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"Woe to him, for how he schemed": Fethullah Gülen, the U.S., and the damaging of Turkish democracy
The presence of Islam in Europe is accompanied by contradictory dynamics. While on the one hand institutions are gradually accommodating Muslim demands and vice versa, on the other hand tendencies of Islamist and anti-Muslim radicalisation are reinforcing each other. In addition to analyses of institutionalisation processes that entail modes of a new normality, this volume offers contributions on political Islam, anti-Muslim policies as well as on social negotiations on conflict and integration. Finally, scholarly and literary reflections are examined with regard to their normative underpinnings. The volume brings together contributions from sociologists, Islamic scholars and literary scholars. With contributions by Asligüel Aysel, Sana Chavoshian, Aletta Diefenbach, Lena Dreier, Johannes Ebner, Özkan Ezli, Anja Frank, Lisa Harms, Jörg Hüttermann, Sarah Kaboğan, Ines Michalowski, Olaf Müller, Cemal Öztürk, Gert Pickel, Detlef Pollack, Anna Felicitas Scholz, Reinhard Schulze, Mustafa Şen, Levent Tezcan and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr.
This paper charts how the Gülen movement (GM)’s allegiance and effectiveness has changed over the past two decades. It examines how the GM has moved from being a fellow Islamist actor in Turkish politics to close ally during the first ten years of the AKP government with the joint aim of decreasing the Kemalist hold on the establishment. The paper then examines how the GM has been delegitimised by the AKP since it became more of a risk than an asset amidst disagreements over policy direction. It argues that the GM has transitioned from being a rival to an ally of the AKP in order to facilitate policy; going from a non-state actor pre-2002 to a quasi-state actor during its alliance. The alliance was a mutually beneficial ‘marriage of convenience’ which enabled both parties to consolidate power often through illiberal means. However, since 2013 the AKP-Gülen relationship has deteriorated markedly and the movement is now an enemy of the AKP and a victim of the same authoritarian drift it was previously complicit in.
This chapter establishes the nature of the news media and its journalism during the decades of Kemalism in Turkey. The illiberality of these governments and the clientelism which developed between the state and the news media owners has meant the journalistic tradition in Turkey is not strong, but it does exist. Moreover, it argues that securitisation of the new media with the aim of discrediting its journalism is not new and is especially relevant with regard to the Kurdish issue since the 1980s. Kurdish journalists have long had to choose between their personal security and doing their jobs as writing about the Kurdish issue was often conflated with support for the PKK. It argues that this approach was written into the constitution following the 1980 coup enabling the state to crackdown on anything deemed to be a threat to the “state”.
The Kemalists and the Kurds have been the established political opposition for the AKP in Turkey and were dealt with as an obstacle to the consolidation of the party’s ability to implement an Islamist agenda. The journalism associated with both transitioned from being a secondary target to a primary target—as the authoritarianism of the AKP increased. However, the ruling party’s relationship with the Gülen movement and associated media is more complex: Until 2013 Gülen was an AKP ally and complicit in the Ergenekon and KCK operations. Since then it has been the primary object of AKP securitisation because it was perceived as posing the greatest risk to the party’s ongoing dominance. This chapter outlines the Gülen–AKP relationship and subsequent split and how the news media was involved as well as how the securitisation of the Gülen movement has been used instrumentally to securitise other outlets as well.
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