How does the Gülen Movement differentiate between cultural and political action?
The Gülen Movement’s discourse and practice demonstrate a consistent understanding of the separation between the cultural efforts and actors that can bring an issue to light and the political efforts and actors that may then carry that issue into the political arena. The Gülen Movement’s worldview and habitual or customary social practice demonstrate that it is not a political actor, and that it systematically differentiates between socio-cultural issues and political action.
Through the outcomes of institutionalized social projects, the Gülen Movement turns into a catalyst allowing societal needs to be seen and analyzed within new conceptual frameworks. Those outcomes prove that the level of individual meanings and cultural dimensions is more significant than the political level. Such dimensions and meanings are often not easily and quickly identifiable, so politics and politicians can ignore and eliminate them from their analysis between election periods.
The Gülen Movement highlights the importance of an open civil society and public spaces because these provide an arena for the consolidation of democratic institutions and for the peaceful encounter between politics and social movements and altruistic services.
- Created on .