In the 18th century, Goethe (1749 – 1832)) had recognized that the “East and the West” were inseparable. Iqbal (1877-1938), an Indo-Pak thinker and philosopher in the early part of 20th century had said, “the East has the heart and the West had the head and they must wed in order to make this a new world.” He had further said that the purpose of true Islamic faith was to extract and instill universal principles, values and endeavor to realize them into a definite, humane and durable civil society (Jameah Madani like) in history. Based on the prophetic saying, “The whole of earth is a mosque,” and “all that is secular is therefore sacred in the roots of its being ‘’for “ all this immensity of matter constitutes a scope for the self realization of human soul”. The twin pillar of state and civic society in Islam is Prophet-hood of Muhammad (Pbuh) and the doctrine of tawhid. The prophet taught human society the faith that gives it unity.…” Through prophet’s wisdom flows the lifeblood of the whole human society…. His (Creator’s) was the breath that gave people the life…. his apostleship brought concord to our purpose and our goal.”
As a Pakistani-American, I have become, over the last decade, a great admirer of the founding and evolution of a new Turkish Civil Society (Jameah Madani like) that practically came about over the recent decades as a result of the genuine and constructive contributions of Nurcu and Hizmet civic social movements. Nurcu was inspired by Bediuz-zaman Said Nursi (1887-1960) where modernity, science and rationalism played key roles in Nursi’s teachings. Nurcu developed a system of socio-political thinking and activism rooted firmly in Islam, oriented towards the development of human–social-spiritual capital, modernization, and commitment to the constitutional-democratic process.
Fethullah Gulen (born 27 April 1941) was himself greatly inspired by Nursi and by late sixties, Gulen continued with his own thought and practice named Hizmet movement with similar socio-political thought but with an added important element of practice. The Nurcu and Hizmet movements have traditionally steered clear of strident political Islam, rejecting Turkey’s Islamist tendencies as inflammatory, while embracing a democratic and pluralistic political system, and hewing to the mainstream conservative party like AKP in the last decade.
A new and golden generation, individually and collectively transforming the world in the social and civic arena (outside of the political realm) has already been created in Turkey and is continuously and progressively in the making worldwide. This renowned faith-based hizmet movement has also been called Gulen movement. It is now a global social “ Service” mission that has undertaken the role of a peace- builder and a bridge-builder between cultures and civilizations of the East and the West over the last decade.
Fethullah Gulen went further than just the thought, by actually having started an action plan and a constructive ongoing process adding the East-West encounters and engagement and for contemplated actual union of the East-West in the future. The Berlin Wall and Soviet union are no more and the process is in place although both sides still remain trapped in prejudices and stereotypes that strengthen the view of a separate East and West. European enlargement and Muslim reductionism have made this even more pronounced and overwhelming.
In my view in today’s world, this integrative process is in place and slowly but surely ongoing and to fulfill Goethe’s, Iqbalian and Gulen’s dreams of eventual inseparable and lasting union between the East and the West. Fortunately, there are voices around the world that inspire courage; increasing attention to dialogue of cultures and civilizations, promoting peace and harmony, accepting different beliefs and worldviews for the sake of global common good. The renowned hizmet societal global movement has the process of engagement and service to humanity mission working well already and the eventual union between the East and West is bound to happen in my opinion with all these wake-up calls to the world leadership.
I am of the firm belief that hizmet movement has been practically the core civilizing, and transformative engine for this strong civil society movement of today .The movement has, without any doubt, helped consolidate a strong civil society and democracy in Turkey following many decades of prevalent Laicism and the deep-state. The movement in the last decade has increasing begun inspiring and impacting the world now spanning close to 170 countries and remains committed to the “service” of all of humanity.
Erdogan’s AKP has undoubtedly brought a tremendous and positive political transformation in Turkey and in a short period of a decade. Since AKP was founded in 2001 as an offshoot of a radical but nonviolent previous Islamist political party (Necmettin Erbakan’s) named Millie Gorus. At the inception AKP had defined its policy and mission as “service” and became a very unique “service-oriented” political party rather than an ideologically one and one with servant leadership. It is indeed an important and interesting point that the two entities in Turkey, one newly formed national political party and the other a born-again civil society (Jameah Madani like) movement in existence for over 4 decades defined themselves similarly through the mission of “service” and servant political and public leadership.
