Gulen and his followers have a split personality or just perpetrate a two-faced fraud on his members and on the rest of the world. Not only should people not believe them; instead, they should put them on trial for deception and fraud. Rather than listening to what he and his followers say, the public should focus on what they do. Gulen and his followers are a living contradiction both in what they say and do. They cannot be trusted because they play on both sides of the fence.
Gulen is an arrogant individual, and he will not give up his fight with the current Turkish government, but his arrogance will finish him and his empire. He is reminiscent of an archangel who was one of the most intelligent angels, but was cast out from God’s light forever when God asked him to obey Him, but he did not listen. Gulen has already lost his credibility and power. Yet, if Gulen comes to Turkey, giving up his sanctuary in the USA, he still will have the chance to win the hearts and minds of the Turkish people, even if he is guilty of spying and trying to topple the elected government, but Gulen is afraid go to prison, so probably he will not return to his home country.
Gulen produces a culture of hate, not a culture of tolerance, peace, and love as he claims. He tells his followers to keep fighting and not to give up, because if one of them gives up the fight with the Justice and Development Party (AKP), he will, consequently, go to hell. Since he thinks, he is the chosen one, Gulen thinks they will win the fight because God has chosen them.
His lawyer Nurrullah Albayrak, also one of his followers, accused Hussein Gulerce of betrayal and insulted Gulerce for objecting to Gulen. Hüseyin Gülerce, one of the closest friends in Gulen’s circle, knows Gulen well. But after Gulen failed in his attempted coup against Prime Minister Erdogan, Gulerce left the organization and criticized Gulen for his mistake. Gulerce worked for the organization for more than thirty years and was the former editor-in-chief of Gulen’s Zaman newspaper as well as a spokesperson for Gulen in the past, but he left the organization and did not support Gulen’s coup against the democratically-elected government, and realizing Gulen’s mistake, he even asked Gulen to stop fighting against Erdogan, but Gulen rejected his appeals.
Gulen accuses Erdogan and the AKP of not being transparent, but careful observers across the world know that Gulen has two faces, one that faces the world and another that hides from it. Gulen is like one body with two personalities, He established schools, hospitals, media, television stations, universities, and business companies with donations from contributors, but his finances are very murky.
Gulenists are going beyond the words of Allah becoming the real cheater, liar, and dictator in his undemocratic and inconsistent position. For a long time Gulen’s movement was considered as social cohesion advocating peace, tolerance, and interfaith dialogue, but in reality Gulen promotes hate, division, and enmity among the millions of Turkish people and devotees around the globe. Only those who closely study him and his organization would know that Gulen lied and deceived people; that is how he came to power. Also those who study him would know that he is not consistent in his message because what he said in the early 80s and 90s does not compare with his sermons now. In my view, Gulen and his followers should be prosecuted for lying and cheating to followers in countries around the globe. They have lost the essence of Amr bil Ma’ruf wa Nahy an al Munkar. the phrase meaning “to do what is right and to forbid what is wrong.” This concept is very important because it is one of the fundamental terms in Islam and thus pertains to Islamic law and Islamic ethics. The Quran considers this as one of the fundamental aspects of being a Muslim.
