Community service in the Gülen Movement vs. Political action

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What questions does the Gülen Movement answer for participants?

The Gülen Movement does not answer participants questions for them. Instead, in the Gülen Movement the participants look for answers to the questions all people living in complex modern societies face.

These questions center around how to develop humane qualities, good behavior, love for others, enthusiasm for self-improvement, and an active desire to serve others, make a difference in the world, and to persevere in this desire in the face of setbacks and failures.

The Movement therefore serves as a mediator of demands. It invites and allows society to take responsibility for its own actions within the legal boundaries. It helps to create common public spaces in which people can agree to share the responsibility for a social field. The agreements they make in this way extend beyond party interests or positions.

This kind of cooperation generates innovative energies, keeps the system open, produces innovation and new institutions. It develops elites. It brings into the area of the decidable that which has been excluded. It thus illuminates the problematic areas of complexity in a system. Such a movement is indispensable for the healthy functioning of an open democratic society.

The Gülen Movement has significant effects on society so is it not conducting political action, even if it is not party political?

No. Political action and community service are different. Political groups with different political outlooks, worldviews and goals, work for their distinction, separateness and superiority over others.

They work self-righteously for positions in a political environment, to be seen and elected. Their separateness and superiority should not be confused with service-networks, which operate altruistically to offer what is lacking in a society, and in which people or groups efface themselves and work without being named or acknowledged. The intention is not to be seen or elected. Quite the contrary, people contribute anonymously.

Compared to political action, the type of community service and the various orientations of the Gülen Movement involve the high degree of flexibility of a very adaptable organizational form and the elasticity of interpersonal relationships. This lets the networks simultaneously fulfill self-reflective functions and produce cultural codes. It enables an easy shift or ‘bridging’ from one function over to another. This collective identity structure with adaptable networks and self-reflective resources supports public mobilization and provides the energy for projects. That in turn feeds the networks with new participants, trains new skills and redefines issues and the public space. It is one of the reasons why the Gülen Movement has been acknowledged transnationally.

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