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ANOTHER EXPOSé ON GULEN MOVEMEN
http://asbarez.com/114589/another-expose-on-gulen-movement/
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013
Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen
Erdogan Is Not Turkey's Only Problem
BY DANI RODRIK
>From Project Syndicate
PRINCETON - Turkan Saylan was a trailblazing physician, one of
Turkey's first female dermatologists and a leading campaigner
against leprosy. She was also a staunch secularist who established a
foundation to provide scholarships to young girls so they could attend
school. In 2009, police raided her house and confiscated documents
in an investigation that linked her to an alleged terrorist group,
called "Ergenekon," supposedly bent on destabilizing Turkey in order
to precipitate a military coup.
Saylan was terminally ill with cancer at the time and died shortly
thereafter. But the case against her associates continued and became
part of a vast wave of trials directed against opponents of Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his allies in the powerful Gulen
movement, made up of the followers of the Islamic preacher Fethullah
Gulen.
The evidence in this case, as in so many others, consists of
Microsoft Word documents found on a computer that belonged to Saylan's
foundation. When American experts recently examined the forensic image
of the hard drive, they made a startling - but for Turkey all too
familiar - discovery. The incriminating files had been placed on the
hard drive sometime after the computer's last use at the foundation.
Because the computer had been seized by the police, the finding
pointed rather directly to official malfeasance.
Fabricated evidence, secret witnesses, and flights of investigative
fancy are the foundation of the show trials that Turkish police and
prosecutors have mounted since 2007. In the infamous Sledgehammer
case, a military-coup plot was found to contain glaring anachronisms,
including the use of Microsoft Office 2007 in documents supposedly
last saved in 2003. (My father-in-law is among the more than 300
officers who were locked up, and my wife and I have been active in
documenting the case's fabrications.)
The list of revelations and absurdities goes on and on. In one case,
a document describing a plot directed against Christian minorities
turned out to have been in police possession before the authorities
claimed to have recovered it from a suspect. In another, police
"discovered" the evidence that they were seeking, despite going to
the wrong address and raiding the home of a naval officer whose name
sounded similar to that of the target.
Yet none of the trials has yet been derailed. Most have had the support
and blessing of Erdogan, who has exploited them to discredit the old
secular guard and cement his rule. Even more important, the trials
have had the strong backing of the Gulen movement.
Gulen lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, where he presides
over a huge informal network of schools, think tanks, businesses, and
media across five continents. His devotees have established roughly
100 charter schools in the United States alone, and the movement has
gained traction in Europe since the first Gulen school was founded
in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1995.
Back home, Gulen's followers have created what is effectively a state
within the Turkish state, gaining a strong foothold in the police
force, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy. Gulenists deny that they
control the Turkish police, but, as a US ambassador to Turkey put it
in 2009, "we have found no one who disputes it."
The movement's influence within the judiciary ensures that its members'
transgressions remain unchallenged. In one well-documented case,
a non-commissioned officer at a military base, acting on behalf
of the Gulen movement, was caught planting documents in order to
embarrass military officials. The military prosecutor investigating
the case soon found himself in jail on trumped-up charges, while the
perpetrator was reinstated. A senior police commissioner who had been
close to the movement and wrote an exposé about its activities was
accused of collaborating with the far-left groups that he had spent
much of his career pursuing; he, too, ended up in jail.
The Gulen movement uses these trials to lock up critics and replace
opponents in important state posts. The ultimate goal seems to be to
reshape Turkish society in the movement's own conservative-religious
image. Gulenist media have been particularly active in this cause,
spewing a continuous stream of disinformation about defendants in
Gulen-mounted trials while covering up police misdeeds.
But relations between Erdogan and the Gulenists have soured. Once
their common enemy, the secularists, were out of the way, Erdogan had
less need for the movement. The breaking point came in February 2012,
when Gulenists tried to bring down his intelligence chief, a close
confidant, reaching perilously close to Erdogan himself. Erdogan
responded by removing many Gulenists from their positions in the
police and judiciary.
But Erdogan's ability to take on the Gulen movement is limited.
Bugging devices were recently found in Erdogan's office, planted,
his close associates said, by the police. Yet Erdogan, known for his
brash style, responded with remarkable equanimity. If he harbored any
doubt that the movement sits on troves of embarrassing - and possibly
far worse - intelligence, the bugging revelation must surely have
removed it.
The foreign media have focused mainly on Erdogan's behavior in
recent months. But if Turkey has turned into a Kafkaesque quagmire,
a republic of dirty tricks and surreal conspiracies, it is Gulenists
who must shoulder much of the blame. This is worth remembering in
view of the movement's efforts to dress up its current opposition to
Erdogan in the garb of democracy and pluralism.
Gulenist commentators preach about the rule of law and human rights,
even as Gulenist media champion flagrant show trials. The movement
showcases Fethullah Gulen as a beacon of moderation and tolerance,
while his Turkish-language Web site peddles his anti-Semitic,
anti-Western sermons. Such double talk seems to have become second
nature to Gulenist leaders.
The good news is that the rest of the world has started to see
Erdogan's republic for what it is: an increasingly authoritarian
regime built around a popular but deeply flawed leader. Indeed,
his government's crackdown on dissent may well have cost Istanbul
the 2020 Olympics. What has yet to be recognized is the separate,
and quite disturbing, role that the Gulen movement has played in
bringing Turkey to its current impasse. As Americans and Europeans
debate the Gulen movement's role in their own societies, they should
examine Turkey's experience more closely.