Gulen likes to portray himself as different than any other Muslim scholar; therefore, he invented a new way of practicing Islam– Gulen’s way of Islam. He even converts Muslims to his way of Islam. For example, even a Muslim, like Erdogan, who does not believe his way of Islam, cannot be considered a true Muslim. The only true Muslims are those who believe in his way of Islam. One of his mantras is “build schools instead of mosques.” According to Gulen, the mosque has lost its functionality, but his schools teach his brand of Islam, serving as more than just a mosque. Gulen has never been consistent in his view or stand. Whatever works for him, he takes that position. Before he moved to the United States, he treated the West as the enemy. He wrote in his book Cag ve nesil, “Westerners would exhibit no human behavior.” Yet, in a November 2011 weekly sermon online, he called upon the Turkish military to attack the Kurdish separatists: “locate them, surround them, break up their units, let fire rain down upon their houses, drown out their lamentations with even more wails, cut off their roots and put an end to their cause.” But today, Gulen allies himself with the BDP Kurdish party against Erdogan. Honest Kurds should know who is a real friend of the Kurds and who is an enemy. It is for sure that Gulen is one of the enemies, not only for the comments in the sermon, but also because he has never raised his voice for the Kurdish people to prevent cruel policies. The Kurds must reject Gulen’s sudden compromise because he is not an ally of the Kurds. Gulen is searching for a savior, and he knows that he can use the Kurds to create chaos, so that Erdogan will not go after Gulen’s illegal organization. Only one person could finish Gulen, and that is Erdogan. That is why Gulen allied himself with his old enemies, the CHP leftist party and the BDP Kurdish party. He knows others do not have enough power to go after him.
Today, Gulen and his followers promote themselves as harmless, kind, tolerant, and peaceful, but thousands of people are being victimized by Gulenists for simply criticizing him, just as anyone in the past who countered him was destroyed.
Gulen asks for democracy only for his followers, but when his critics object to him and his view, he considers them to be betrayers, curses them, slander and degrades them. The essence of democracy is freedom of speech, but no one can feel free to criticize Gulen; yet, he and his followers are up to their necks in dirty tricks. There is no disinformation they will not peddle to further the causes they support. But also, according to Islam, stealing is also haram or sin, yet evidence is being revealed that Gulen’s followers were implicated in the Public Personnel’s Selection Examination KPSS cheating scandal and were arrested.
Gulen and his followers condemn the actions and violence in the Middle East and around the world, yet those who speak of him, criticize him, or call his movement a cult organization, take the risk of being tossed in jail or being sued. According to them, it is all right to offend Prophet Muhammad but not Gulen. It is very strange that western academics believe that this supposed educational leader promotes love, tolerance, and peace, yet he declares war on the Turkish government and Erdogan’s family especially, and he continues encouraging his followers to fight the government, causing a divided society and his followers to hate Erdogan. I would not be surprised if one of Gulen’s followers commits suicide to kill Erdogan or someone close to him. A true representative of peace and tolerance is one who when hit on the cheek, turns his cheek, loves, and forgives an offender for his wrongdoing. Gulen cannot be an advocate of tolerance, love, peace and justice because he is an advocate of the opposite. Gulen condones the actions of violence, but places a fatwa on the Kurdish people. Gulen is full of hate toward these who disagree with him or who leave his organization. He met with Pope John II and thanked him for his promotion of interfaith dialogue and peace, but then in his private preaching he says that Pope is a snake and cobra and that the Vatican is nothing more than a den a snakes and that the Vatican is the source of all the hate and war in the Muslim world.
Another example of Gulen’s duplicity is that Gulen and his followers say they are not a political movement and that his movement keeps equal distance from every Turkish government, seeks no office, and allies with no foreign government, but they have one of the most effective lobbying groups in the United States and around the world. His group in the USA donated a large amount of money to the Democratic Party. In Turkey Gulen supported the AKP party in the national elections; he even made a statement that if he could have power, he would bring dead people from their grave to vote for the AKP, showing the importance of being involved in politics. Also, some of the Gulen’s closest circle became involved in politics. The Zaman newspaper at one point looked like the government’s own media, every day praising the government and Erdogan, until Gulen’s devotees nested in the bureaucracy, judiciary, military, police, and media. However, Gulen challenged Erdogan and wanted a share of pie too. Gulen slandered Erdogan and his family, claiming they were corrupt and, therefore, he organized a coup, but it failed. Now he is in a coalition with his former enemy, the Kurdish party and the CHP party. Recently his lobbyist group wrote a letter signed by more than seventy US lawmakers complaining about Erdogan’s being dictator. He even opened a school for political science in Texas.
