islam in a nationalistic homogeneity as an opium.

Aland Mizell is with the University of Texas at Dallas School of Social Science. President of MCI, Adm026000@utdallas.edu

Comments on this article and contributions to KurdishMedia.com can be sent to: km@ikurd.com

"Erdogan’s AKP, Fethullah Gülen’s opium, and the Kurdish Question"

KurdishMedia.com - 15 March 2005 / by Aland Mizell

Recently in a Wall Street Journal article, senior journalist Robert L. Pollock emphasized an important point regarding Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s religious Muslim party and its basic view of the West. Erdogan cultivated a view of the West that polarized Turkey and non-Islamic nations as well as those that supported Kurdish autonomy.

According to Pollock, during the 2002 elections, the relationship with America changed, “The mainstream parties that had championed Turkish-American ties self-destructed, leaving a vacuum,” that was filled by “the subtle yet insidious Islamism of the Justice and Development (AK) Party” (2005). In his view, under Erdogan’s current policies Turkey is again becoming “the sick man of Europe” rather than a model of a democratic, secular government. Its most telling symptom is its abandonment of a friendship with the United States in favor of decidedly “an extreme combination of America and Jew-hatred” (Pollack 2005).

Erdogan deeply desires Turkey to maintain its territorial integrity and the Kurds to assimilate and thereby to avoid independence. To accomplish this end, Erdogan has befriended the once distanced Syria and Iran, adopted an anti-Israeli stance, and shunned the once friendly America. By collaborating with potential allies of the Kurds, Erdogan can prevent Kurds from gaining financial dominance through the oil and water resources. Influenced by the ideology and strategies of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic scholar with a global network of excellent schools who uses religion as the opium for the masses, Erdogan continues the policies of subjugating the Kurds. Gülen addicts them to his Turkish [fundamentalist] Islam to keep them silent and then uses this opiate of ideology to keep them following him as the mehdi or century’s holy man. Similarly, Erdogan drugs the citizenry with his opium of symbolic democratic initiatives while radically advancing Islamism in Turkey through his domestic and foreign policy.

In 2000, Claude Lorieux described the battle for Turkey in the French newspaper Le Figaro, under the subtitle “The Army of Ankara against Islamists,” indicating that secularists fought against fundamentalists who interfered with justice, as in the case of Fethullah Gülen (Lorieux 2002). Charged with conspiring to overthrow the secular state, Gülen had for years trained his students, at least those of Turkish, not Kurdish lineage, to gain control of the key positions in the government and in other institutions.

?ric Biegala noted in the same newspaper in 2002, that the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi) is moving closer to fundamentalism, the government has acquiesced to the demands of Islamists who are abolishing Ataturk’s principles of secularism, and the schools of Fethullah Gülen are windows into modern Turkey with their Islamization of the youth and preparation for leaders (Biegala 2002). While petitioning for accession into the European Union (EU), a "re-Islamized Turkey," Biegala claims, will bring about an "unforgettable gullibility" for the EU in a continent with a reputation for Fascism and Nazism. Advocating a secular Turkey with, for example, freedom of clothing as in the European universities, and a respect for human rights, the newspaper denounced an Islam that would come to power under the mask of democracy while violating human rights, as readers would surely think of in the case of the Kurds. A probing of Erdogan‘s influential cadre, most of them affiliated with Fethullah Gülen’s movement, would reveal the mastermind behind the Prime Minister’s thinking and his mentor’s masterwork.

Fethullah, a shrewd leader, does not directly affiliate himself with politics but instead shapes policies behind the scenes and counsels his followers behind closed doors about ways to implement his directives. This is not the first time Fethullah Gülen has influenced politicians. For example, the former president of Turkey Turgut Ozal was also one of his followers, but not until Ozal’s death did any one know that he had studied under Gülen’s ideology. During his administration, the military discharged many of Fethullah’s students. Gülen wanted Ozal to prevent these dismissals, but Ozal could not do more at that time because of the military’s power.

In 1993, Fethullah Gülen sent Ozal to Central Asia to legitimize his movement there, particularly when, for example, Islam Karimov was becoming apprehensive of fundamentalists. On his trip to Central Asia, he spent most of his time in Gülen’s schools, and after his return to Turkey the president passed away, when it was revealed that he was a sakird or student of the Qur’an. Gülen ordered his supporters to participate in a mass ceremony for Ozal to demonstrate that a Muslim leader was beloved by his fellow countrymen. Thus, his custom of secretly infiltrating high levels of the government and the military with his students is long-standing.

During the soft coup in 1980, Fethullah distanced himself from the National Salvation Party’s leader Necmedin Erbakan. After its disintegration, Erbakan, however, followed with the Welfare Party and as its leader was elected Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister in 1995. Fearing that the party was engaging in fundamentalist activity and thereby violating the Constitutions secular principles, the Constitutional Court banned the Welfare Party. In 1999 the reincarnated Virtue Party gained twenty percent of the seats in Parliament. At that time Erdogan was Erbakan’s right hand, but Fethullah ordered his followers to vote for leftists and rightist to balance both groups. In so doing he wanted the leftist party to protect him from being accused of being a fundamentalist and of having a secret agenda to overthrow the secular government. In 1999, as a member of the pro-religious Virtue Party (FP), however, Erdogan was charged with "openly inciting public enmity and hatred by pointing out racial and social differences" and sentenced to a ten-month prison term for quoting a poem, "The mosques are our barracks, the minarets our bayonets, the domes our helmets and the believers our soldiers."