Dani Rodrik is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. He is the author of One
Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic
Growth and, most recently, The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and
the Future of the World Economy.
http://asbarez.com/114589/another-expose-on-gulen-movement/
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013
Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen
Erdogan Is Not Turkey's Only Problem
BY DANI RODRIK
>From Project Syndicate
PRINCETON - Turkan Saylan was a trailblazing physician, one of
Turkey's first female dermatologists and a leading campaigner
against leprosy. She was also a staunch secularist who established a
foundation to provide scholarships to young girls so they could attend
school. In 2009, police raided her house and confiscated documents
in an investigation that linked her to an alleged terrorist group,
called "Ergenekon," supposedly bent on destabilizing Turkey in order
to precipitate a military coup.
Saylan was terminally ill with cancer at the time and died shortly
thereafter. But the case against her associates continued and became
part of a vast wave of trials directed against opponents of Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his allies in the powerful Gulen
movement, made up of the followers of the Islamic preacher Fethullah
Gulen.
The evidence in this case, as in so many others, consists of
Microsoft Word documents found on a computer that belonged to Saylan's
foundation. When American experts recently examined the forensic image
of the hard drive, they made a startling - but for Turkey all too
familiar - discovery. The incriminating files had been placed on the
hard drive sometime after the computer's last use at the foundation.
Because the computer had been seized by the police, the finding
pointed rather directly to official malfeasance.
Fabricated evidence, secret witnesses, and flights of investigative
fancy are the foundation of the show trials that Turkish police and
prosecutors have mounted since 2007. In the infamous Sledgehammer
case, a military-coup plot was found to contain glaring anachronisms,
including the use of Microsoft Office 2007 in documents supposedly
last saved in 2003. (My father-in-law is among the more than 300
officers who were locked up, and my wife and I have been active in
documenting the case's fabrications.)
The list of revelations and absurdities goes on and on. In one case,
a document describing a plot directed against Christian minorities
turned out to have been in police possession before the authorities
claimed to have recovered it from a suspect. In another, police
"discovered" the evidence that they were seeking, despite going to
the wrong address and raiding the home of a naval officer whose name
sounded similar to that of the target.
Yet none of the trials has yet been derailed. Most have had the support
and blessing of Erdogan, who has exploited them to discredit the old
secular guard and cement his rule. Even more important, the trials
have had the strong backing of the Gulen movement.
Gulen lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, where he presides
over a huge informal network of schools, think tanks, businesses, and
media across five continents. His devotees have established roughly
100 charter schools in the United States alone, and the movement has
gained traction in Europe since the first Gulen school was founded
in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1995.
Back home, Gulen's followers have created what is effectively a state
within the Turkish state, gaining a strong foothold in the police
force, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy. Gulenists deny that they
control the Turkish police, but, as a US ambassador to Turkey put it
in 2009, "we have found no one who disputes it."
The movement's influence within the judiciary ensures that its members'
transgressions remain unchallenged. In one well-documented case,
a non-commissioned officer at a military base, acting on behalf
of the Gulen movement, was caught planting documents in order to
embarrass military officials. The military prosecutor investigating
the case soon found himself in jail on trumped-up charges, while the
perpetrator was reinstated. A senior police commissioner who had been
close to the movement and wrote an exposé about its activities was
accused of collaborating with the far-left groups that he had spent
much of his career pursuing; he, too, ended up in jail.
The Gulen movement uses these trials to lock up critics and replace
opponents in important state posts. The ultimate goal seems to be to
reshape Turkish society in the movement's own conservative-religious
image. Gulenist media have been particularly active in this cause,
spewing a continuous stream of disinformation about defendants in
Gulen-mounted trials while covering up police misdeeds.
But relations between Erdogan and the Gulenists have soured. Once
their common enemy, the secularists, were out of the way, Erdogan had
less need for the movement. The breaking point came in February 2012,
when Gulenists tried to bring down his intelligence chief, a close
confidant, reaching perilously close to Erdogan himself. Erdogan
responded by removing many Gulenists from their positions in the
police and judiciary.
But Erdogan's ability to take on the Gulen movement is limited.
Bugging devices were recently found in Erdogan's office, planted,
his close associates said, by the police. Yet Erdogan, known for his
brash style, responded with remarkable equanimity. If he harbored any
doubt that the movement sits on troves of embarrassing - and possibly
far worse - intelligence, the bugging revelation must surely have
removed it.
The foreign media have focused mainly on Erdogan's behavior in
recent months. But if Turkey has turned into a Kafkaesque quagmire,
a republic of dirty tricks and surreal conspiracies, it is Gulenists
who must shoulder much of the blame. This is worth remembering in
view of the movement's efforts to dress up its current opposition to
Erdogan in the garb of democracy and pluralism.
Gulenist commentators preach about the rule of law and human rights,
even as Gulenist media champion flagrant show trials. The movement
showcases Fethullah Gulen as a beacon of moderation and tolerance,
while his Turkish-language Web site peddles his anti-Semitic,
anti-Western sermons. Such double talk seems to have become second
nature to Gulenist leaders.
The good news is that the rest of the world has started to see
Erdogan's republic for what it is: an increasingly authoritarian
regime built around a popular but deeply flawed leader. Indeed,
his government's crackdown on dissent may well have cost Istanbul
the 2020 Olympics. What has yet to be recognized is the separate,
and quite disturbing, role that the Gulen movement has played in
bringing Turkey to its current impasse. As Americans and Europeans
debate the Gulen movement's role in their own societies, they should
examine Turkey's experience more closely.
Dani Rodrik is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. He is the author of One
Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic
Growth and, most recently, The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and
the Future of the World Economy.