Why Does Gulen Urge His Followers to Escape from Turkey?

Fethullah Gülen

As President of the United States Ronald Reagan once said, “When they feel the heat, they will see the light.” Public awareness and discussion of what is going on behind Gulen’s public statements and what Gulen’s real goal is has already been revealed helping people to see his true face and his actual goal. Gulen’s public and private statements are often at odds with each other.

The problem is that in 1999, Gulen escaped from Turkey to the United States. Gulenists will tell you Gulen came to the United States for health reasons, but, in truth, he fled from the Turkish government and escaped when he was accused of attempting to undermine Turkey’s secular government in order to institute his cult ideology. He obtained his US green card with the help of CIA officials. While in the U.S, one of his weekly sermon videotapes surfaced revealing that Gulen suggested his goal was to replace the Turkish system.

Of course, denial tactics, always the first line of defense, are working for them. His supporters say that the tapes were manipulated and his remarks twisted and taken out of context, but in reality the organization is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Gulen’s real reason to remain in the U.S is not because of his health, but because he chose to stay in his lavish compound rather than face prosecution in Turkey. He is more productive in the U.S than if he were living in Turkey.

That is another reason why he is urging his followers to escape as expeditiously as they can because, for Gulen, justice is not the highest priority for the Turkish judicial system. Thus, Gulen knew that in Turkey he would not be that effective, that his followers would end up in jail, and that he could not operate there, so he calculated that he had better go outside.

Now he has given a fatwa to hundreds of police and judiciary officials, journalists, academicians, businessmen, and teachers, urging his people to escape from Turkey to settle in Europe, America, or any other place in order not to face charges. They justify the flight to his followers by using scriptures from the Quran that compare his followers to the Prophet Mohammad’s followers as the Sahabe, saying to them that Mohammad was also exiled to foreign lands and prosecuted by his home country. As a result Mohammad set up the first Islamic State not in his birthplace Mekke but in Medina where he was exiled. Consequently, they believe Erdogan is like the infidels, doing all the unjust offenses to them, and they are the true representatives because they are a chosen and just community. Like Mohammad later went back to conquer Mekka initially without any bloodshed, they foresee this happening to them. This is not the first time Gulen has escaped from the Turkish government. In 1980, when the military instigated a coup, they put a prize on the head of Gulen, and Gulen went on a pilgrimage to Mekka. Because he could not come back to Turkey, Gulen illegally and secretly entered Turkey.

When Gulen escaped to the United States from Turkey in 1999, he was more effective in the U.S.A, because he used the Internet to give his daily or weekly sermons to reach his followers around the world. He also opened more than 140 charters schools working in every state and setting up NGOs and lobbyist groups.  He has been able not only to deceive many American politicians by giving them free trips to Turkey and other places, so they could become public relations persons, but also to use American tax money to disseminate his ideology around the world through his schools.

This year lawyers hired by Turkey filed a lawsuit against Gulen in the Untied States, alleging that he orchestrated human rights abuses against three men in Turkey from his residence in Pennsylvania. Distance does not prevent Gulen and his followers from spreading their cult ideology. While living on his estate at 1857 Mt. Eaton Road, Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen, who has become Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s number one enemy, went on trial in absentia in Istanbul on January 6th 2016. He was accused of attempting to overthrow the government by instigating a corruption probe in 2013 that targeted people close to the Turkish leader. Gulen and 68 other people, including former police chiefs, have been charged with attempting to overthrow the Turkish Republic through the use of violence, a terrorist organization, and political espionage. Prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for Gulen and others.

