Erdoğan Is Not Turkey’s Only Problem

Back home, Gülen’s followers have created what is effectively a state within the Turkish state, gaining a strong foothold in the police force, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy. Gülenists deny that they control the Turkish police, but, as a US ambassador to Turkey , we have found no one who disputes it.

The movement’s influence within the judiciary ensures that its members’ transgressions remain unchallenged. In one well-documented case, a non-commissioned officer at a military base, acting on behalf of the Gülen movement, was caught planting documents in order to embarrass military officials. The military prosecutor investigating the case soon found himself in jail on trumped-up charges, while the perpetrator was reinstated. A senior police commissioner who had been close to the movement and wrote an exposé about its activities was accused of collaborating with the far-left groups that he had spent much of his career pursuing; he, too, ended up in jail.

The Gülen movement uses these trials to lock up critics and replace opponents in important state posts. The ultimate goal seems to be to reshape Turkish society in the movement’s own conservative-religious image. Gülenist media have been particularly active in this cause, spewing a continuous stream of disinformation about defendants in Gülen-mounted trials while covering up police misdeeds.

But relations between Erdoğan and the Gülenists have soured. Once their common enemy, the secularists, were out of the way, Erdoğan had less need for the movement. The breaking point came in February 2012, when Gülenists tried to bring down his intelligence chief, a close confidant, reaching perilously close to Erdoğan himself. Erdoğan responded by removing many Gülenists from their positions in the police and judiciary.

But Erdoğan’s ability to take on the Gülen movement is limited. Bugging devices were recently found in Erdoğan’s office, planted, his close associates said, by the police. Yet Erdoğan, known for his brash style, responded with remarkable equanimity. If he harbored any doubt that the movement sits on troves of embarrassing – and possibly far worse – intelligence, the bugging revelation must surely have removed it.

The foreign media have focused mainly on Erdoğan’s behavior in recent months. But if Turkey has turned into a Kafkaesque quagmire, a republic of dirty tricks and surreal conspiracies, it is Gülenists who must shoulder much of the blame. This is worth remembering in view of the movement’s efforts to dress up its current opposition to Erdoğan in the garb of democracy and pluralism.

Gülenist commentators preach about the rule of law and human rights, even as Gülenist media champion flagrant show trials. The movement showcases Fethullah Gülen as a beacon of moderation and tolerance, while his Turkish-language Web site peddles his , . Such double talk seems to have become second nature to Gülenist leaders.

The good news is that the rest of the world has started to see Erdoğan’s republic for what it is: an increasingly authoritarian regime built around a popular but deeply flawed leader. Indeed, his government’s crackdown on dissent may well have cost Istanbul the 2020 Olympics. What has yet to be recognized is the separate, and quite disturbing, role that the Gülen movement has played in bringing Turkey to its current impasse. As Americans and Europeans debate the Gülen movement’s role in their own societies, they should examine Turkey’s experience more closely.

Dani Rodrik, Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, is the author of The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2013.

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