Gulen Movement has been the driving force behind new relationships between Turkey and sub-Saharan African nations

Photo credit: The African Union-United Nations Information Support Team
Photo credit: The African Union-United Nations Information Support Team


Date posted: February 23, 2013

Julia Harte*

…In recent years, plenty of madrasas have already been established in Somalia by foreign powers, especially Gulf states. Even the most devastated areas have access to some form of religious education. But that just makes Turkey’s efforts to spread its form of moderate Islam an even more important strategic move, according to Mehmet Arda, professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Galatasaray University.

While Turkey might still be involved in Somalia if it were not an Islamic country, Arda believes some civil society groups might not be as engaged. “It’s normal for religious people to want other people to be religious in the same way. They just want people to be good Muslims, as they are.” The uptick in Turkish-African trade in recent years attests to the value of shoring up diplomatic or economic relationships with religious and cultural outreach—an object lesson with wide applications. But Turkey also has an advantage in this regard. Many Turkish groups active in Africa are affiliated with the Gülen network. This worldwide movement is inspired by the moderate Islamic teachings of Turkish [islamic scholar] Fethullah Gülen, whose writings read like a virtuous power doctrine of their own, emphasizing altruism, tolerance, and education….Originally charged with trying to undermine the secularity of the Turkish state, Gülen has been acquitted but remains in Pennsylvania.

Lacking any formal structure or membership, the exact size of the Gülen movement is difficult to appraise, but it is believed to have more than 10 million followers in Turkey alone. Gülen is linked to more than 1,000 schools around the world as well as Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkish media, think tanks, and universities.

Starting in the late 1990s, schools operated by adherents of Gülen’s teachings began to spring up across sub-Saharan Africa. For the Gülen movement, the region has been a “priority area” for the past decade, according to Gareth Jenkins, a Turkey analyst and senior fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute’s Silk Road Studies program.

In many cases, Gülen-inspired schools were the first institutions to “break the ground” by establishing a Turkish presence in African nations, says Arda. Now the number of Gülen-affiliated Turks in Somalia is growing rapidly. But their focus is not on missionary work. Rather, the presence of Gülen-oriented schools across the continent has eased the entry of Gülen-affiliated Turkish businessmen and development workers, especially in parts of Africa where other countries fear to tread. The Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists and the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency are two institutions whose members are likely to “have an affinity with the Gülen movement,” says Arda—though, he stresses, ties are often informal.

Gülen affiliates, says Jenkins, have been the driving force behind many of the new relationships between Turkey and sub-Saharan African nations over the past two years. Since its founding, the Turkish Republic “hasn’t really had any diplomatic or political relations with black Africa besides these,” he says. By connecting Turkish businessmen, aid workers, and developers with their like-minded countrymen across the continent, the Gülen network is facilitating the spread and scope of Turkey’s virtuous reputation.

“Our schools are a bridge between countries—bridges of education, bridges of culture, bridges of economy,” says Çelik, who worked in Gülen-inspired schools in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Afghanistan before coming to Somalia in 2011. There’s nothing inherently sinister about the Gülen network’s operations in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Arda. It is simply the Turkish way of breaking ground in a region where they don’t have the longstanding presence and automatic influence of bigger, wealthier countries….

* Julia Harte is a writer based in Istanbul.

Source: Excerpted from the article “Turkey Shocks Africa” published on World Policy Journal, Winter 2012/2013

 


Related News

SEASON OF PEACE: Moderate Islam has a voice if you listen

On 9/11, I dismissed my usual 8:30 a.m. Sociology of World Religions class to accompany the students to the student center to watch the historic events on CNN. But before we left, I told them that it may well be a Muslim terrorist group that was responsible, but I reminded them that, even if it turned out to be true, to remember that it did not mean all Muslims are terrorists.

Review of Walter Wagner’s Beginnings and Endings: Fethullah Gulen’s Vision for Today’s World

Walter Wagner’s book, Beginnings and Endings: Fethullah Gulen’s Vision for Today’s World, focuses on the ideas and thinking of Fethullah Gulen, “one of the most important Muslim leaders in the world”

Meal and food support for Somalian people during Ramadan

Ramadan, the sultan of the 11 months, is the period of time where most aids and charities are done. Philanthropists are helping both domestic and  international muslims, making this month fertile for muslims. Nil Organization which provides education, health and humanitarian assistance in Somalia, is working hard to make Somalians happy this Ramadan too. There […]

Is the Hizmet movement statist or populist?

In the last three years the AK Party established their new “center” with the new statism away from the periphery. The Hizmet movement viewed this change as a new centralization and thus a new statism and tutelage with new political and capitalist actors. Due to this change in attitude, the Hizmet movement broke faith with Erdoğan and the AK Party.

Light Academy schools groom global citizens

Light Academy started as 8-4-4 system in 1998, in a small compound on Ngong Road in Nairobi, with eight students. The IGCSE system was introduced in 2001. It has now grown to accommodate 1,600 students in eight campuses, one in Malindi, two in Mombasa and five in Nairobi.

Gülen’s Statement of Condemnation for Terrorist Attack Against the Coptic Christian Community in Egypt

I have learned with grief about the horrific terrorist attack against two Coptic churches in Egypt during a Palm Sunday mass, killing at least 43 worshipers and police officers. I vehemently condemn this atrocity against the Coptic Christian community.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

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

In Case You Missed It

‘Parallel’ lies won’t patch giant tear, Gülen tells government

Ugandan opinion leader refutes news report which defames Hizmet Movement

11th Turkish Olympiad opens with grand ceremony in Ankara

Laotian President Sayasone hosts Turkish school officials

A Permanent Kimse Yok Mu Mission to Be Launched in Jerusalem

Irregularities mark so-called Cabinet decision on Kimse Yok Mu

Çağlayan: TUSKON Trade Bridge soon to be global brand

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News