Too bad the money is drying up and the Politicians are no longer returning their calls.
Obama‘s Race to Top Policy Helps Turkish Gülen Missionary Charters
Schools Race to Conquer America
Kurdishaspect.com - By Dr. Aland Mizell
This ideology wields considerable power in American politics because his followers are actively involved in lobbying Congress to promote his interest in Washington. Gülen was recently honored under Texas Sates Resolution No. 85, which recognized his contributions and promotions, and their goal is to let the other 49 states honor him. The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justified the end. For Gülenists any method is justifiable; it just depends on the organization’s perceived notion of “if the good outweighs the bad, then the action is moral.” Even lies are justifiable under the some circumstances, because for Gülenists everything depends on circumstances. However, when someone really does more thorough research about Gülen’s movement, he or she will see this kind of double standard and unethical methods behind the movement. Otherwise it would not be as successful. For example, the political impact of Gülenists in Turkey before 2001 and Gülenists’ stand with the ruling political party and the army has shifted substantially. Gülenists mostly talk about the non-partisan nature of the movement and insist that his movement keeps equal distance from every Turkish ruling administration, seeks no office, and has no political goals, but now when observers look at the Gülenists’ newspaper Zaman that has a circulation of a million just in Turkey alone; when they look at the TV stations, the radio channels, and the civic organizations; they don’t just have educational matters, but rather they have a political impact. Also perusing the Zaman’s archives from pre-2001 will reveal no negative statements about the army, politicians or parties.
But today the Zaman and other Gülenists’ media seem like the AKP owns them, so when one of its leading journalists, Huseyin Gulerce, campaigns for the AKP and tells people to vote for the AKP, when Gülen himself says that if he could bring the dead people from their grave to vote for the AKP, he would say yes; when Ekrem Dumanli writes articles in the Zaman; when Huseyin Gulerce and others write their perspectives in the Zaman, that journalism impacts the political process. Gülenists argue that the movement is almost completely decentralized and is primarily built on local actions and initiatives; however, Fethullah Gülen does not like hierarchy in terms of power. There is no central office or bureaucracy. But when someone do something with out asking Gulen they automatically been punished for not obey the Gulen. When an organizational chart has levels of leaders but all without their own input, it can start its own dynamic, and it can go counter to the existing political climate because of the force of the unified command coming from the top. This chain of command works because Gülenists believe God is in charge, so that ostensibly they don’t have any leader, but at the same time, with every breath they take, they promote Gülen’s name. Also, Gülenists do not unite people in peace and harmony as some Western self- proclaimed Gülenists movement experts have come to believe. Actually, the opposite is true. An underpinning of the movement is the idea that “You’re with us or you’re not with us, in Turkish (Hizmetten and Hizmet disi or bizden veya bizden degil).”
What is the ultimate goal? Doesn’t all-human activity—in communities, societies, and nations-- have a goal in one form or another? So does this one. This movement was born in Turkey, Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish citizen, he cares about Turkey, and he’s trying to improve the Turkish educational system. He’s done a great deal within the country, but Why would Gülen come to the USA to open the schools all over America? Is it because the fate of America depends on Gülen’s movement through educational systems? The primary aim of Gülen is to have total power and to dominant the world. History has shown that when an individual or group is concerned with having more power, it does not serve the community well nor does it create harmony and peace. The world has already seen this in Turkey, how the Gülenists treat others, because total power does corrupt. For example, Gülenists do not leave space for other NGOs to work in the same area. They do not want any competition, especially in the fields of education and relief organizations. Unfortunately, some of his publications have been known to discredit some very good NGO workers, schools, scholars, generals, officials. Instead, the Movement gives exorbitant credit to itself, especially S. Jill Carroll and Akbar Ahmed’s A Dialogue of Civilizations: Gulen’s Islamic Ideals and Humanistic Discourse (2007) and Muhammad Cetin’s books Gülen-Inspired Schools and SMOs (2008), both quite biased and full of propaganda about the Movement and Gülen.
In addition, anyone wanting to learn more about how Gülen and his followers are inconsistent with their claims should read Mehmet Kalyoncu’s analysis of how certain distinguished scholars, who are well respected in their field, like Huntington, Lewis, and Pipes, are said to have monopolized the task of interpreting Islam and Muslim world for them. Speaking on behalf of Gülen’s website, Mr. Kalyoncu, touted as an independent analyst, claims that recently American and European media have “misrepresented and even if not deliberately created doubts and prejudices about him [Gülen}” [iv] Because Gülenists only accept those who agree with the Gülenists' ideas and do not tolerate or welcome any second opinions, the average reader can see that any controversial statements will be denounced as “misrepresentations.” Clearly, they want to monopolize the whole world under the one tent, the Gülenist version of Islam and the Ottoman’s version of a government system.
