The Gülen Case

Listening only to criticisms, it would seem that the Turkish education system was in the care of Fethullah Gülen; the educational cadres are under his control; his media strength is known by all; he guides the ruling party, he has the opposition parties listening to his orders and he even influences the justice system and the military.

Though no one goes this far, it is as though we could even say, "The state is actually Fethullah Gülen." To imagine that a person or a group of people has powers that they actually don’t have is damaging from a number of perspectives. First of all, people who are really in trouble might wind up saying, "We have always been disappointed by the people and groups we had hope in, so since Fethullah Hoca is in charge of everything, let's tie our hopes to him and see our lives saved." The second damaging perspective in this all is that it could elicit fanatics in the actual Gülen group itself who might push back the concept of "serving society" and instead embrace traditional Islamic themes, with the idea that it is "better to strike while the iron is hot." Neither of these are results that I would be happy about.