So, the question that scholars should ask Fethullah is that if Erdogan did not have even a party when he -- the former mayor of Istanbul -- was released from prison, how did he so quickly become Prime Minister? The answer lies in Fethullah’s power to direct his followers to vote for Erdogan and thereby make him the majority party and in such a manner as to become a noteworthy comparison to Ozal’s party — the Fethullahci.

At a briefing in 1999, a high level official in the Turkish government told Prime Minister Ecevit that “Gülen’s followers will try to get control of the state,” explaining, “Fethullah Gulen tries to be recognized officially with his ‘goodwill’ contacts to high rank politicians. Gülen’s aim is to bring an alternative to the secular system.” (Briefing 1999). Ecevit refused to accept the warning. Today Erdogan’s clandestine strategies mimic his mentor’s goal to establish a neo-Ottoman Turkey with the aid of Islamic neighbors.

[Said Nursi]
When Gülen’s name is mentioned, the first thing that comes to the mind of his students is Said Nursi, known by the Kurds known as Saidi Keri. But Said Nursi is a vehicle used to recruit Muslim people to his community, his cemaat. His leaders use Said Nursi as a mask. First his students read and study the Risale-i-Nur, Said Nursi’s books, but then little by little they introduce the students to Fethullah Gülen, an idol replacing Said Nursi in reverence and in commitment to his writings. It is true that Mr. Gülen does have a depth of knowledge about Islam but also that he uses it to his advantage. When the question of the Kurds comes on the table, Fethullah Gülen sends a mixed message. He uses religion as opium for the masses to oppress the Kurdish people. His rhetoric claims Islam does not sanction an inferior or a superior status. An individual is deemed superior only if he is close to God. It is true that the Qur’an says that God created all nations and tribes, and therefore no individuals or nations are to be favored because of their wealth, power, or race, but only because of their faith and piety (Qur’an 49:13).

By this criterion, only infidels are inferior. Muhammad said, “An Arab is not better than a non-Arab and a non-Arab is not better than an Arab, and a red (i.e. white tinged with red) person is not better than a black person and a black person is not better than a red person, except in piety.” Writing in an article entitled “A Comparative Approach Islam and Democracy, Gülen pronounces, “The Prophet says that all people are as equal as the teeth of a comb. Islam does not discriminate based on race, color, age, nationality, or physical traits. The Prophet declared: ‘You are all from Adam, and Adam is from earth. O servants of God, be brothers [and sisters].’ Those who are born earlier, have more wealth and power than others, or belong to certain families or ethnic groups have no inherent right to rule others” (Gülen 2001). However, Fethullah goes further to claim that Islam can be best represented only by the Turks, thus claiming the superiority of the Turks. When a Kurd says, “I am a Kurd and a Muslim,” then it seems he is insulting his hearer. The Kurd will be chastised for establishing his identity in terms of his ethnicity and be challenged to think of himself as a Muslim only, united with his Islamic brotherhood as the Qur’an requires. If he claims a shared allegiance to his ethnic heritage, he will be asked, “Why are you prejudiced?” and be told, “We are all brothers,” a tranquilizer numbing his followers into submission. Yet, this same examiner will never stand for the rights of this “brother.” Instead, as always, Kurds will be oppressed while the religious demagogies keep silent with the same tactics. When it comes to the Kurdish question, when it comes to many questions about the Kurds, the examiner will note that they are caught in the fire and continue to burn — illiteracy is high, the mortality rate is high, and unemployment is high. Many Kurds are living with their cattle in the winter because they cannot afford to buy enough coal or wood to provide heat for their children during the freezing winter. When the military served as the major police force in that impoverished region, they raped many Kurdish women and killed children and older people as well. These advocates of homogeneity and opponents of racism tried to turn attention to their Muslim brotherhood, pointing to the injustice in Chechnya, Bosnia, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Algeria.

When in early 1990 the Soviet tanks stormed Azerbaijanis in Baku, Fethullah cried and was hospitalized because of his heartache. But when Turkish gendarmes burned more than 5000 thousands villages and imprisoned many Kurds who happened to be at the wrong place under the terrorist campaign, he shed no tears. How many people are still missing? How many mothers have not heard from their sons? Nobody knows their fate. Why did Gülen never become hospitalized for his Kurdish Muslim brothers? The sad thing is that many young Kurds, students, and businessmen accept this opium and become addicted to it. His followers claim that they do God’s will and that God requires them to give to their Muslim brother, and indeed the Qur’an advocates these principles. Does God, however, forbid speaking the Kurdish language and enjoying the culture? Is God on Turkey’s side? God’s requirement can be a sin if it is based on this wrong assumption. Fethullah cried when Bosnia’s Muslims were slaughtered by Serbian butchers, yet when a twelve-year old Kurdish boy was slaughtered by a Turkish death squad, was Fethullah hospitalized? Did he get heartaches for those cruel bullets that killed Ugur? No, he did not because this twelve-year old Ugur Kaymaz was deemed a terrorist, according to their Turkish nationalistic definition. How can the Greek Orthodox devotees open Gülen’s schools in Cyprus, but Kurds cannot have their own education? Why did Gülen open thousands of schools abroad to teach the native language and Turkish, while the Kurds could not learn their language in his and their own country? More than thirty million Kurds demand their minority rights because even though they may live in Turkey, they are not of Turkish origin.

Gülen tries to assimilate Kurds by emphasizing the Ottoman ideology in his school, causing many Kurds to see themselves as Osmanli rather than as Selahattin Kurdi. Many Muslims know Saladin as an Islamic hero for having recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Saladin was Kurdish by heritage, and during most of his career he used primarily Kurdish officials as his closest partners, but he is renowned for being Islamic.

