How does the Gülen Movement act to counter the negative effects of modernity?
Turkey is a country where the nation state has so far not been able to fully integrate its citizens or to meet the demands of society at large; for various reasons – poverty, education, ethnic or religious difference – large sections of the population still experience alienation in relation to the institutions of the nation-state. This is often compensated for through ethnic, local and/or family ties.
Besides such ties of family and ethnicity there are other relational networks through which the Gülen Movement acts to counter alienation, such as weekly neighborhood meetings, professional associations, parent-school associations, charities and so on. The Gülen Movement’s operational values such as consultation and collective decision making, collective ownership, and community also counter the alienation which modernity brings. In interpreting and tackling the problems of modernity, the Gülen Movement helps to formulate solutions at the level of individual autonomy that can prepare for the development and integration of the individual into the modern nation-state and life in the twenty-first century.
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