Gulen said he has no political aspiration. “I do not have and never had any relationship with a movement that has political aspirations,” but every day Gulen issues statements against the AKP and especially against President Erdogan. It sounds like Gulen is the opposition party. Particularly telling, his media and his weekly speeches no longer preach about Allah and Mohamed, but they curse Erdogan, defame Erdogan, and insult Erdogan and his politics. History repeats itself. Gulen supported the coup of 1980. Yet, according to Gulen, it is appropriate and necessary that the state protect itself and its citizens against the chaos and violence that were threatening the Turkish society. Not only does Gulen seek to construct a Gulenist way of practicing Islam, but he also wants to rekindle the Ottoman glory and Islamize the whole world by teaching others to interpret Islam in his way. Gulen and his followers have an ego the size of an iceberg. They would not even allow others to say you have an eyebrow above your eye. Gulen has made so many mistakes, but he never apologizes for the views that had in the past. For Gulen and his followers whatever ways work for them is legitimate, even if they must lie, cheat, and deceive. Gulen in his publications during the 1990s and earlier offer a starkly different view on the relationships between Islam and other religions. In his writing and speeches, the west and Christianity are presented as the archenemy of Islam, and their decay and ultimate downfall are described in no uncertain terms. The future is portrayed not as one of peace and harmony, love, and interfaith of major religions, but as one in which Islam will take over the other religions. Gulen has divided society and created an “us- them,“ hizmet ici and hizmet disindakiler. Non-believers of Islam were considered the eternal enemy of Islam, but he added that the non-believers of his Islam would go to hell. For Gulen, Jews and Christians may be divided among themselves, but he teaches that Christian and Jewish people are always united in their hate of Islam. Gulen always uses tactics of denial that he has not said such a things and his claims fool the public, but people no longer believe in him.
Now everything is clear, and he and his followers are in panic. Gulen believes in the long run that Islam will be the dominant power, and no one will be able to stop it. “In the world of our future, the only dominant element will be Islam,” he wrote in a 1996 essay titled “The End of the West.” Today, Gulen presents himself as the beacon of tolerance, love, peace, and kindness, but still there is no repentance, no apologies, and no explanation how his worldview has changed once he escaped to the United States. Instead, his followers erased the inconsistent offensive content from the Internet. For those who really want to understand Gulen and his view in the past and the present, they should look at the his Turkish original collections and writings such as Fasildan Fasila 2, Fasildan Fasila 1, Asrin Getirdigi Tereddutle 2, and Fasildan Fasila 3.
Gulen and his followers have a history of fabricating evidence and framing individuals they target. They record sex tapes and defame them in public. In the past they have gone against the head of the Nationalist Party’s Devlet Bahceli; they went against the former chairperson of the CHP, Deniz Baykal; and now they have attacked Meral Aksener, a member of the MHP, and a former follower, Kemalettin Ozdemir, who left the organization defaming him by claiming that he left the organization because of women, so that others will not leave the organization. There are countless examples of forgery, lies, and cheating cases involving his followers. Following the hijacking by many of his followers of the Prospect/Foreign Policy’s Global Public Intellectual Poll, in which Gulen had his followers nominate him as one of the world’s top 100 intellectuals, the manipulation of the poll speaks for itself, so that respected Muslim intellectuals will view this affair with contempt. Gulen escaped from Turkey in 1999 and told the public that he was sick and that is why he does not go back to Turkey, but now it has been revealed to the public that he was preparing for the coup d’état against the AKP, but it failed. If his coup had been successful, he would have returned like the former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, but thanks to God it failed.
A political crisis has revealed that Gulen is more than a religious leader; he is also a political leader. Upcoming elections on June 7 have forced Gulen and his followers to take illegal acts. I would not be very surprised, if they kill someone from either the Gulen side or the AKP side to exacerbate the fight. If the AKP wins the June 7 election, it will be a nightmare for Gulen. Then, the government might take over Gulen’s media before Gulenists sell it to someone else as they begin an exit strategy. If the AKP losses, Gulen will pack up his soil from all the Turkish provinces and return to Ankara.
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