Today Christians have begun to translate the Bible into the Kurdish language to ensure that those who want to explore its message can understand the principles. To teach them, these followers of Jesus continue to respect the Kurd’s culture and identity without humiliating them or denying their language. By contrast, Mr. Gülen privileges Turkish identity over Islamic religion. Gülen Turkifies Islam in a nationalistic homogeneity.

His support of the Grey Wolves, a fascist-leaning utlra-nationalist organization in Turkey dating back to the 1960s, demonstrates the degree of his nationalism. As an unofficial branch of The Milliyetci Hareket Partisi (MHP) that argued for a military solution to the Kurdish problem, The Grey Wolves, mostly drawn from Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization’s (MIT) secret service, killed hundreds of Kurds. Despite their militant approach to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) insurgency and to their opposition to Turkey’s granting any concessions to the Kurds, Fethullah attended the funeral of the leader Alparslan Turkes demonstrating support for the Kurdish opposition. Very telling, however, is Gülen’s slogan—and his goal—derived from the MHP banner: "One Turkish world, from the Adriatic Sea until the Chinese Wall," a motto constantly used by the government’s parties and other parties in conformity with the system to establish a greater Turkish Muslim world and to oppress the Kurdish people. With a Turkish nationalism called Turanism, the Grey Wolves’ ideology does not allow any national or personal rights to the Kurds, Armenians, Laz, Arabs, or Syrians in Turkey.

While neither Erdogan nor Gülen claims membership, they share the goal of expansionism of Turkish ideology at the expense of all others, and in the case of the later two, it is that of fundamentalist Islam. This approach of ignoring the rights of ethnic minorities is wrong. Now, thanks to the United States and to President Bush’s administration, Saddam Hussein, arguably one of the world’s most evil people, is imprisoned, and the Kurds are freed from his wrath. Mr. Gülen is sad that Saddam has been removed, but the Kurds are free and will no longer be assimilated because they are studying and trying to rediscover their identity.

Since the collapse of the Baathist regime, Mr. Gülen and his media conglomerate are advocating the rights of 300 or 400 thousand Turkmen in Northern Iraq. In what forum was he voicing protest against the treatment of the Turkmen before Saddam was removed? Did the Turkmen not live there for a long time under the Saddam’s regime? Now he publishes articles on his web page accusing the United States of doing wrong in removing Saddam from his dictatorship? He fears that the Kurds will have access to oil and water resources and consequently will have power in the region, the great fear of the AKP and of Fethullah; as a result, the Kurds will refuse the systematic ideology, the opium.

It is critical to compare the strategies of Gülen with that of his protégée Erdogan in tracking Turkey’s shift in foreign policy and in recognizing the opium effect of using religion to advance his agenda. In reading about Erdogan’s reforms, a casual observer would note a reinforcement of secularism and an effort to modernize Turkey as it allies itself, at least on the surface, with the European Union, but a careful scholar would discover a concerted effort to return Turkey to what a few journalists have astutely recognized as a neo-Ottomanism (Rubin, “Is Turkey” 2004).

From a carefully forged relationship with Israel under Ozal to a reinvented foreign policy of calling Israel a terrorist state, Erdogan has dramatically altered the Turkish-Sinai alliance. He has crafted Syrian and Iranian collaboration with Turkey in agendas to disempower the Kurds, while stiff-arming the U.S. Coming into power with the victory of the AKP in 2002, Erdogan spoke of a secular agenda, yet three years later his policies signal a move toward Gülen’s brand of Islamic fundamentalism.

Writing in the Middle East Quarterly, Michael Rubin explains the AKP’s rise to power in Turkey and its consequential initiation of Islamic referendums, “Erdogan has taken a slower, steadier path, careful not to rock the establishment too quickly while at the same time floating an occasional trial balloon for social reforms to advance the Islamist agenda” (Rubin “Green Money” 2005). He tirelessly works for Turkey’s accession into the European Union (EU), in part to reduce the role of the military in governmental affairs as the EU commission has required and further to dissolve its co-dependency on America as it rebuilds an Islamic world. Violating a ban, his wife and daughter wear scarves at public events, a seemingly insignificant gesture but one signaling his intentions. To gain widespread support for his ideological policies, many of his cosmetic policies address issues that his constituents favor. Incurring popularity ensures an advancement of his goals; winning the favor of the public through decidedly visible reforms masks initiatives invisibly Islamic.

Rubin attributes the rise of the AKP to the reforms such as free textbooks and consumer goods tax relieves but finds the economic Islamic boom alarming, “More troubling yet is the pattern of tying Turkish domestic and foreign policy to an influx of what is called Yesil Sermaye, ‘green money,’ from wealthy Islamist businessmen and Middle Eastern states” (Rubin, “Green Money” 2005). In his view, Abdullah Gül’s background in fiscal affairs in Saudi Arabia prepares Gül for the unannounced goal of constructing an Islamic financial system. “The Islamic banks—and especially those sponsored by Saudi Arabia—regularly channel money to Islamist enterprises. On November 9, 2004, Deniz Baykal, leader of the parliamentary opposition Republican People’s Party, accused the AKP of trying to create a religious-based economy” (Rubin, “Green Money” 2005).

Erdogan’s rapidly accumulated billion dollar wealth goes to subsidize the Islamization of Turkey first and other nations second, through such conglomerates as Ulker and holding companies as Koc Holding. Rubin explains the source of income in spite of the secrecy, “Circumstantial evidence may mean that the AKP has a significant source of green money, but economic interests have resulted in an official wall of silence.” In his view, money from such Islamic countries as Malaysia and Saudi Arabia has fueled the $5 billion dollar growth in the economy since the AKP gained power. What is obvious is that Erdo?an’s power is gaining as that of the Turkish General Staff is waning.