Turkey witnessed how, even in the process of democratizing, the society found itself in a frenzy where fact and fiction became indistinguishable, having been deceived and misled during Gulen’s power in Turkey. The Turkish government was a victim of a coup attempt by a structure that was organized within state institutions with strong media support, which tried to seize the country. The documents that were presented to the public and court at the time turned out to be fake and twisted with false information. So the marriage between Gulen and Erdogan broke up, and now they are bitter enemies. However, it seems that justice is being served after years of unfair trials and convictions, slanders, cheating, and stealing; people finally see that Gulen’s organization is not a civilian movement, but it is greedy organized crime operating as a cult that is all about controlling a large share of power and infiltrating politics with bribes. Thus, they represent the prophet of profits

In various publications, I have often written about Gulen and that he was preparing a first class revolution. That is why he infiltrated every branch of government with his people for three decades. His followers partnered with the AKP and made false accusations against the secular military generals, secular police chiefs, and even media people putting them in jail and replacing them with his own people. The last step, however, was to get rid of AKP’s founder, the charismatic leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because many people loved Erdogan, including Gulen’s followers, because for a long time Gulen claimed that he was equal distance to all political parties. Now he is behind the scene partnering with the AKP to accomplish his goals, so Erdogan could not get credit for all the reforms happening in Turkey. The people of Turkey were praising Erdogan and the AKP, so Gulen wanted to bring down Erdogan by slandering and defaming him in the eyes of the public finally exiling or killing him. But it failed.

Gulen is not alone in fooling the West. The Muslim Brotherhood co-opted the Tahrir Square’s Arab Spring uprising in Egypt ousting Mubarak and bringing in Mohamed Morsi, and Ruhollah Khomeini countered the Shah’s White Revolution in 1963 and subsequently was exiled in France, until he later established the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. They promised young Egyptians, or Iranians, democracy, and there were many Westerners journalists, analysts, academicians, actors, and diplomats who believed them. But the Muslim Brotherhood, like the Gulen Missionary movement, is a strictly hierarchical organization that does not tolerate internal debate or discussion. Their management ideology is to teach the followers to listen and repeat. Once they are in power, Gulen and Morsi like Khomeini will deny their promises and any rhetoric of democracy, and compromise will began to transform their people into an authoritarian, religious state.

In one of the last sermons he aired, Gulen asked why people are silent and not helping his organization. He accused those who were not taking his side of all being evil. For Gulen, freedom of speech is only selective, and his accusation shows how democratic Gulen actually is. Almost every politician is corrupt, including Erdogan, but at least Erdogan does not tell everybody that those who do not support him are evil. The reason nobody is left to help Gulen is because Gulen did not leave any door for people to love them. Gulen is the one divided people between hizmet ici and hizmet disindakiler, which means the service of those who are followers of Gulen and the service of those who are not). Those who do not follow Gulen are considered outsiders and, therefore, not trustworthy.

Gulen is telling his devotees that Turkey will hit bottom, implying that the fall will be all encompassing and that socially, economically, and politically it will collapse. He is hoping for chaos in Turkey and not peace and order, so that is why Gulen is supporting the PKK, and now, at least some of the Kurds are helping create his orchestrated chaos.

Internationally, Gulen has schools all over the world. His followers launched a campaign against Turkey and accused Erdogan and Turkey of supporting ISIS. They want Turkey to become a failed state like Syria and Iraq, so that they will blame Erdogan for the collapse because, according to them, Erdogan is an evil man and an enemy of Islam. This shows how dangerous, egoistic, and prideful this group and its leader are in that he would compromise his love of Turkey for his ego and pride. By urging his followers to escape from Turkey and to come outside, he is helping to expedite chaos in Turkey and to ignite a civil war among Turks, Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites. In reality, Gulen was the one who was behind closing all the KCK youth houses in Turkey that were indoctrinating thousands of Kurdish young men and women into his movement.

Gulen is deceiving Westerners claiming that Erdogan is a one-man rule, and that members of the Gulen organization are the good guys and victims of Erdogan, but in reality whatever Erdogan and Gulen say about each other is true, but whatever they say about themselves is not true. But people already know that Gulen not only demonizes whoever gets in his way but also intends to criminalize whoever dares to disagree with him. At least the Turkish people and others around the world should be thankful to Erdogan that he helped reveal Gulen’s real face.

