“The Gülen Movement is faith inspired in its motivation, but faith neutral in its manifestation.” That is how key speaker Ozcan Keles, chairperson of Dialogue Society in London, characterized the Gülen Movement in a panel discussion on the Hizmet Movement Tuesday in the European Parliament.
Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has said Turkey, which was not long ago the envy of Muslim-majority countries with its bid to become an EU member and dedication to being a functioning democracy, is reversing progress and clamping down on civil society, the media, the judiciary and free enterprise under the rule of the governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
The pro-government media and Justice and Development Party (AK Party) circles continue to use hypocritical language against the faith-based Gülen movement — popularly known as the Hizmet movement — inspired by the views of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, in propaganda both abroad and at home.
Foreign students who are graduates of schools opened by Turkish entrepreneurs affiliated with the Hizmet movement all around the world, have expressed bewilderment over the government’s plan to shut down the schools, saying that the Turkish government is making a grave mistake in targeting these schools as they are renowned and praised for their high-quality education by foreigners.
How do Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s repeated calls for the closure of Turkish schools located on the African continent, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, serve Turkish national interests? It appears that in his fight against a “parallel structure,” which he equates with institutions and people inspired by the faith-based Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, the current Turkish president is losing a sense of direction.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s bid for the closure of Turkish schools affiliated with the Gülen movement in African countries has drawn harsh criticism from various segments of the society, including journalists, artists and politicians.
Members of opposition parties, prominent businessmen and figures in the education world have severely criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for campaigning for the closure of Turkish schools in African countries that are affiliated with the Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who is a former ally of the president.
The increasingly punitive and xenophobic discourse adopted by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in recent years has done a huge disservice to the fight against Islamophobia, dealing a blow to the decades-long efforts of organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Hizmet movement in international forums.
Hizmet Movement is, in my view, an Islamically-inspired, Islamically-grounded movement, or Islamically-rooted movement, founded on the universal and fundamental principle of peace and—the essential values of Islam—peace, mercy and compassion, as normative, moral objectives and which seeks to translate these principles into—through the dynamic of ta’aruf, the dynamic of coming to know one another, especially coming to know the other—into a reality, into a living sociological and anthropological reality.