Rubin concludes that the AKP’s increase in power through popular reforms, media control such as that of the Dogan group, and the reduction of alternate authority such as that of the military will change the secular Turkish government that renders hope for minority groups, [such as the rights of the Kurds.], "The AKP is like a cancer. You feel fine, but then one day you start coughing blood. By the time you realize there’s a problem, it’s too far-gone." In advancing the fundamentalist agenda of a neo-Turkish Islam, Erdogan systematically and secretly undermines the Kurdish gains through globalization and EU requirements.

Having been unified as democracies against the threat of militants-sheltering Iran and Syria, Turkey and Israel no longer enjoy a strong diplomatic relationship but have taken on an almost adversarial one (Bar’el 2005). Erdogan attacked Israel for its “state terrorism” after the assassination of the founding Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in a helicopter strike. Subsequently Turkey’s Prime Minister condemned vigorously Israel’s tactics, comparing them to those used in the Spanish Inquisition in a meeting with Israeli Minister of Infrastructure. He repeated the charge against Sharon’s government calling it a “terrorist state” after Israel raided the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and closed the Palestinian tunnels used to smuggle weapons. As further evidence of this unraveling of Turkish-Israeli diplomacy, Erdogan failed to meet with the visiting Israeli deputy Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, when he came to Istanbul in 2004 (Stahl 2004).

Alon Liel, former Israeli Charges d’Affairs to Turkey in 1992, said that for the first time that Turkey is linking its bilateral relations with Israel to Israeli-Palestinian relations (CNS 2004). Erdogan’s trilateral relations with Syria and Iran hinge on ties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but more immediately, to Turkey’s domestic “question”— its rapport with the Kurds.
In terms of Erdogan’s political policies, the Kurdish card figures significantly, as a consequence of his affiliation with and influence under Fethullah Gülen. In strengthening trilateral relations with Iran and Syria against Israel in order to build a pan-Islamic coalition against the Kurds, Erdogan has forged new agreements with his neighboring dictatorial regimes and taken an anti-Israeli stance. For example, using the commonality of a fear of Kurdish rebels, Prime Minister Erdogan recently visited Iran to convince the government to list Turkish Kurdish fighters as terrorists and to cooperate in fighting the former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), insurgents reinvigorated as the Kongra-Gel (“Erdogan” 2004).

Setting aside formerly strained relations, Erdogan shared with Iran the concern that the Iraqi Kurds’ move toward autonomy might ignite neighboring Kurds in Turkey and Iran, a worry that caused the Iranian security forces to crackdown on dissidents hiding along the Turkish-Iranian border. Erdogan, thus, has shifted from accusing Iran of sheltering Kurdish dissidents to signing one security initiative and three financial agreements with his neighbor. Yet while Iran may have decreased its support for and pledged retributions against the PKK, the Iranian security machinery continues to sponsor terrorism directed toward Turkey.

After the visit of President Bashar al-Assad, the first Syrian head of state to tap into their shared Muslim brotherhood, Erdogan exchanged visits in a "new era" of Turkish-Syrian bilateral accord. Ankara and Damascus are both apprehensive about the Iraqi Kurds’ aspirations for self-rule. If an Iraqi federation leads to Kurdish autonomy, Syria and Turkey fear the destabilization of their minority populations. Formerly antagonistic because Turkey accused Syria of sheltering Kurdish separatists, Syria in 2003 signed a security agreement with Turkey to stop supporting the PKK, with other security measures that included extraditing terrorists charged in Turkey, as well as economic agreements. Erdogan set aside the issues of water from the Euphrates and the dual claim of the Hatay province to achieve his ends of using the Kurdish card to strengthen Turkish Islam.

Erdogan wants to continue Turkey’s bent toward nationalism and its inclination toward seeing minorities as Turks as a means of ushering in a new strain of Turkish Islam. To achieve his goal, he has negotiated with Iran and Syria, to ensure that the Kurds do not accrue financial and educational power and thereby jockey into a position of creating an autonomous state (Gulerce 2005). Further he has denounced Israel and America in favor of a symbiotic relationship with Europe. Like his mentor Fethullah Gulen, Erdogan has tantalized the Turkish public with the opiate of democratic initiatives until they have become addicted to his popular reforms and are too drugged to notice his return of Turkey to a government ruled by fundamentalist ideology and its misuse to suppress the "mountain Turks.”

The Rise of a New Ottoman Empire: The Trap of Interfaith Dialogue

Kurdishaspect.com - By Aland Mizell

Will Prime Minister Erdogan Give a Christmas Party with His Parliament?

After the collapse of the communism, Fethullah Gülen, the spiritual leader of the Nur movement in Turkey, ordered his group to immigrate to the newly independent Central Asian countries. Gülen compared his followers to being today’s “sahaba,” the term referring to the journey from Mecca to Medina called the Hegira in the year 622, a journey that also marked the foundation of the Islamic State. After that relocation, Muhammad set up an Islamic State and instated his rules, for example forbidding usury and gambling. He implemented his own legal rules and system of government after gaining economic and military power and then conquered his birth place, Mecca, the center of a new religion. Until then Muhammad ordered his follower to cooperate with the Jews, never confronting them because he knew that the Jews were more powerful than his followers at that time. During that time Muslims even faced Jerusalem for prayers; however, after Muhammad’s followers conquered Mecca, they began facing Mecca. For both Muhammad and Gülen building a new Muslim community was a precursor to the Islamic state, and both men merged their religious views with the political goal of following the law of the Qur’an and not “natural” or human law in the Islamic state.

