As Turkey’s war on Gulen escalates, so does impact on Africa

M. Fethullah Gulen
M. Fethullah Gulen


Date posted: October 30, 2016

Africa Times Editor

The latest round in Turkey’s internal war on Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen movement followers came late Saturday, when new decrees appeared in the nation’s Official Gazette.  They extend the crackdown on Turkey’s media outlets, establish control over university administration and push Turkey’s initial state of emergency into January.

Another 10,000 civil servants will lose their jobs as Erdoğan continues his campaign against suspected Gülen followers and other opposition in Turkey, bringing that total to 100,000, with more than 37,000 arrests, according to a Reuters report. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also has said he wants to re-establish capital punishment.

What’s been less visible to the international community is the political impact on African nations and their relationship with Turkey, including dozens that are home to Gülen-affiliated schools.

The rupture over Gülen is causing diplomatic pressure on African leaders across the continent, reflected most visibly in the demand to close an estimated 110 schools – almost all providing secular education – in Africa. At the same time, Turkey signals warnings about aid and investment consequences that attach to African governments should they fail to follow Erdoğan’s lead in ferreting out the Gülen influence.

In Sudan, Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour confirmed on Wednesday that two Hizmet schools there are now closed in support of the Turkish government, with the education of 800 students transferred to a Sudanese firm. Any Gülen-linked persons are being expelled from the country as Khartoum seeks to protect at least USD$300 million in foreign investment plus its significant trade with Turkey.

In Guinea, whose leader Alpha Conde met with Erdoğan in Ankara Tuesday, the five Gülen schools will be taken over by the Turkish Maarif Foundation – a topic that Turkey’s president thought important enough to stress with renewed vigor while meeting with an African head of state. The Daily Sabah in Istanbul reports the foundation now controls the administration of Gülen-linked schools in Rwanda too.

Hizmet influence in African education

While critics say that Gülen is at best a cult figure, he is considered by many the legitimate spiritual leader of an Islamic movement that is focused on humanitarian service – hence the common name Hizmet – as well as interfaith dialogue and education.

So too are his followers, an estimated 3 million of them living in Turkey, although some seek asylum in the face of repression, mass arrests and human rights violations that include torture, as detailed in a new report last week from Human Rights Watch.

As the Gülen movement spread, its followers focused on a more secular Islamic advancement driven by spiritual purpose manifested across Africa. In May, former U.S. Ambassador David Shinn delivered a lecture in Brazil that demonstrated the influence and investment that Hizmet has made in the last 10 years.

Shinn, an expert author of a 2015 book that’s rare in dealing with the topic of Hizmet in Africa, looks at Hizmet in terms of spheres of influence in business, the advance of political connections, and academics.

Yet it’s the schools, not just business entities or diplomatic ties, that have become controversial in Nigeria, Guinea, Sudan or The Gambia. “The increasingly hostile relationship between the government of Turkey and Hizmet has had an impact on the schools,” Shinn noted. “From the president on down, Turkey has pressed African governments to shut the Hizmet schools.”

Not all African nations are eager to do so; Nigeria and Tanzania are among those that have resisted efforts to shutter the schools. Elsewhere, though, are voices claiming that the schools are havens for Western spies at one extreme, or at the very least harmful to Muslims at the other.

The latter includes Sheikh Hamid Byamugenzi, the deputy director of the Islamic University in Uganda, who holds that the more mystical and moderate Sufi influences of Gülen’s Hizmet organizations compromise true Islam.

“The governments should take over the schools and send away the Gülen poison,” he told Religion News Service. “Their ideology weakens the true teachings of Islam.”

Effort to end Gülen movement targets education

The schools, well-regarded in terms of quality, are fee-based and operate within the national curricula and languages of the nations where they are located – in other words, outside of Ankara’s control, which leads to the increasing diplomatic pressure that is seeing many of them shut down.

The first one opened in Morocco in 1994, followed by Senegal in 1997. They are generally considered “Turkish schools,” according to Shinn, with names like Groupe Scolaire Safak in Côte d’Ivoire or Galaxy International School in Ghana, and all told have a presence in 35 primarily sub-Saharan nations.

There are fewer interfaith dialogue centers, but they operate under similar names, such as the Turquoise Harmony Institute in South Africa or the Respect Foundation in Kenya. The Hizmet organizational presence closely correlates with the location of Turkey’s 39 embassies in Africa, and the schools serve as a social platform for creating cultural ties, aid initiatives and business connections.

As Erdoğan ups the ante, that’s becoming a real dilemma for African governments, not to mention those in the West. Ankara’s authoritarian stance is met with growing concern from European Union officials and the United States, where Turkey this week made a new appeal to the U.S. in support of Gülen’s extradition.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag has emphatically reasserted Turkey’s view that Gülen – who has lived in exile in the United States since 1999 – is a terrorist similar to Osama bin Laden, and responsible for orchestrating the coup, which exacerbated the long-standing divisions in Turkey over Gülen and his influence.

That influence is what’s at the heart of Erdoğan’s obsession to eliminate it from African nations, one school at a time.

Source: Africa Times , October 30, 2016


Related News

McGill University Prof: Turkish President Erdogan Wrong To Blame Man Of Prayer For Coup

For Gülen, a man of prayer, the Qur’an contains an ethic of citizenship. In the name of Islam, he advocates education, productivity, dialogue with the sciences and universal friendship. These are the values promoted by Hizmet, the Gülen Movement. While religiously based, Hizmet is an educational movement. It is obvious that the faith-based Hizmet has no affinity whatever with the secularism of the military clique that staged the recent revolt.

A Turkish Recluse Bridges the Western and Muslim Worlds

A free global and interconnected citizenship might be the pathway to foster a non-violent and peaceful culture within societies. This is the main objective of a grassroots movement that advocates enhancing education, promoting universal values, interfaith dialogue and democracy.

Ergenekon’s coup-lovers owe an apology to the Hizmet movement

Since the start of the Ergenekon trials, some of the suspects and their supporters constantly, steadfastly and fiercely argued that the Ergenekon cases were based on fabricated evidence prepared by the Hizmet movement, claiming that the defendants were actually innocent. They now owe an apology to the Hizmet movement.

Gülen calls on corrupt politicians to confess their sins, beg forgiveness

Turkish intellectual and Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen called on senior officials in Turkey on Friday to repent for their sins and lies made to scapegoat others and avoid the blame for their own corruption.

Gülen’s views, concern for Kurdish problem nothing new, report shows

“No matter who does it, it is just brutality, murder and tyranny to try to achieve a goal by killing people [and] shedding blood. No beneficial goal can be achieved for humanity through the use of these tactics,” Mr. Gulen states.

Academic says Gülen movement followers should be sent to rehabilitation camps

A professor of communications, Muttalip Kutluk Özgüven, has said followers of the Gülen movement should be sent to rehabilitation camps and subjected to psychological treatment. “Their bodies do not belong to them. They have to serve Turkey’s interests,” he said.

Latest News

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

University refuses admission to woman jailed over Gülen links

In Case You Missed It

Pathology of ‘Islamicist’ Erdogan Regime

Turkey Bars Entry Of Critics By Adding Their Names Next To ISIL Suspects

Canadian Globe Editorial- It just gets worse in Turkey

Police raid prominent journalists’ foundation GYV in Turkey

Grade 12 Pupil Receives A Bronze Medal At 61st International Maths Ambassador

Was there a sincere alliance between the Gulen Movement and Erdogan?

Turks Taught Us How to Invest In Education, says Congolese Minister

Copyright 2024 Hizmet News