The opposition to the Gülen movement in Turkey is best understood as emblematic of the larger contemporary cultural struggle within Turkish society toward greater openness and freedom found in the tension between military-statist and civilian-democratic control of the government.   This larger struggle has been surfaced by the debates around political reforms necessary as Turkey pursues its process for membership in the European Union.  These reforms include moves toward greater democratization, political participation, religious liberty and civil rights, social equality and protection of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as increased economic competition and interaction with the globalized free markets.  Since the socio-cultural aspect of these reforms are consistent with the values of the Gülen movement, this provides the motivation for why the movement has become a target of those factions within Turkish society, such as the old establishment of business-banking-media industrialists, neo-nationalist political parties, ruling bureaucracy-military-security elite, as well as religious fundamentalists, who see such reforms as a threat to their own financial, political and ideological interests. Opposition to the Gülen movement has less to do with the activities of the movement per se (interfaith initiatives, educational projects, media, relief work, etc.) than with the values it represents.  These values are focused around inner personal transformation through prayer and spiritual disciplines that leads to an ethic of individual freedom and social responsibility for the purpose of serving other human beings (hizmet). In addition, the struggle for EU membership has allowed the civilian government to stand up to the military in ways that would have been considered treason before the application process.  This has meant that civil-society movements like that of the Gülen communities have ben the targets of persecution by neo-nationalist and radical Kemalists who comprise much of military-bureaucratic state apparatus, often with deadly consequences.  The current history-making investigation of the deep-state Ergenekon network (a.k.a. Turkish Gladio) has shocked Turkish society by bringing a great deal of evidence of these atrocities and crimes to light. Ergenekon’s wider strategy of underground terrorism and assassination was designed to cause social chaos, fear and mayhem in order to pressure the political system to keep power in the hands of the military-bureaucratic elite for national security. The Ergenekon apparatus was one leg of this military-statist-ultranationalist opposition that would also attack the Gülen movement through the media by staging a defamation campaign against Gülen and his audiences.  Finally, analysis of what the EU membership process means in light of these larger struggles between the anti-EU alliance of neo-nationalists (ulusalci), pro-militarists and established business elite versus the pro-EU alliance of liberal, democratic and conservative Turks, and their impact on the Gülen movement will be done through the employment of the “the Established and the Outsider” social theory of Norbert Elias (1994) as applied to the case of Gülen movement in the work of Elizabeth Özdalga (2005).  

Loye Ashton is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Tougaloo College in Jackson, MS where he serves as Chair of the Interdisciplinary Career Oriented Humanities Major (ICOHM) Department and also directs the Religious Studies Program. He is the current (2008) President of the North American Paul Tillich Society. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Directed Interdisciplinary Studies from Montana State University and completed both his Master of Theological Studies and Ph.D. in Religious Studies (Comparative and Systematic Theology) at Boston University. An avid drummer for 31 years, he is passionate about all forms of percussion across the globe, having so far visited Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and East Asia in his quest to learn more about religious faith and world music. He has contributed theological commentaries to the Feasting on the Word Lectionary Commentary Series edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David L. Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press) as well as the article on “Religion and Segregation” for the forthcoming Mississippi Encyclopedia. He is also presently working on a book about the history of Christian theology in the 20th century entitled Faithful Uncertainty: Introducing Contemporary Theology (forthcoming from Westminster John Knox Press). He also works closely with Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist communities throughout Mississippi on interfaith projects and research. His wife, the Rev. Ruth S. Ashton, is an Ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church and currently serves as Pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Belzoni, in the Mississippi Delta. They have a four-year old son, Loye Michael Peng Cheng Ashton.