In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union gave Gülen an opportunity to gain a base among the Turkic states that desperately needed social, economic, and religious help. Also, Gülen wanted to counter Iran’s Shia religion in Central Asia, to make an economic investment, and to build a bridge between the Turkic states and Turkey.

Hwever, after 9/11 Gülen saw another opportunity to expand his empire beyond the ocean to convert the infidels to Islam and to set up his dream Ottoman Empire, bringing it back again. Tauted for his claim to establish ecumentical peace, he sponsors Interfaith Dialogue, non-government organizations (NGO’s), schools, cultural centers, conferences, his own newspaper, civic and cultural events, among many other strategies, using them as a platform that promotes his ultraconservative Islmaic agenda in the U.S. However, 9/11 helped Gülen in a tremendous way to teach about Islam because suddenly the words “peace” and “tolerance” were in vogue and popular. Many Americans naively do not recognize the fact that as well as being a religion, Islam is a political, social, and economic system that rules all aspects of life. Today Gülen believes that since the Ottoman Empire ruled the world for many centuries with peace, he wants to bring it back again. By creating big lobbies, Gülen moves toward his ultimate goal of dictating American and Western social, political, and economic policies. He has recruited thousands of teachers and millions of students while raising billions of dollars in economic support.

Further, Gülen and his followers know how to manipulate the American democratic laws for their advantage. He believes that the best way to defeat the enemy is to use the enemy’s weapon against the enemy. Today the enemy’s weapon is democratic rule of law. They are taking advantage of it using it against America and foresee a time when, like many Muslims in Europe, they can demand Islamic laws and regulations be operative in the U.S. For example, already some communities in the America. have pressured cities to change their noise ordinances to allow for prayer calls. Interestingly, in his own country he was jailed for seven months and then banned from Turkey in the 1980’s for secretly teaching Islam to students. Then again in 1998 the Supreme Court charged him with undermining the secular Turkish state and seeking to establish an Islamic one. Consequently, he left Turkey for the United States supposedly for health care, but remains there today, operating his worldwide organization.
9-11 became a world-wide wake-up call. While the media focuses on Ahmedinejad or Osama Bin Ladin, and the radical Al Qaeda movement, a more deadly movement operates behind closed doors to secretly infiltrate the highest government positions in many countries, including the United States of America. The goal is to establish a single Islamic regime. As an example of this outward gesture with a secret agenda, Gülen gave an Iftar, the meal celebrating the culmination of the Ramadan season, on Capital Hill under the platform of tolerance and peace. Even they invited Hollywood actors and actresses to attend. Will Gülen or his follower Prime Minister Erdogan give a Christmas party at the parliament in Ankara or could he give an Easter dinner at the parliament with parliamentarians supporting this Christian celebration. The answer is a resounding, “No.”

Today many Turks are more anti-American than ever. A thinking person should ask that if Gülen-- an Islamic educator, writer, and founder of the worldwide Nur movement that began in Turkey-- does not have a political agenda, then why did he open so many schools in the world. Why are interfaith dialogues held in the West? Shouldn’t they be held where the root of troubles, oppression, and injustice are? One of the most important characteristics of the American society is to be tolerant toward others and to respect one another. The most crucial pillar of the American Constitution is individual rights, an inalienable right. Any one who has been to America knows that there are mosques, synagogues, temples, churches, and chapels, so every devotee is free to worship as they wish. America is not like Turkey where the individual has limited forums to express freely his true thoughts and concerns because of oppressive regimes and where the Turkish government imprisons the individual in his own conscience, rather than allowing open worship. It is a fact that a Christian, Armenian, Kurds or Jew in Turkey has never been a first class citizen; instead, they certainly suffer discrimination. Still many Christians cannot even build their own church to freely worship, and a few months ago three Christians were tortured and killed by the Turkish nationalists. Yet, Gülen use the Dialogues as a ploy to show the American people that Turks are reconciling with Christians, Jews, Armenians, or Kurds. Shouldn’t interfaith dialogues be held in Turkey, not in the U.S.? Today there are many Christians converting to Islam. How many of them are being killed by Christians because of their conversion? How many of them are being threatened or required to hide their faith to save their life or the lives of their families? However, many Muslims who convert to Christianity still can’t freely or publicly confess their faith because if they do, their lives are in danger. Therefore, interfaith dialogues are urgently needed where the injustice is rampant, not in the U.S. Yet, the American system not only allows these evangelical meetings but also embraces them in its political correctness as an open-minded, tolerant, and even intellectual act. Sadly, the eager American obliviously works with Gülen to accomplish his goal of eradicating openness and tolerance when he has a critical mass in the U.S. and establishes Sharia law.

