1. Fetullah Gulen, capo di un potente movimento musulmano moderato, il movimento Gulen,[1] sostenuto dal giornale turco più diffuso (Zaman) e da una delle maggiori organizzazioni economiche,
che influenza ampie porzioni dell’economia e della società turca, parti di polizia e magistratura comprese.
sta cercando di fare un colpo di mano interno all’AKP, il partito al potere in Turchia, contro Erdogan per portare invece in primo piano il presidente Gul, che dovrebbe creare una nuova coalizione attraversante i partiti di opposizione. Cosa non facile perché l’AKP è stato costruito ed è cresciuto sulla popolarità di Erdogan, abile ad usare a proprio vantaggio gli eventi.
o Gulen ha l’appoggio americano per questo “cambio di regime” in Turchia:
o chi è al comando in Turchia è di fondamentale importanza per la situazione attuale mediorientale, giunta ad una fase critica.
-La crisi siriana complica la situazione: Gul è un protegé della famiglia reale saudita,
o mentre Erdogan è sostenuto dall’emiro del Qatar, entrambi sostenitori dei Fratelli musulmani.
o Teheran sconsiglia la prudenza a Erdogan per non facilitare uno schieramento di forze contro di lui.
-Con il rafforzamento politico del primo ministro turco Erdogan nel mondo arabo, dovuto alla forte crescita economica dell’ultimo decennio della Turchia, si è prodotta una frattura tra Erdogan e Fetullah Gulen, mentre il presidente Gul e il vice-primo ministro Arinc sono rimasti allineati al movimento di Gulen.
o Arinc su Gulen: è “la coscienza di 75 milioni di persone”.
-Le divisioni tra i vari campi sono emerse in occasione delle recenti proteste in Turchia, con la repressione poliziesca scatenata da Erdogan; laici, liberali e kemalisti hanno prontamente apprezzato la posizione più conciliatoria e più filo-occidentale di Gul.
-Zaman, il giornale diretto dal movimento Gulen, ha scatenato un forte attacco contro Erdogan, e sta invitando Gul e Arinc a prendere la direzione.
-Erdogan sarebbe divenuto incontrollabile per gli Usa: su questione siriana, appoggio a Kurdistan iracheno, Hamas e Fratelli musulmani.
-Erdogan sta accelerando un compromesso con il PKK, a cui si oppone invece Gulen.
-Ci sarebbe una convergenza di interessi tra USA e Gulen a indebolire e destabilizzare Erdogan.
-Da un rapporto del NYT, un alto funzionario CIA – incaricato per il MO ed esperto su “primavera araba” ed Islam politico, specializzato nello sfruttare l’Islam per la politica regionale Usa – avrebbe appoggiato la richiesta di Gulen di rimanere negli USA (in Pennsylvania), dopo aver lasciato la Turchia a metà 1999, perché accusato di complottare per rovesciare il governo laico.
-Gulen, mettendo in guardia dall’arroganza del potere, ha anche redarguito i manifestanti: per sostenere i loro diritti dovevano comportarsi in modo meno violento; la Piattaforma Abant, legata al movimento gulenista ha parlato di uso sproporzionato della forza durante le manifestazioni.
-Gulen nel passato ha sostenuto Erdogan, in particolare nel 2010 sulla riforma costituzionale da lui caldeggiata (per ampliare i poteri presidenziali, e poi farsi eleggere presidente, non potendo più presentarsi per la carica di primo ministro n.d.r).
o Nel 2012 ci sarebbe stata una lotta per l’influenza nella polizia e nel giudiziario tra gulenisti e seguaci di Erdogan.
-Il Partito Popolare Repubblicano (CHP) e altri oppositori di AKP (il Partito Giustizia e Sviluppo) accusano gli USA di sostenere Gulen, per indebolire le fondamenta laiche della Turchia a favore di un islamismo moderato.
Ampiamente criticata la decisione di Erdogan di dedicare un nuovo ponte sul Bosforo al Sultano Selim I, che massacrò membri della minoranza Alevi e istituì il califfato ottomano.
[1] Il movimento Gulen è uno dei più influenti del mondo islamico, è legato alle tradizioni mistiche del sufismo. Il movimento di Gulen ha sostenuto l’ascesa al potere del partito l’AKP (Justice and Development Party).
