September 28, 2011

Understanding Structure and Hierarchy in the Gülen Movement – 1

Martin Taylor

The Gülen Movement, also known as Hizmet (service), is a social movement inspired by the Turkish Islamic scholar and peace activist Fethullah Gülen.[1] It began in Turkey in the 1970’s and operates principally in education, dialogue, media and relief work. It has founded over a thousand schools; even more dialogue organisations; clinics; media outlets; humanitarian aid and other charitable NGOs in over a 130 countries worldwide. By all measures, the Movement is big, extensive, dynamic and successful. For many, this means that it must be centrally organized and hierarchically structured — that is, it must be top-down with clear chains of command, various layers of operating systems with the necessary checks and balances that entails. The assumption is based on our everyday experience of getting things done (and finding that the bigger the task the harder and more complex the organisational effort it requires) and on our knowledge of small and large organisations. The assumption is that large entities must have elaborate hierarchical structures and systems to even exist let alone achieve their goals.