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| Fethullah Gulen |
Now Mr Erdogan has turned on his former ally in a show of force that is likely to determine his own future as well as that of Turkish politics. Strange though it seems to many, Mr Gulen is perhaps the only force that can halt Mr Erdogan’s drift towards authoritarianism. He is also credited with keeping Turkish Islam moderate.
Will Mr Gulen mobilise his flock, thought to be in the millions, against Mr Erdogan and his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development (AK) party in the March municipal elections? If so, will their support be enough to wrest Istanbul, the biggest municipal prize, from AK? And what of Mr Erdogan’s dream of becoming Turkey’s first popularly elected president when the post becomes vacant in August?
Opinions differ on the outcome of what Kadri Gursel, a pundit, calls the “ugly divorce”. With the levers of power at his disposal, Mr Erdogan might seem the stronger man. He has vowed to phase out thousands of private crammers that prepare students for university exams. A quarter of the schools, a big source of disciples and revenue, are run by Gulenists.
The decision, announced last month, sparked a barrage of rebukes, including one from Mr Gulen, who inveighed against the tyranny of “pharaohs”. Mr Erdogan has begun to weed out thousands of Gulenists thought to be embedded in the security services, government ministries and judiciary and who, in his words, constitute “a parallel state”. They are rumoured to possess evidence of AK-linked corruption, as well as compromising videos of Mr Erdogan’s associates.
These “agents” are said to be the source of a steady flow of classified documents to the media, one of them a directive from the national security council with Mr Erdogan’s signature on it which calls for defanging religious groups, including the Gulenists. Prosecutors have begun investigating Mehmet Baransu, the journalist who published the document, on “espionage” charges. Never mind that Mr Baransu was hailed as a hero when he published reams of other sensitive evidence used to convict hundreds of alleged coup-plotting generals and their proxies in the controversial Ergenekon trial. The targeting of Mr Baransu and his newspaper, Taraf, is yet another example of Mr Erdogan’s campaign to muzzle dissident voices.
A source of enduring speculation is why Mr Erdogan has chosen this moment to go after the Gulenists. The most likely answer is that Mr Erdogan wanted them to show their hand well before the presidential elections. An increasingly paranoid prime minister is said to believe that a “Gulen-Israel axis” is bent on unseating him. His suspicions were fuelled by Mr Gulen’s very public criticism of Turkey’s rupture with Israel in 2010.
It is too early to say which of the leaders will prevail. Mr Gulen made some conciliatory noises in his most recent sermon. The latest opinion polls suggest that AK continues to command around 50% in support. People close to Mr Gulen acknowledge that the movement’s image has suffered and that much soul-searching has ensued. Mr Erdogan, who rarely admits to any wrong-doing, ought to follow suit. Turkey would be a happier and more democratic place.
*Editor’s note: Hizmet Movement Blog reaffirms its non-endorsement policy of the various viewpoints expressed throughout the articles that are solely shared for the convenience of the readers.
Published on The Economist, 14 December 2013, Saturday
