How are participants in the Gülen Movement able to establish and retain their links with the wider public?
The dense, strong and multiple affiliations that individuals enjoy within project-networks inspire, motivate and commit them to the services the project yields.
But participants do not separate their private lives from those projects. Rather, they link their private lives to their public activities and their societal environment. This leads to harmonious and peaceful continuities rather than detachment, alienation, frustration and antagonism.
There are also a great number of individuals who are sympathetic to the collective action of the Movement but do not become active in it. This indicates that the Movement is not an isolated actor and is able to establish affective links with and among the wider public. Indeed, there is no expectation in the Movement that participants should sever previous social ties. They are expected to have other ties too, and to make new ties while ‘in’ the Movement. Such multiple affiliations are in principle and practice welcomed: loyalty centers upon effective delivery of service-projects and complementarity between them. It does not center upon the Movement as such. Solidarity among Gülen Movement participants ensues from sharing work effort and from shared experiences and memories; it is not pursued as a precondition of doing the work at all.
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