The party and the civic society jointly have successfully overcome the old guard, the laic hardcore establishment and Islamism. When the obstacles to genuinely democratic polity and civil society have been removed, some serious differences between the two sides have started to surface leading to a bitter and unnecessary war of words made to look even worse than actual by the news media taking sides in these differing views, and making (hard-core secularists) the enemies of both sides happy.
The two had stood side by side and in parallel, having common ideals and goals without any merger of state and mosque. Modern democracies regionally, in MENA (Middle East North Africa) and even globally should see this as an excellent example where public and civic sphere helped build genuine democracy. The whole world should embrace such developments for democratic global renaissance and the Muslim world must particularly look at Turkey as an example in the twenty-first century.
Unity and cohesion under the worldview of tawhid remains prohibitive to the divisions of civic society and human engagements. Tawhid was indeed the foundational stone of (Jameah Madani) a strong civil society founded and demonstrated by the prophet (Pbuh) himself and his early four caliphs in the city state of Madina in the 7th century A.D. Since the founding of jameah madani (civil society in Madina) Muslims historically had, in first several centuries, pioneered the civil society institutions including the wakf. The growth of generous, and clean swath of social and collective activities were part of ‘civil society’ (jamaeah- Madani) talked about by Muslims and other scholars to this day. These activities were ignored in practice over the recent centuries by the Muslim world leadership. Such civil society concepts and practices were unheard of amongst the Greeks, Phoenicians and the other people of Syria-Mesopotamia.
In the modern times, through Fethullah Gulen’s thought and practice, there has been a rebirth of a strong civil society (Jameah Madani like) movement during our own age in Turkey. This has already demonstrated a civil society’s direct and positive relationship to today’s genuine democratic evolution. This approach to societal problem solving and the conceptions of ‘the public and civic sphere’ are thus an extremely objective way to understanding the contributions of the Hizmet type civil society Movement over the decades and the outcomes of human and societal transformational works in terms of modernization/ democratization of Turkey. Insightful and influential writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Robert Putnam and Jürgen Habermas had been compatible with Fethullah Gulen’s thought and practice on the subject of strong civil society and its direct relationship to the genuine democracy.
Turkey’s past political parties and present opposition parties have been far behind the present ruling AKP in terms of advocating genuine democratic values. AKP has singularly been the most successful party, and it has been an asset for Turkey even though Turkey could have definitely fared even better in terms of democratization, transparency, and rule of law, freedom of press, human rights, the Copenhagen criteria and EU reforms. If Turkey had the CHP or MHP instead of the AKP as the ruling party during the last decade, Turkey would have been a much less of democratic nation today.
AKP has been truly a huge success that seems to be shadowed understandably by some of its leaderships’ personal but still human ambitions lately, some democratic deficits and weakening of checks and balances in its authoritarian power.
The most recent issue of government’s decision to close private schools and tutorial centers (dershanes) reveals that, at times, it seems to have a problems with the plurality of viewpoints, autonomous civil society, freedom of public media being a watchdog and lawful protests. Its earlier and harsh reactions to the Gezi protests were another case in point, and now government is presenting a similar attitude towards the noblest, inspiring, highly admirable and globally reputable hizmet movement—a genuine civil society. From a pluralistic liberal, democratic perspective, party and government failures as civil society /public “servants” could be in a much daunting and troubled situation that can get even worse in the coming days /months and that should be certainly prevented. The hizmet movement, which is not directly affiliated with any political party or government is totally autonomous, relying only on its own civilian volunteers, and has had certainly nothing to do with corruption being committed by some AKP politicians.
Erdogan’s journey, as a first and foremost among his equals in AKP at the beginning was established collectively by like-minded prominent and most importantly post-Islamist group of leaders such as Erdogan himself, Abdullah Gül, Bülent Arınç, Abdüllatif Şener, Cemil Çiçek, Abdülkadir Aksu, Ali Coşkun, Nevzat Yalçıntaş and several others. In the beginning his colleagues could check and balance his power and authority as a leader to serve the people. Today, only president Gul would be perhaps only one able to keep some of the initial checks and balances against his inflated power and authority but it is now only a fraction of the checks and balances comparing from the beginning. This is unfortunate indeed.
His journey as a Prime Minister, in some ways, resembled Mustafa Kemal’s journey who had started first and foremost among his equals, but the success of Turkey, Parliament and its army had made Atatürk an undisputed and heroic leader and without practical checks and balances in place those days. Today, in Erdogan’s case, there is sadly not a single person or a group that could help stop him and or even slow him down and help him with an ego taming (tazkiya-an-Nafs) slightly needed if any one ever insisted on doing something about it. In general, agreeably his popularity and powers had been utilized for good purposes except until recently.