Gulen has created a new brand of Islam called “Moderate Islam” or Reformed Islam due to his alleged advocacy of tolerance, dialogue, and peace, but in reality he and his inner circle are just wolves in sheep’s clothing fooling Americans and Westerners to sleep, feeding into a false flag of hysteria about Islamaphobia if and when anyone disagrees. Buy outs of top American political figures range from Hillary Clinton to the Congressmen many of whom have taken trips to Turkey and may be found on lists on the Internet.

People should dig into the facts and demand all the Gulen-linked funds the organization receives be revealed and returned. American law enforcement must follow the law, and let the law determine the legality of affairs conducted by shifty political bosses trying to cover up their corruption. America should send Gulen back to Turkey for him to defend himself; if Gulen considers himself to be innocent, he should go to Turkey and prove it in court. If he has not committed any wrongdoing, he will be free, Turkey is a not a banana republic. There is law and order there too.

At one time Gulen considered Turkey a place holier than Mecca, and that is why Gulen ordered his followers to bring dust from every state in Turkey to keep in his room to show how much love he had for his country, but now suddenly he has become an enemy of Turkey. In America we speak of “home sweet home,” and evidently Gulen’s 25-acre retreat here is now his. Gulenists are trying to fool the West that Gulenism is a solution to radicalism, but I would argue Gulen himself is a problem. How can a problem become a solution?

Gulen’s organization is the most corrupt enterprise on earth because of its duplicity. If you need evidence, just pay attention to what is going on. For a long time, the main media in America was hesitant to write about the shady organization, but thanks to the Washington Post and other newspapers and journals, now slowly Americans are waking up and learning the truth.  If bribing officials is not corruption, what else is? If stealing exam questions is not corruption, what else is? If recording private conversations, particularly those of a national leader is not corruption, what else is? Is money laundering not corruption? Is surreptitiously indoctrinating American youth with Islam by using US taxpayer dollars not corruption? I think it is finally going to be the light at the end of the tunnel.

Gulen is afraid of going back to Turkey, and he is better off spreading his ideology from outside his homeland. His organization’s financial resources are getting cut off in Turkey, his followers cannot get additional money from the public or obtain good jobs based on their affiliation, so it is better for him to stay outside instead of going to jail if he returns to Turkey. Outside the leaders can work, and they can disseminate hate toward Erdogan. In Turkey they cannot do that. They are waiting for Erodgan to die or for civil war to break out in Turkey. Erdogan, however, did not damage Gulen‘s cult empire; Gulen himself destroyed his empire. Their arrogance, pride, conflicting personalities, and defamatory statements that he kept producing damaged the empire. Erodgan is playing off the leaders’ traits as weapons to destroy him or them. So far Erdogan is being successful.

Gulen is undergoing trauma and paranoia, and he will do anything to prove himself right, because all along his followers have thought he was absolute, so they had no need for deep analysis. This is the dramatic portrait of an ending. I think that it is a travesty to take a perfectly healthy, normal human child, train him or her up as an robot, destroy the special gifts which God has given that child, so that she or he will live life as a student mentally crippled, unable to enjoy the freedom of expression, belief, or critical thinking, instead living constantly under the indoctrination of Hodja Efendi, believing and following without rationality. Children do become what they are taught. It is very important to pay attention to what children are being fed. Even some children will hide from their parents the truth of what has been taught them in Gulen’s schools.

Gulen’s goal is to reinstate the Ottoman Empire while indoctrinating American and Western children in order to build their numbers, shape young minds, and define their future. However, now many seek ways to leave Gulen organizations. It was very bad when they had power, because they would harass or even jail some of the people who criticized them and did not agree with them. For Gulenists, hiding the truth is acceptable, and they are taught to guard their secrets as they would guard their chastity. No matter how much the Gulen organization denies the truth, it is the end of their denial because now people see the light.

Dr. Aland Mizell is with the MCI and a regular contributor to The Kurdistan Tribune, Mindanao Times.You may email the authorat:aland_mizell2@hotmail.com