For a long time Gulen and his followers were wearing so many masks and hiding their true goals, harboring hate, generating animosity, and advancing ambitions behind their masks. Many people could not have known that they would adopt such toxic discourse for the sake of fame and wealth in this transient world. Recent developments have revealed that Gulen and his followers prefer to wear masks while communicating. Each passing day, contradiction between their smiling masks and their accumulated hatred, goals, lies, deceptions, cheating, manipulations, and anger becomes clearer. It is utterly shameful. Although Gulen is portrayed in the West as a protagonist of moderate Islam and a peacemaker who invented the inter-religious dialogues, his movement hopes to reach non-Muslims, people for whom Gulen and his followers wear interfaith dialogue masks, especially outside Turkey to show them that his interpretation of Islam is different than that of any other Muslims. But those who study Islam know that the Islam is Islam, and there is no such thing as moderate or contemporary Islam because the Quran is the main source of Islam, so that any genuine Muslim will follow the interpretations of the Quran, not those of Gulen.
Gulen has always sided with strong men. During the Cold War, he inherited a strong anti-Communist mask and propensity for entrepreneurial capitalism, important traits that later gained him great favor and friends with the American Central Intelligence Agency. When Gulenists opened their schools and businesses in Central Asia after the fall of Communism in 1989, there were two sects of Muslims that were trying to influence the new independent states in the post-Soviet era, the Iranian Shi’a sect of Islam and Gulen’s version of Islam. The CIA supported Gulen’s version against the Iranian one.
Gulen is now accusing the Turkish government of not being transparent and wearing the alleged transparent and victims’ mask to get support of Westerns media and governments. However, Gulen and his followers’ lack of transparency, their secrecy, and the disproportionate influence of his followers within state institutions in the Turkish government, along with their illegal wiretapping, cheating on a public service exams, and nepotism are all coming to light.
In 1999, fearing that he might be imprisoned by the Turkish government, Gulen escaped to the United States wearing the mask of needing medical treatment. For more than sixteen years he has managed his global empire of schools, businesses, financial institutions, media corporations, sports enterprises, and government inside the government all the while plotting to overthrow the Turkish government in a silent coup in Turkey by undermining the government’s success in the past decade under the Erdogan government and his Justice and Development Party, the AKP.
Gulen’s followers consider him to be unique in some way. Gulen has been wearing the masks of “the chosen one,” the Messiah, the one who talks to God, and even the mask that God assigned him for a specific mission to become the center of worship. It is very dangerous to contradict or to criticize Gulen. His followers who criticize him are often slandered and excommunicated or severely punished, no matter who is trampled in the process, including the government authorities.
Gulen criticized the Turkish government for not being democratic, but day-to-day decisions about running his organization are often brought to Gulen. Gulen and his followers portray this leader to outsiders as wonderful, but on the inside he is very manipulating, authoritatarian, and solicitous of his follower’s obedience, money, and minds, so that although most of his followers think they are immune from a cult , they do not know that Gulen is a cult. Gulen is using mind control as a dishonest influence placed covertly on the members with the consequence that their free will is taken away from them and they become remotely controlled robots. Gulen is using the fear mask, threatening his followers that they will go to hell, telling them that because they are like followers of Prophet Mohammed, they should suffer and not leave the movement. He brainwashes them that if they do abandon him and his movement, their businesses will fail, and they will be cursed. Now Gulen is telling his followers that Erdogan will die soon, and then everything will be fine, that they just need to be patient, because their victory is close like the victory of their prophet Mohammed.
For his devotees, Gulen definitely wears the fear mask. To disagree with him is the same as disagreeing with God. Gulen claims he has direct authority from God and, as such, controls all aspects of their lives. Since there is a general election in June, Gulenists have launched an incredible campaign in Turkey and abroad to block the AK party at all costs, thus Erdogan’s adversaries are doing their utmost to sow the seeds of sedition in the ruling party with the aim of stealing the upcoming parliamentary elections. To this end, they are going to fabricate all kinds of reports, generate chaos, and especially use the Kurdish card against the AKP ruling party, because this election will determine the fate of Gulen. If the AK party wins this election, that means the AKP will continue go after Gulen and hopefully make his organization illegal, so that Gulen and his followers will no longer manipulate the duped, defame opponents with lies, cheat in all their affairs, insult and slander rivals in order to cover up their own faults and gain absolute power.
Dr. Aland Mizell is with the MCI and a regular contributor to The Kurdistan Tribune, Mindanao Times.You may email the author at:aland_mizell2@hotmail.com