As an observer of Turkey, I am not really that concerned about Turkey at this point, since it is as it seems quite impossible for any leader to continue exercising authoritarianism in today’s conditions for more than a short time. I hope and wish he would not end up dividing his own party out of his wanting personally to have unbalanced and unchecked powers, as demonstrated over the decades by the other Muslim world authoritarians leaders of all hews and types, ”power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. And Erdogan and his party’s recent presidential reform bid in Parliament made many pro-AKP experts and some of his own party members very concerned and worried .As an outsider and a keen observer of Turkey, I would not like to see any regressions in Turkish civil societal transformational process, genuine democratic evolution and global renaissance in the making through the ongoing and sincere efforts of hizmet and its ever increasing numbers of volunteers in millions.
My own concerns had begun in April 2013 and before the Gezi Park events. The Gezi events a little later confirmed my impressions as if Erdogan was wanting to be a one-man exclusive show in his own party and that very much seemed like a liability for his own party since during the Gezi imbroglio, important leaders within AKP, such as president Abdullah Gül and Bülent Arınç, had openly disagreed with him and even some very recent statements of the president have been constructive and positive than prime minister’s own statements. I thought Erdogan would have learned a lesson during Gezi Park issue but his somewhat crude, insistent and intrusive remarks on private homes had further harmed his party and it must have deepened the tension within the party.
Once more, the prime minister was on it again and with his insistence on trying to close down dershanes that belonged to the private public sector. Many people felt that with this he was perhaps trying to penalize the respect worthy hizmet movement, which has always resisted pledging absolute loyalty to him alone as a politician. He may not be very concerned about the local and general elections which his party may still win but he will need additional votes to be elected as a president. He will need the solid and loyal support of the hizmet movement since he knows that there are more people who now might dislike him compared to all those who had liked him earlier. Yet, his threatening attitude will not win over the hizmet movement support. What is more, he may even end-up harming his party further by deepening the rift with his authoritarian and anti-private business venture attitude in this last situation. His personal ambitions and emotions can make him a serious liability for the party.
Very recently, thousands of people took to the streets in protest of the government in many cities all over Turkey. The members of the “Democracy Platform,” consisting of some NGOs, also staged protests against the amendment to the Judiciary and Police Regulation, the purging of hundreds of police officers carrying out the corruption probe and the recently introduced ban on journalists entering police stations. The most recent Cabinet reshuffle — saw close to a dozen ministers replaced, resignations in protest by some, and additional ministers departing due to investigations on corruption charges .All this can be detrimental again to the AKP itself.
Sadly enough, things in Turkey have recently not been going on so well. Its foreign policy (zero-problems-with-neighbors) has been in shambles despite the good intensions of its political leadership, and Turkey is currently in an increasing state of isolation in the region.
The MENA Spring has had serious setbacks since the difficult situation and chaos in Egypt and Syria, and with Yemen and Libya already having fallen apart. Tunisia due to its insightful leader Ghannouchi will most probably and hopefully come out of this chaos fairly well in the near future .The problems with the Iraqi government, the latest American-Iranian rapprochement — are indicative of realities in the region.
Turkey, earlier had been rightly critical of Israel but was not antagonistic towards it and had very good relations with it despite that country’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and its poor treatment of them. The incidents of Flotilla and Davos changed all that. However, this is not a perfect world, and in this very real world, Turkey specially, at this juncture, must always maintain a moderating stance as a regional bridge and also between the East and the West. There are all sorts of complex, intertwined historical, political, civilizational, sociological and psychological issues at play in Turkey, MENA, and the Muslim countries and beyond. These issues have been and are still being continuously underestimated by almost all Muslim world leadership and the Western leadership when it comes to the Islamic world as a whole. Hojca effendi as a non-political towering figure and as a tremendously insightful thinker and philosopher may have some insightful advice and input if ever asked regarding the Islamic countries. He has been very positively inspirational to all of humanity in the East and the West with unifying (tawhidic) thought and practice that is creating a global civilization of love, tolerance and peace. There is also a Turkish think-tank of which he is an honorary president.
To cap it all, the Gezi Park protests, crisis of dershanes and lately the corruption cases including charges against the sons of three ministers, all of Turkey’s internal policy has begun to look chaotic like its foreign policy, while the AK P itself and its government seemed to be on the verge of collapse. How come, so many things in Turkey have come down to this predicament?