Furthermore, when Pope Benedict visited Turkey, millions of the Turks did not want him to visit their country, and some 25,000 took to the streets because the Pope quoted Manuel II Paleologus, a Byzantine emperor, in his 1391 passage about the Ottoman Empire before the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans, a statement that he later apologized profusely for quoting. “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached” (“Dialogue Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia). Giving Benedict a cold shoulder, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul—both Gulen’s students-- left to attend a NATO conference during the papal visit, but at the last minute greeted the Pope at the airport before leaving Turkey.
As another indication of it not being the West that needs tolerance and dialogues, last year when 41-year-old Abdul Rahman, a post-Taliban Afghan, converted to Christianity, he barely escaped the death penalty that traditionally Islamic law decrees for apostasy. In considering this penalty, any thinking inquirer must ask, “Is this kind of behavior or attitude an integral component of America or the West or only a historical behavior that goes back to Islam’s pre-modern era?” While it is true that much killing has been done in the name of Christianity, primarily during the Crusades, in modern America that same inquirer would find it difficult to find even one case today. Yet, Interfaith Dialogue has become an increasingly more practiced initiative within the American and Western society, especially after 9/11. Ironically, many Muslims have taken advantage of the tragedy and are being very active. Many will agree that interfaith dialogues have an important role in building peace within a society and in creating a window for everyone to exercise their right to express their faith without any threat. The interesting phenomenon, however, is that interfaith dialogues are happening in the U.S. and in the West but never in the Muslim nations. Again the intelligent inquirer must ask who needs toleration and then the real question of what is the underlying purpose of these initiatives in the U.S.

As mentioned, Gülen’s ultimate aim is to set up a theocratic new Ottoman Empire, as those researching his organization now demonstrate. He runs part of his activities in the open as legal companies, institutions and foundations but others clandestinely under cover. Gülen set up an organization or NGO as a tax free organization funded by the American tax payers to promote his ideology in America. He uses methods such as consultative committees composed of his followers, continent Imams (North America), country Imams (the U.S), state Imams (for example, Pennsylvania, the headquarters), and finally city imams (Washington, D.C.). Covering the country like a web with these companies, schools, cultural centers, interfaith institutions, public and private organizations, and universities, his organization is structured hierarchically like the armed forces. For his fundamental clandestine activity, Fethullah’s group picks the bright students from poor families, takes them into its isik eviler, meaning house of light, with 5-6 inmates and educates them as well as trains them as Nurcu militants. Each house and classroom comes under the regional imam, who supervises the work of the house imam, usually the oldest and most senior in maturity. Today Gülen sends thousands of Turkish students abroad, mostly to the U.S. and West for post graduate studies. Most of them have scholarships, and once they come to the U.S., he urges them to marry American citizens, so they can stay in the country. However, when you ask Gülen missionaries about this work, none of them will tell you the truth, or they will admit that they are spreading Islam, but Gülen has instructed them not to tell the truth as part of their training on secrecy. He teaches his followers to know the truth but not to tell the truth, having them memorize Said Nursi’s principle: “It is your obligation to know the truth, but it is not good for you to tell the truth every time, everywhere, or everything that you do.” As part of his secrecy and caution, Gülen teaches his students to lie because Islam legitimizes lying for certain reasons. If you are at war, Islam permits you to lie to defeat the enemy, so he believes that since they are at war with non-Muslims, until they defeat the enemies, they should not reveal their secrets and can even lie. If this clandestine global ideology for ruling the world became known, it would be alarming to all citizens, because infiltration becomes more dangerous than invasion since it goes undetected until it is too late.

Gülen’s movement began in a small Turkish town in the 1950’s with about a dozen students but has expanded into a present-day estimate of over 10 millions followers and in more than fifty-five countries, including the rapidly growing initiative in the United States. Gülen presents himself as a representative of peace through education, and yet under his modernist robe he is a devout Turkic Islamist. His charisma entices young intellectuals into his inner circle where they are indoctrinated with his philosophy in numerous countries with the purpose of advancing the goal of establishing a worldwide Islamic state and eradicating secular governance.

An abbreviated rubric indicates a few ways that Muslim missionaries are using NGOs as a platform as well as the American taxpayer’s money to convert people to Islam and secretly to gain the power bring the theocracy system of government.

Rubric for Interfaith Dialogue Trap in the U.S.
1999
Rumi Foundations Established to target academia
Working with many distinguished universities and professors all over North America like Seyyed H. Nasr of George Washington, Sydney Griffith of CAU, Esposito of Georgetown, Maria Dakake of GMU.” Gülen is the honorary president.
http://www.rumiforum.org/activities/activities.php
April 19-20, 2005
John Hopkins University: The School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and Turkey's Journalists and Writers Foundation
"Islam, Secularism and Democracy: The Turkish Experience”. Guild establish by Gülen; Ongoing discussion
http://www.sais-jhu.edu/mediastream/videoOndemand/turkish_041904.html
November. 12-13, 2005
The Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious
Tolerance at Rice University and A. D. Bruce Religion Center University of Houston
Conference on “Islam in the Contemporary World: The Fethullah Gülen Movement in
Thought and Practice.”
http://www.fethullahgulenconference.org/
Niagara Foundation's International Symposium "The Chicago Interfaith Gathering
towards Interreligious Dialogue in the New Millennium: Finding Common
Ground.” This Foundation is a branch of Interfaith Dialogues and as such holds
regularly scheduled activities related to Gulen’s mission.
http://www.niagarafoundation.org/
October 3, 2005
Washington Post article “As the Holy Month Begins, Followers of a Turkish Leader Interpret Islam and Holiday for Themselves”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpyn/content/article/2005/10/03/
AR2005100301661.html
The Whirling Dervishes tour the US .
An event for his students to read from the Qur’an and to hand out copies of his books.
http://www.whirlingdervishes.org/
2000
Rain Drop Foundation A non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to presenting, perpetuating, transmitting and promoting Turkish and Turkish American arts and culture to diverse audiences and to providing a center to enhance community programs. They are financed by Gulen’s movement.
http://www.rdftx.org/
2001
“Light Millennium formally incorporated in 2001 in New York as a tax-deductible, not-for-profit organization. conferences Since January 2000, L.M. has been gathering the Turkish American culture together, as well as aiming to convince a global community via encouraging everyone to publish their ideas through website from ways of life including: reducing television programs, special screenings and organizing exhibitions, poetry events in general cultural events, and also conferences.
The organization is led by Bircan Ünver, who is against any kind of discrimination in religion, ideology, culture, and nationality; and puts all effort for embracing all ideas globally.” This is a publication company.
http://www.lightmillennium.org/2004_wpcomes/profile_event_april23_04.html
Zaman newspaper Gulen’s newspaper first published in Turkey, but now published in the US as well as in numerous other countries.
http://www.zaman.com/
The Fountain Magazine Gulen’s magazine
http://www.fountainmagazine.com/index.php
Herkul Organization his web page in audio; he is reaching through his voice to his followers.http://www.herkul.org/
Ant Stores, Inc. online, mail order bookstore Ant Stores operates as a division of The Light Inc located in New Jersey. The business sells “a variety of different languages of books, mainly focused on providing a platform for objective expressions of those belief systems, values, perspectives, practices and traditions that have shaped the lives of billions of people in the world for centuries.”
http://www.antstores.com/