Further, Gülenists deny that Gülen is accepting any funds or financial aids from other countries. Really? Do researchers not count the millions of dollars from the US government that have funded his organization in the past? Gülenists are the best opportunists, and they know how to use events for their interest. From Gülen’s point of view, the best way to defeat the enemy is to use the enemy’s own weapons against that enemy. What is the enemy’s weapon? The enemy’s weapons are democracy, technology, language, and Western values. How can he use these against America or the West? He does so by establishing Islamic centers, non-governmental organizations, such as Interfaith institutions, and cultural centers; by sending graduate students who get scholarships from Americans taxpayers; by providing a good education, albeit his brand, and particularly by disseminating Islam under the principle of freedom of speech. In charter schools his proponents have seen another opportunity to get donations from the American government to attract American young people to one man’s dominate religion and to indoctrinate them about Gülenists' idea of global Turkish Islam. In other words, they took advantage of an opening to teach revisionist history in that Turks are the best race on earth and God’s favored people, all the while denying the reality of the Kurds’ suffering for decades and denying the genocide of Armenian 1915. How can such a person claim one race or nation is the best and chosen by God, deny history, for example the Holocaust, yet affirm that all atheists who do not share their same values have lost their human nature and have lower themselves to the basest of animals and at the same time advocate peace and tolerance?
In Turkey the Gülenists label those who oppose him as part of Ergenekon; in America they will call the opponents friends of Ergenekon because of Gülenists’ unethical methods in attempting to silence their critics around the world especially in Turkey and in the US. For example, Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a Zaman columnist who spoke at the a panel at Harvard University on May 05 2011, has falsely accused Dani Rodrik, the Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, of dissuading people from attending the event. However, Rodrik wanted both perspectives not only one view. “My fear is that the Harvard community is being exposed to a rather one-sided and ill-informed view of what is really taking place on the ground. In the interest of balance, if you want ideas for names of those who can present a fuller picture, I am happy to pass them on to you.”[v] Cengiz’s false accusation was picked up by a recent Zaman article, which then produces an erroneous story headline “Rodrik dissuades people from attending rights advocate’s address.”[vi] Professor Rodrik denies that he did in any way discourage attendance. Another example of unethical news from the Gülenists' Zaman newspaper in Turkey claims that Kurdish people in the PKK stirred up trouble before the March 16th, 2011 elections, another lie. The Zaman argues, "The PKK will create chaos as" but the prosecution noted that this allegation proved to be unfounded.[vii]
If this organization is about peace and love, it will not do underhanded things. However, Gülenist missionaries would like their movement to be seen as a civic movement, or peace loving social entrepreneur organization, because it helps them to disseminate their ideology well and to minimize the controversy. Yet, they are inconsistent with their answers. Gülenists outside of Turkey present themselves as loving, caring, honest, chosen, errorless, righteous, multi-faithed, tolerant, and peace -loving people. In reality Gülenists never tell the truth about Gülen or his movement because he encourages his followers to appropriate only the positive things from the West, such as technology and education, and to leave the negative things, such as religion and social norms. According to Islam, an individual can lie for three reasons: to make peace between a father and a mother, to save oneself, and to lie to an enemy when one is at war. Since many Muslims believe that they remain at war with non-Muslims in realms called a house of war and a house peace, devotees can lie to gain power, and then they can declare war or resist non-Muslims as the Qur’an says to lie to the unbelievers, Christians, and Jews. They are told to be nice on the surface until they gain the majority in numbers and power and then to take over and impose Qur’an law or Shari law on the population. Once the community accrues the majority, Americans cannot do anything but accept it like Europe is doing right now. Obama’s Race to the Top should gain the interest of every thinking American, particularly those in leadership, so that the policy-makers ask, “Who are we enabling to race and reach the top and if they get there, do we want their ideology and their legal system?” We might ask those who have been jailed in Turkey for exerting freedom of speech to see if they have an opinion on charter schools in America or on Gulen’s movement of peace and tolerance; ironically, they cannot speak to us.
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[i] Race to the Top Program Executive Summary. (2009, November). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, D.C.
[ii] Donna Garner. (2011, May 1). Troubling schools: Frog in boiling water . Education News.
[iii] Journalist. (2011, March 21). FBI investigating Gülen schools in US. Hurriyet Daily News.
[iv][iv] Mehmet Kalyoncu. (2011). Misrepresentation of Fethullah Gülen in English-language media.
Fethullah Gulen website: http://www.fethullah-gulen.org/news/misrepresentation-gulen-media.html
vJournalist (2011, May 6). Orhan Kemal Cengiz, Today’s Zaman, and disinformation at work. Balyoz Davasi ve
Gercekler.
vi Today’s Zaman 243045
vii Journalist. ((2011, March 16). Zaman Gazetesi'nin 'Kaosu' Yalan Oldu. Haber Diyarbakir. http://www.haberdiyarbakir.com/news_detail.php?id=41185.
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