A mafia that prohibits alcohol, violence, and firearms
I once listened to Mehmet Firinci, a student of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, recount the following story: “Bediuzzaman was about 75 years old when a group came to visit him. They were speaking of retaliating with violence against all the oppression they were facing. Bediuzzaman was listening to them while he was sitting on the ground. He became very outraged by what he heard, and all of a sudden he jumped as high as one meter off the ground despite his old age. He then stood up and pushed them away, saying “No to violence, no to violence.” In a similar vein, Mr. Fethullah Gülen made his position very clear against all kinds of violence and terror, be it from the al-Qaeda or PKK. His famous motto “A Muslim cannot be a terrorist, a terrorist cannot be a Muslim” has been ingrained firmly in the minds of many.
Maximilian Popp presents Gülen as a “godfather” and the Hizmet movement as a mafia organization in “Der Pate,” the story he covered for Der Spiegel. He notes in his report that “alcohol and visits by women” are prohibited in the so-called “houses of light” which he considers as the “foundation” of this movement.
The report also mentions Ilhan Cihaner, a suspect in the ongoing Ergenekon case. One of the charges against Cihaner, who is a prosecutor, is that he conspired to place firearms in the dormitories resided by Gülen supporters. This means that the Hizmet movement has nothing to do with firearms.
An interviewee in this report with the fictitious name of “Serkan Öz” speaks of these houses of light as “evocative of the frugality and rigidity of a monastery”, which shows that there is no luxury associated with these people. Mr. Gülen repeatedly warns people to keep away from all kinds of narcotics and he voices his opinion that even smoking is haram, religiously forbidden.
This is somewhat a weird situation: the mafia portrayed in Der Spiegel is such an interesting mafia that they oppose violence, bearing arms, alcohol, narcotics, and abuse of women (and men of course) as a commodity. They prefer a lifestyle away from luxury and reject extravagance. The only method of education they apply for this is reading books and engaging in dialogue with others. The books that they follow are publications that are available in any respectable bookstore you may visit, and they are not banned or illegal.
Would you not open your doors and welcome such a “mafia” that does not steal, beat, curse, kill, and which is not involved in any illegal activity?
It is noted in the report that those who abandoned the movement are afraid to talk, and that they are isolated. Is there any incident in which Hizmet members have threatened a person or beat him up? Has anyone done anything to Nurettin Veren, the most famous of the former members, who speaks and writes freely anywhere he likes? Is there any complaint filed by those who write articles and books against Hizmet? Can the reporter Popp give just one example to support his argument?
The Hizmet movement is not a perfect body. There may be individuals within the movement who might be doing wrong things, who might be abusing the movement for his or her own interests, or who is not willing to act selflessly for the sake of others. Aren’t such people who have abandoned Hizmet for these reasons continuing to meet with the same group of friends, unless they have become involved in indecent and illegal activities? Isn’t Mr. Gülen repeatedly saying about such people, “do not hurt their feelings, embrace them wholeheartedly”?
Isn’t Turkey covered in the German press as a country of military coups, unidentified murders, terror, corruption, and bribe? Aren’t those who are committing these crimes still in Turkey? Isn’t being courageous and patriotic the common quality of the police and prosecutors accused by this illegal deep-state mob as “Fethullahci” who attain great achievements without violating the law and relying on what the AK Party said, “go as far as it goes, we are behind you”? Isn’t it clear that these officers are libeled as “Fethullahci” intentionally and thus are being tried to be pacified, and this pacification has already started?
The Left Party in Germany gave a parliamentary question about the Hizmet movement at a federal level in Berlin and then at NRW. CDU gave a similar question at Baden Württenberg. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution answered all of these three parliamentary questions and said they knew about the movement and that they did not witness any negative activity. The Foreign Ministry declared that they cooperated with Ercan Karakoyun—whose picture was depicted like a gang-member in the file—and the FID foundation that he chaired.
The reporter Popp must have an intelligence network that is more powerful than the world-famous German intelligence units. He surpasses them as he has discovered a Mafia.
I had asked Maximilian Popp this question: “About Hizmet, everyone says ‘they are doing good things, their ideas are good, participants are selfless and philanthropist.’ If all the projections of something onto others are good, then how can this be something bad?” His answer to me was something to the effect of this joke: A man goes to Temel (a famous fictitious character in Turkish humor) and thanks him. Upon which Temel draws his gun and shoots him dead. People ask him why he did so. Temel says, “I didn’t understand what he said to me. So, I shot him just in case he swore at me.”
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