I have had difficulty understanding the turmoil in which Turkey has been dragged into in the recent months. Why has Turkey touched the bottom pit so unexpectedly, witnessed first by the Gezi Park protests and then by the prep school protests? And above all, Erdoğan’s unfortunate confrontation with hizmet movement (civil society) — with which AKP has had a common mission, common interests and common goals along with Turkey’s civilizing, transforming, democratizing and the most important a common path since 2002. All this indicates that somehow serious mistakes have been made as dozens of commentators have been commenting from different perspectives and yet the country has been undergoing an unbelievable and un-called-for polarization to such an extent. The situation however needs to be re-evaluated most seriously from the top leadership perspective. Did the things get bad to worse because of Erdoğan’s own mistakes lately? When he had been so successful, high profile, so insightful and charismatic servant leader, what went wrong?
Erdoğan’s most serious problem is perhaps this. …Based on the facts, he had been coming out so successful in all the previous crises he faced, using the right strategy to overcome the problems as a party. At this point, I think it is “ the curse of being so successful.” And an air inflation gone into the human ambitious head and his wanting to run the show alone (with future bids for president with additional authoritarian powers), while failing to communicate with even senior colleagues within his own party and particularly with the president Abdullah Gul. Erdoğan, as an AKP leader has almost always been successful until the recent internal and external crises. He had won every election since 2002 and he was able to send the army back to barracks permanently doing away with the deep state and sham democracy in Turkey after about a century. All these successful accomplishments within the last decade came about as a result of AKP’s link with hizmet inspired strong civil society and its genuine democratization path. The prime minister had thus served as the head of the most successful and powerful government in Turkey’s history. For this very reason, Erdoğan himself and many of his admirers had begun to believe that he alone was it, all invincible and all powerful — thus corrupting his human ambitions with egoism having creped in and that’s why he has not been lately and unfortunately making rightful and collective decisions as a party.
His delusional pride is overshadowing his logic and this has begun to harm his party and the country. He has been turning the problems he is unable to solve into existential crises. He has no tolerance left for even taking a step back or mindfully pause as he links the problems to foreign conspiracy theories, the interest lobby, dark forces, parallel and deep state circles, Israel and the US and claims that the only aim of this opposition is to destroy the AKP and destabilize Turkey. He is like a nude king somehow convinced to be in the best of clothing.
Despite all this, the Turkish civil society, Turkey’s very insightful president and his other colleagues in the AKP would certainly not want to give up the stability and ongoing transformative/ democratization process that came with the AKP combined with civil society’s genuine contributions. This makes civil society itself obliged to support the party and government voluntarily or involuntarily at this critical juncture in order to bring about a long term resolution and victory for all without any deep non-healing wounds lasting within the Turkish civil society and the country.
Erdoğan most probably understands that his ambitious tactic could bring him victory in the short run only, when long-term victory and solutions are urgently required. At this point, in my view he needs sincere help from the president, his senior AKP colleagues with important input and advice from the highest civil society leadership including Hocja Effendi himself to safeguard the genuine interests of Turkey, the region and the entire world.
Turkey, as an example and a bridge of modernity, tradition and democracy continues to draw ever-increasing attention from intellectuals, politicians and policy makers of not only the East but also the West. The formal, institutional and integrative bridging of Turkey with Europe and the West will be mutually beneficial to help strengthen genuine democratic forces of the East and the West that are still locked in cultural hang-ups, petty conflicts and needed redefining of identities of states and societies in the post modern world.
Americas own difficulties with the Muslim East are further suggestive of the fact that the West and particularly the US must face its most profound failures and global challenges and reshape its relations with the friends and foes in today’s light and offer startling and constructive alternatives in the 21st century. Turkey, as a bridge between the East and the West, with its own house in order in conjunction with the Muslim nations’ can certainly be of a tremendous help in making our global village a peaceful and harmonious place to live and share with our children and grand-children.
As stated at the start of this writing, it was the last wish/dream of Iqbal who was fascinated with yoking of modern science and philosophy & the sacred teachings of Islam and all faiths, to create a bridge of understanding at the social and highest intellectual levels of the East and the West. He expressed this thought thus:
In the West, the Intellect
(head) is the source of life,
In the East, Love (heart)
is the basis of life,
Through Love, Intellect grows acquainted with Reality,
And Intellect gives stability
to the work of Love,
Rise and lay the foundations
of a new world,
By wedding Intellect to Love.