TURKEY IN TURMOIL – Et tu, Gul? Then fall, Erdogan
By M K Bhadrakumar
– One thing that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said before pushing ahead on Tuesday with a four-day tour of the Maghreb tour still hangs suspended in the air. Hardly anyone picked it up. He said Turkish intelligence is looking into possible links between the recent incidents in Istanbul, scene of violently suppressed protests, and foreign elements.
– Erdogan hinted that some leads are already available with the Turkish intelligence. "Our intelligence work is ongoing. It is not possible to reveal their names. But we will have meetings with their heads."
His words suggested that there might have been concerted foreign interference. Logically, the eyes turn toward Damascus, Tehran and Baghdad. But then, Erdogan also blamed Twitter for inciting unrest. He said,
There is now a menace, which is called Twitter. The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.
– The regimes in Syria, Baghdad and Iran should be out of their minds to dabble in the US-controlled social media as instruments of their regional policies. Besides, the reactions of the three countries to the Turkish unrest are conspicuously reticent under the current circumstances of intense mutual hostility, and quite apparently they have been taken by surprise that the ground beneath the feet of the Sultan in Istanbul could shift just like that.
Straws in the wind
– What stands out in sharp contrast is the shrill, intrusive reaction of the United States. Washington has so far made six statements regarding the unrest in Turkey through the past five-day period since May 31, mostly at the level of the White House. These statements have been highly critical of Erdogan.
– They viewed the protests as peaceful acts by ordinary law-abiding citizens exercising their rights to free expression. They expressed concern about the government’s response to the protesters and "expected" Ankara to work through the issue while "respecting its [Turkey’s] citizens’ rights".
The White House considered that the Turkish government resorted to excessive use of force and called for the events to be investigated. Secretary of State John Kerry added that the Obama administration is "deeply concerned" by the large number of people who have been injured. Kerry said:
We are concerned by the reports of excessive use of force by police. We obviously hope there will be a full investigation of those incidents and full restraint from the police force with respect to those incidents. We urge all people involved … to avoid any provocations or violence.
The US has taken up the matter with the Turkish government through diplomatic channels.
– Indeed, something is strange in this overreaction, and it is not only as regards the disproportionate and harsh US pronouncements – considering that Erdogan and President Barack Obama had some special chemistry between them – but also because the US reaction looks suspiciously defensive.
– These are early days, and firm conclusions cannot yet be made as to what exactly is happening in Turkey. However, there are straws in the wind.
Hereby hangs a tale
– No sooner had Erdogan’s jet taken off from the Essenboga airport on his scheduled trip to North Africa than Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc visited the presidential palace in Ankara to meet President Abdullah Gul. The two leaders thereupon publicly took a radically different approach than Erdogan’s to the ongoing unrest.
– Erdogan had summarily dismissed the protesters as "ideologically" motivated hoodlums with links to foreign powers and had no word of regret for the police excesses. Arinc, on the contrary, acknowledged that the original protesters were "right and legitimate" and the police methods were brutal, for which he even apologized. Indeed, he has since agreed to meet the protesters on Wednesday.
– Again, Erdogan was harsh on the opposition Republican People’s Party for inciting the protests, whereas Gul received its leader at the presidential palace for a discussion.
– Erdogan argues that he won a handsome mandate in the last parliamentary poll, which gave him the prerogative to implement his programs, but Gul contradicts him that democracy is about more than holding elections.
– To be sure, the secularists and liberals and the Kemalist camp have promptly greeted Gul as more conciliatory, more receptive to democratic ideals and generally more pro-Western than Erdogan.
– Curiously, Erdogan, Gul and Arinc are being described in the same breath as the "founding fathers" of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), although Turks all over would know that Erdogan is as peerless as any sultan in their history.
– And the intriguing part is that this characterization of an AKP "Troika" is the handiwork of the Zaman newspaper. Of course, Zaman is run by the followers of the hugely powerful faith-based Fetullah Gulen movement. Hereby hangs a tale.
Paragon of ‘moderate’ Islam
– Although the Gulen movement had supported the Islamist AKP’s march to power, a distance had developed between Erdogan and Gulen in recent years. Erdogan has been plainly indifferent toward Gulen and averse to submitting to him. In contrast, after meeting Gulen recently, Arinc showered praise on him in a TV interview and pointedly called him as "Hocaefendi", a title that his followers use for him. Arinc said Gulen is the "conscience of 75 million people" in Turkey.
