Fethullah Gulen and the Gulen Movement

When it comes to Hizmet Movement, the case is no different. Therefore, it takes only one self-acclaimed expert to misunderstand Fethullah Gulen. Soon enough, the noise reaches to a threshold that some papers or TV channels feel like they need to report about it. Or worse, they mistake the sheer volume of blog sites as evidence of fact or the “truth”. Under the pressure of deadlines, not every reporter or journalist does the required research or personally interviews the right people to discover the facts about Gulen or Hizmet. Some even choose to be another gosling, and just re-tweet the aspersions from others, even if the allegations are baseless, unfounded, and moreover often conflicting with each other. Then, the bloggers refer or link back to these “new” news stories, generating a vicious cycle.

Take dialog initiatives of Hizmet as an example. Dialog in general is good, right? None of us would object to that especially if it is conducted between people from different walks of life, and its sole purpose is the common good of humanity. But not for Gulen, nor for the people inspired by him! If they promote interfaith and intercultural dialog, then there must definitely be a "hidden agenda". The absurd claim in Turkey used to be that Gulen was a crypto-Christian and Hizmet was a missionary movement. Gulen's visit to the Vatican has long been depicted as evidence for his Christian mission. I don't know what kind of steganalysis they used in examining Gulen’s picture with Pope John Paul II, to see that in all his wisdom, the Holy See could not see? The absurdity did not end there, as this particular claim did not sell well abroad in predominantly Christian countries. Thus, the conspiracy was revised, and  Hizmet was depicted as being an Islamic order pursuing a global caliphate with Gulen as the awaited imam for the end of days.

Some were so carried away by their own conspiracies that they compared Gulen to Khomeini, even though the two have no commonalities beyond being Muslims each of whom lived some of their lives in exile. Unlike Khomeini, Gulen always had friendly relationships with the existing administrations. Moreover, he has always promoted pluralist, transparent democracy. Although he met some bureaucrats or politicians several times in Turkey, he personally was never involved in politics. That is, he never registered for a party or ran for office. As for the people affiliated with the Hizmet Movement, Gulen never promoted a specific party in any election. As free-thinking people, these volunteers choose to vote for left or right, as they wished during any elections, and none of them pursued political goals except maybe a handful who made it clear then that was their own decision. Professor Thomas Michel of Georgetown University, who studied Gulen and Hizmet for many years and personally observed the movement activities in the Philippines, has said, "This movement has never been engaged in politics. It has reached millions of children all across the world and helped with their education regardless of their races, languages, religions and nationalities."³  But interestingly or predictably enough, conspiracy theories about Gulen becoming a global political power still sell like hotcakes.