Light Publishers, based Somerset, New Jersey The Light Publishers is designed to combat the picture of Islam as the religion of 9/11.
The Pearls of Wisdom site Proposes to answer the basic questions of humanity. “This site has been prepared mainly based on the works of Bediuzzaman, Said Nursi and Mr. Fethullah Gülen.
http://www.pearls.org/
Elite Media A 24-hour online magazine service. It provides a list of all of Gulen’s magazines.
http://www.mybestmagazines.com
Fethullah Gülen Website combines comprehensive information about his life, his writings, and his activities.
http://en.fgulen.com/
This Way to Truth website Offers the viewer the opportunity to “Discover Islam,” discussing theological issues and topics.
http://www.thewaytotruth.org/
Intercultural Dialogue Platform “an initiative from Turkey to build a peaceful world through interfaith cooperation.”
http://www.cul-dialogue.org
Journalist and Writers Foundation Related to FG but under a different name, so the purpose is the same in advancing his activities.
http://www.gyv.org.tr
Abant Platform Organized by FG for writers and journalists. The recently went to The Hague to petition the EU to accept Turkey as a member. They use their voices to affect policy.
http://www.abantplatform.com/
Dialog with Central Asia
http://da.com.tr/
The Intercultural Dialog Platform “steps in the media” To show that love and tolerance bring peace. This forum offers quotations from FG about how the meetings will bring harmony.
http://www.dialogplatform.com
April 29-30. 2005
The International Conference of Islam. University of West Madison “Islam and Dialogue.” Gulen’s speech to the US based conference is included on the site.
http://www.islamconf.org/2005/conference/papers/Other/MFGulens-message-english.pdf

Blackwell Synergy Synergy publishes journals and articles devoted to the study of Islam.
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com
2005
“Bridges for Peace –Turkish Schools Opening to the World". Explains the role of Gulen’s schools around the world. Turkish Schools Pioneering Turkey
http://en.fgulen.com/a.page/press/news/2005/a2122.html
Turkish immigrants to the U.S. 30,000 including many master and doctoral level students and PhDs. (probably impossible to have a count on the actual number of Gulen’s followers).
Ulker, Turka Cola Turkish businesses in America, among others Houses or dormitories Gulen’s operations to teach his theology
March 21, 2004
“A Small School Run by Turks Takes the Stage” New York Times article
2006, 2007
Iftar dinners with Congressmen to celebrate Ramadan Co-Sponsored by Senators and Representatives and The Rumi Foundation
Since 1991
Charter Schools Unknown number of Turkish schools out of the 2,700 in the U.S. since 1991 with 700,000 in 36 states and the District of Columbia
Only a few examples: Arkansas’s Maumelle's Academics Plus fired the non-Muslim staff and teachers for some grades; Fulton Science Academy in Alpharetta, Georgia; Friendship Edison Public Charter School, Champaign Campus, Washington D.C, pairs with Turkish schools in Istanbul and the principle received an expense paid trip to Istanbul; Turkey-Run Elementary School in Marshall, Indiana; Charter schools are supported in part by taxes but have no accountability except to their own board
Hollywood Icons Chevy-Chase used to market Turco-Cola, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attended to Iftar at Capitol Hill in DC, following the pattern in Turkey to use celebrities to promote their agenda
You Tube via
Video Arsivi
http://klip.wordpress.com/category/fetullah-gulen/
Mary Project
Dinners in homes to attract candidates for Islam with the lure that Mary is mentioned in the Qur’an numerous times and thus Gulen’s followers have a commonality with Catholics.

Fethullah Schools: "They taught us how great Turkey is"

29.8.2006 - by Vladimir van Wilgenburg, Journalist, Netherlands

Vladimir: Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

Hiwa: My nickname is Hiwa, I was born in a village in southern Kurdistan, but raised in Halabja and lived there till 1995. Except the three years from 1988-1991, when we were unable to go be in Halabja. I have just finished my degree in computing at the University of Leeds. Currently I live in Leeds in UK.

Vladimir: How did you end up at a Turkish school in Hawler? What did they teach you? Was the education good? In what time was this?

Hiwa: Hawler. Fezalar Egitim, which is a Turkish educational company, opened it's first school in Hawler in 1994. A year later we heard through the Nur Islamic group, which had people in Halabja, that there is a private school. This school accepted students with high marks. We also heard that the first round of assessments are over, but there was a late second round and I was taken to Hawler by my eldest brother. So I entered Erbil Ishik Private College in 1995 and I finished it in 1999.

