Fethullah Gulen Movement as a Global Educational and Inter-Religious Model (2)

Ian G. Williams*

Mobilization in the Public Arena

…In his writings and presentations, Fethullah Gulen attempts to mobilise the universal spiritual elements within the [Islamic / Sufi] traditions, codes and idioms of the past to advance new symbolic systems that can, in important ways, stand out as guideposts for the future. Intriguingly, this approach is inclusivist in nature and not bound to one national culture, heritage and identity.

Originating in Turkey but becoming increasingly transnational, the Gulen Movement represents novel approaches to the relationship between faith and reason, peaceful coexistence in liberal democracies with religious diversity, education and spirituality. [Aslandoğan 2007. vii] Thus, there is a form of ‘invitational-confrontation’ in that the movement models to secular nationalist ideologies and economic globalisation processes an Islamic spirituality and world view which can transform political and economic structures. These are not inimical forces bound to oppositional postures.

The movement has systematically avoided contentious political or direct action, preferring to remain, in principle and practice, non-adversarial. It has, instead, in order to form and inform the public space, and to consolidate and revitalise democratic processes, exerted itself to bring together antagonistic individuals and groups to collaborate in a common spirit of service. A prominent example of these efforts is its establishment in Turkey of the ‘Journalists and Writers Foundation’, which brings together academics, scholars, statesmen, and journalists who hold different, even conflicting perspectives in Abant Platforms, dinners and conferences.

The platforms continue to bring urgent matters to the fore to be engaged with in a constructive spirit. They lead the public space in starting negotiations on issues that have caused tensions and clashes for decades. The ‘Abant Platforms’ in particular have been widely appreciated as an effective forum for airing dilemmas that many people in Turkish society longed to have openly discussed and resolved. The movement has thus contributed to the training of a potential for coexistence, for a common sense of citizenship, without the need to clash and with the hope of mutual respect and compromise.

…The complexity of the Turkish Republic’s history and the interaction of ‘state’ and ‘religion’ offer a paradoxically rich environment for this movement to emerge from and to work within. It has had to develop a range of stratagems combining pro-activity and patience, service and persistence of faith. Viewing the recent history of Turkey in regard to the issue of faith Bulaç [2007:120] detects that it is ‘...a history of tension between people of faith, who would like to have a voice in the civil area, and the state society, which would like to transform the rest of the society in an authoritarian way.’ Social movements, as Melucci comments [1999. 258], by revealing the negligence of powerful elites whether misuse of office, authority and resources enable people to take responsibility for alternative modus vivendi publico. Movements strive symbolically to name new codes and languages in order to redefine personal and public civic realities. They reverse the representation of the world proffered by secularist models, refusing the latter’s claim to uniqueness; and they offer, through social practices and lived experiences, alternatives to replace the predominant codes and values. Thus, social movements, of which the Gülen Movement is one example, introduce a new paradigm, a redefinition of public space, for norms of perception and production of reality beyond what is prescribed by the current hegemonic discourse. Such social movements possess an invariably articulate discourse but it is premised upon the significance of dialogue both religious and political between hitherto estranged social actors.

Nonetheless, this as with other social movements of mobilisation has provoked suspicion and hostility from existing power groups both in Turkey and outside. Any collective mobilisation not only or particularly the Gülen Movement not initiated by the power establishment is viewed with disfavour by that establishment because it tends to regard any independent collective action as a potential threat to itself as the very establishment and embodiment of civil power. If an independent collective mobilisation proves its success or efficacy, the power establishment assembles against it because it encroaches upon territory that the vested interests groups need to monopolise in order to pursue particular projects and schemes and to retain their hold on authority.

The core of the Movement however, is an educational ideal which addresses relations between people, the self, and the depths of individual behaviour. Its rationale therefore does not promote aggressive change, whether in Turkey or anywhere else.

Nevertheless, in the public arena the Hodjaeffendi encourages people to serve humanity both through education and in the course of intercultural and interfaith activities and institutions. The goal is to bridge the gaps between peoples and to establish connections for the common good and peace. He has explained that society’s three greatest enemies are ignorance, poverty, and internal schism, which knowledge, work-capital, and unification can eliminate. Ignorance is the most serious problem, and it is defeated through education, which has always been the most important way of serving others. It is the most effective vehicle for change – regardless of whether it is in Turkey or abroad, and whether or not people have systems working or failing – as the solution of every problem in human life ultimately depends on the initiative and capacities of human beings themselves.
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Conclusion

Through discourse and action, the movement alerts a collective consciousness to the radical nature of social, cultural and spiritual needs that politics ignores, or which it mishandles by reducing them to arenas of contention between antagonistic factions.

By putting into practice constructive alternatives to the secularist political approach to social problems, this faith based service orientated movement introduces to the public space a new paradigm, a redefinition of norms of perception and production of reality beyond the control of any hegemonic discourse. For this movement of volunteers is not only facing such structures in the Turkish context but notably in other global situations of strife, division and poverty.

As collective cultural actors, volunteers symbolically seek to reverse the meanings inscribed in that discourse, and demonstrate the arbitrariness of those meanings and of the hegemony by which they are projected. Its success in seeing and shaping reality through different perspectives has led to erosion of the elite’s monopoly of power over reality. That, in turn, has opened up new channels of representation, steadily reforming the decision-making processes and rules, with further effects on the forms of political democracy, distributive justice and segmentation.
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* Senior Lecturer and Subject Leader in Religious Education, University of Central England

Excerpted from Williams, Ian. "A Movement in Counter-Point: The Significance of the Fethullah Gulen Movement as a Global Educational and Inter-Religious Model of Social and Religious Change-a UK Perspective" presented at the international conference “Islam in the Age of Global Challenges: Alternative Perspectives of the Gulen Movement”, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., November 14-15, 2007.

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Fethullah Gulen Movement as a Global Educational and Inter-Religious Model (1)