Gülen: what changes with the death of Erdoğan's key opponent?
Turkish spiritual leader Fethullah Gülen has died in the US. The founder of the Hizmet movement has been deemed a major opponent of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan since 2013. His movement founded educational institutions in Turkey in the 1960s, and many of his followers went on to join the civil service. Charged with attempting to overthrow the secular state, Gülen left Turkey for the United States in 1999 and had lived in exile there ever since.
Secularism and Islam
NRC highlights one of Gülen's unique traits:
“While many Islamist political movements have tended to be decidedly anti-Western and anti-capitalist, Gülen positioned himself as pro-Western and pro-Israel. This wasn't just opportunism. Inspired by the Sufi scholar Said Nursî, he preached an amalgamation of secular and religious life. Gülen once said on Turkish television that 'the republican order and secularism, when perfectly implemented, are a gift from God'.”
Total repression after the thwarted coup
De Standaard looks back on the consequences of the 2016 attempted coup d'état:
“Erdoğan had tens of thousands of civil servants dismissed because of their links to Gülen. More than eleven billion dollars were confiscated. The regime (wrongly) considered every member to be guilty. But the repression has not succeeded in keeping anti-democratic, sectarian groups out of politics. Erdoğan took everything from the Gülen movement. However, their original conservative rivals, such as the Suleymanci movement, have improved their position in the education system and in the authorities in recent years.”
Without its leader the organisation will also die
The AKP-affiliated daily Star looks at the Turkish government's version of events:
“The Gülen movement showed its true face as a terrorist organisation for the first time on 17 December [2013, the year of the break between Erdoğan and Gülen, after the latter published tape recordings of an alleged corruption case]. It even dared to portray Prime Minister Erdoğan as the head of a criminal organisation! ... This deep-rooted and widespread parallel organisation within the state attempted a coup d'état on 15 July [2016], and 251 people were brutally killed in the process. It benefited from foreign support. The state experienced a historic threat. Now that the cult figure has died, the death of the organisation will also be complete.”
Ankara free to expand its influence on Sunnis
Erdoğan's international position will be strengthened, Eleftheros Typos predicts:
“Gülen's foundations in Europe, America, Asia and Africa propagated a moderate, globalised Islam that divided the Turkish diaspora and the wider Sunni audience and severely curtailed Erdoğan's plans for a new caliphate beyond the borders of the 'Ottoman Empire'. Now that the 'demon' is out of the way, Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) can implement its programme to expand Turkey's religious influence through more mosques, imams and Islamic organisations.”