These schools are probably the best schools in the Middle East, if not better than some European schools as well. They care about every detail of the school from the school buildings to the books. They assess students and pupils and they only accept the best amongst them. The main education language is English, but Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic are languages which are also studied. Great care is given to teaching Turkish, as some of the teachers struggle with teaching in pure English.

Vladimir: With your school, you also made a visit to Turkey, what did you see there? And what happened there?

Hiwa: Well these visits were kind of holiday trips for us, accompanied by either parents or teachers from Hawler. I was not in the first trip, but I was amongst a 12 student group trip to Turkey and went to different towns and cities in Turkey by a rather uncomfortable bus. There is a town near Ankara called Polatli, that's were they used to that there is their base for "our schools in Hawler" . So the first place to go and stay was at one of those school dorms and from there I went around the country.

The first thing we saw were villas of rich people whom they used to call "business brothers". They said that say these are the people, who sponsor our schools and they would like to see what have we achieved. Then some official visits and once there was a rumour that we were to see [Correction] the then Prime Minister Tansu ?iller and we all said "no we would like to go around town" as typical teenagers. But we met the MP of Amed (Diyarbekir) and I think he took some photos as well.

And off course we made a January trip to Turkey, which meant a freezing cold Ankara and snowy roads in northern Kurdistan. So apart from indoor entertainment, that would never include going even close to a cinema. There was no proper fun really!

Vladimir: Where you also confronted with Turkish nationalist ideology in your trip? And did you visit Turkish national monuments like Ataturk's grave? How did you experience these visits?

Hiwa: Almost all visits to Turkey had to include a visit to Ataturk's grave, so called (Anit Kabir) and we paid a visit, too. I must say when I went I rose my hands to the air, I used to pray back then, so from the bottom of my heart I said to Allah "may Allah fill his grave with fire!" in Arabic.

We even were taken to the F-16 factory to see how Turkey makes such fighter jets which are currently used in bombing Qandil mountains in southern Kurdistan leaving from their bases in Amed.

In the 1997 trip when we were attending the chemistry competition, on the day of the awards ceremony, the presenter shouted "The Future will be Turk's" and I was sitting next to my teacher and shouted at him "bullshit!". They used to introduce as to their sponsors or authorities as Turkified Kurds! I fought over this to the end of my education and they made me make a mess out of their so-called graduation ceremony in my final year due to their racial discrimination!

I used to like the visits as a teenager, but I can very well remember experiencing racial discrimination and hear racial remarks which we used to argue over for hours. They used to convince us that they have to do these things for the sake of the schools' future.
What was the general feeling amongst the students in those Turkish schools?
There were different feelings, but the pro-Turkey Turkmen feeling was high and the pure Kirmanj (Hawleri) feelings off course was that the "Turks are invaders and they are here to Turkify". But for me it was to get the best education and then said good bye to the school which was 100% different to my background.

Vladimir: Who is behind these schools? Do PUK/KDP tolerate these schools? Do they still exist? If they do exist, why you think the KRG tolerates them? What does the Turkish intelligence service have to do with it? (MIT)

Hiwa: Fethullah Gulen is said to be behind all these educational institutes, print houses and even hospitals around Turkey and around the world. The support from KDP/PUK has never been greater and they used to have 24-hour electricity while entire Hawler was in the dark. They have the best of Hawler buildings in the best position in Hawler and they used to invite officials as high as then-PM Dr Rozh Nuri and Kosrat Rasul the president of KRG. I don't know why they are tolerated, but I don't think it was a planned and calculated tolerance. They still exist and they now have two schools in Hawler, two in Slemani and they are now opening one in Kirkuk with a language centre in Hawler.

I have no concrete evidence about the MIT involvement, but for our 1997 competition we were taken to the border and a sergeant in the army helped us get through the Turkish custom with no passports. When we came back to Ibrahim Khalil border, we were put in a dark windowed 4X4. The driver only lowered the window to say "Merhaba" to the Turks and "Roj Bash" to the Kurdish peshmarga on each side of the border. I think those two words were two passports for three of us.

Vladimir: Were these schools Islamist?

Hiwa: They don't deny this. They teach Islam and they have hundreds of books in the library in Ishik College and they are proud of it. They all pray and they are not ashamed or afraid of telling anyone about it. I remember studying the Islamic history, just as we used to do in the mainstream schools in the Kurdistani schools. The difference off course, was history were to be taught in Turkish and by a Turkish teacher!

Vladimir: What did these schools do with your view of Turks?

Hiwa: The question needs a story to tell, but I can say that I am grateful because I know them from inside out. I am no longer a Kurd who just happens to be sceptical and cautious about Turks and Turkey. I am a person who knows a bit about their history and knows enough about their language and culture. I cannot be differentiated from a Turk with a bit of accent, if I want too. I know why they are there and it's nothing more than teaching naive pupils in southern Kurdistan how great Turkey, the Ottoman and the Turkish people are, but that the Turkish political system is secular and bad.

Vladimir: According to the Turkish liberal news paper Sabah (2001) people are taught to hate Ataturk in Fethallah Gulen's schools. Is this true? What do you think about Fethallah Gulen?

Hiwa: Well this is quite natural because Ataturk is a little bit loved by the west, because he was the only person who destroyed Islamic culture, rule and political movements in the 20th century. Not only Fethullah and his group, but also all other Islamic movements in the Middle East think Ataturk destroyed the legacy of the largest Islamic empire.

This doesn't mean that the school ideas are pure Islamic ideas; they are there to serve the greater Turkish nation and Said Nursi's (Sheik Said Kurdi) path in a version modified by Fethullah Gulen.