Opposition to the Gulen Movement: Who and why? (2)

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What was the “West Working Group” and why did it target the Gülen Movement?

The West Working Group was a group set up initially within the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK); it was subsequently abolished or modified into various tactical units. The West Working Group interfered with politics and governance and became a unit that planned anti-democratic schemes and putsch-like events. (Since the group was disbanded, its members have resurfaced in warfare units in the TSK that have continued to plot strategies for coup attempts.) The group claimed its name epitomized its adherence to Western values because Westernization is one of the fundamental principles of the Turkish Republic.

However, the members’ actions gave the lie to their words: the task of safeguarding democracy means playing the democratic game to its fullest extent: it means demanding that all political players make the reasons for their positions and policies known to the public; it means ensuring that “the rules of the game” are respected; it means struggling against the monopolization of information; it means opposing government policies constructively, i.e. by offering credible alternative policies. It means also that the autonomy of civil society actors must be respected. Their concerns must not be collapsed into the political arena; rather, political actors and society in general must acknowledge and respect the distance that civil society actors maintain from the political arena.

Regrettably, the culture of this and similar special interest groups was, on February 28 during the period of the post-modern coup and subsequent intervention, ill-prepared to undertake the task of safeguarding democracy, for those groups have always sought to reduce everything produced in civil society to political in-fighting, threats or manipulation. The Turkish public now sees that interest groups embodied in such units as the West Working Group do not care at all about Western values. They are dreaming of a West devoid of democratization, individual rights, human rights, freedom of worship and civil initiative.

Why did those groups counter-mobilize against Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen Movement?

The dominant protectionist group assume that social, cultural and political representation in Turkey, as well as the identification of any societal problems and their solution, are their sole and exclusive prerogative. This is best seen in their counter-mobilization during the February 28 Process against SMOs and civil society. The counter-mobilization was not based on democratic procedures or political consensus but was, and still is, realized and secured through ideological interpretation. The protectionist system propagates itself and permeates daily life and existential choices. It filters and represses some demands by presenting them as an absolute, existential threat to the very structure of society. When the dominant group cannot compete with any alternative in argument, action and services, it uses the protectionist system to stigmatize any suggestion or advice, any alternative or opposition, as a threat to national security.

Despite the fact that such interpretation and counter-mobilization is anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian, the protectionist elite legitimates it by exploiting combinations of events and circumstances and segmentation, radicalization and tension in society.

The counter-mobilization also resurfaces at different times and in different circumstances as improprieties, corruption or concealment of other vested interests. One way for protectionist actors to seek a reduction in the risks involved in a decision is to secure for themselves a preventive consensus through the use of ideological manipulation. This preventive consensus usually goes by the name of “Kemalism” in Turkey.

The counter-mobilization in Turkey has in practice decayed into a counter-mobilization against all except themselves. It is especially targeted at religion, religious people, and all modernizing efforts and projects originating from the faith-inspired communities. That is the context of their making Gülen and the Movement their major “adversary.”

Why are Fethullah Gülen’s views perceived by such groups to pose a threat?

Views in favor of the consolidation of democratic and basic human rights in Turkey are repressed on account of the threat they are perceived to pose to the structural advantage of the dominant protectionist interests in the society. So Fethullah Gülen’s views are seen as implicitly calling into question the privileges of those interests in utilizing political processes and questioning the protectionists’ hegemony over the political system. The protectionists fear that certain understandings and demands may alter the balance of the political system and financial interests and may cause the criteria for selection and entry into that system to be widened.

Related Articles:

• Opposition to the Gulen Movement: Who and why? (1)
• Fethullah Gulen and February 28 [Postmodern coup]