– Arinc’s meeting with Gulen took place in Philadelphia during Erdogan’s recent visit to the US, but the prime minister himself kept away.
– Now, all this may seem out of context unless one has the background of Gulen, who heads one of the most influential movements in the Islamic world and which is regarded as drawing on the moderate mystical traditions of Sufism. He fled Turkey in 1999 amid accusations of plotting to overthrow the secular government at that time and has been living in exile on a 10-hectare haven in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania.
– According to a well-researched report by the New York Times, his Green Card application shows that Gulen’s request to remain in the United States was endorsed by a former top official dealing with the Middle East in the Central Intelligence Agency. [1]
– The mystery deepens when it transpires that the CIA’s case officer also is an authority on the "Arab Spring" and political Islam, with a long career track specializing in the use of Islam as an instrument of US regional policies.
– Suffice to say, Zaman newspaper has opened the heavy artillery on Erdogan and is exhorting Gul and Arinc to take on the mantle of leadership. Zaman commentaries have virtually called for a revolt against Erdogan by AKP stalwarts.
– Erdogan faces an existential challenge. The heart of the matter is that he has grown in stature through the past decade in power taking Turkey to unprecedented heights of prosperity and striding the Arab Muslim world as a role model.
– In the process, paradoxically, it has also become increasingly difficult for the US to harness his energy. Erdogan has become uncontrollable – be it in his stance on Syria, support for Iraqi Kurdistan, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, or his visceral hatred toward Israel.
Waving the red flag
– Woven into all this is also a congruence of interests between the US and Gulen in weakening and destabilizing Erdogan.
– From Gulen’s perspective, Erdogan not only defies him, but is also accelerating a historic compromise with the PKK, a Kurdish group that he is violently opposed to. By the way, a WikiLeaks cable dated 2009 by the then US ambassador to Turkey, James F Jeffrey, assessed that the Gulen movement was strong in the police and security agencies.
Interestingly, Ambassador Jeffrey wrote,
– The political context for conversations about Gulen is complicated because President Gul is himself seen by almost all of our contacts as a Gulenist, while Prime Minister Erdogan is not. Indeed, some of our contacts have argued that Erdogan is so firmly outside the Gulen camp that Gulen loyalists view him as a liability.
– At the same time, the Republican People’s Party and other AKP opponents of the ruling Justice and Development Party are quick to accuse the US of working covertly to prop up Gulen, allegedly to weaken Turkey’s secular foundation to produce a "model" moderate Islamic nation. [2]
– Make no mistake, Turkey’s unrest is not going to wither away. Gulen is making his epic move to bring about an "in-house" political coup within the AKP to bring Gul to the fore. Gulen has Washington’s support for this "regime change" in Turkey. The Middle East situation has reached a criticality, and who rules Turkey becomes of seminal importance.
But will Erdogan walk into the sunset without a fight? Such meekness wouldn’t be the hallmark of a sultan. Marc Champion, editor at Bloomberg, is spot on:
– If the president is able to calm the protests before Erdogan returns in three days – as the prime minister says he hopes – Gul will get the credit. If Gul can create a new coalition across the opposition parties, he would be a great choice to lead them and would provide a good change for Turkey. But don’t count on it … Erdogan isn’t just a political bruiser. He is a force of nature, and has a genius for turning events to his advantage. The party was built and succeeded around Erdogan’s popular appeal, not Gul’s. [3]
– Meanwhile, the Syrian crisis has introduced another dimension into this. Gul is a protege of the Saudi royal family, whereas Erdogan shares the Qatari Emir’s passion for the Muslim Brotherhood.
– Evidently, Israel is terribly excited about the outcome of the turmoil in Turkey. The Ha’aretz newspaper has begun a "live blog" on the happenings. Equally, Tehran has counseled Erdogan to show "prudence", virtually waving the red flag, despite all the differences with him, that powerful forces could be arrayed against him.
1. Turkey Feels Sway of Reclusive Cleric in the US, The New York Times, April 24, 2012.
3. Is Turkey’s President Playing Good Cop to Erdogan’s Bad Cop?, Bloomberg, June 4, 2013.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
(Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
ISTANBUL – On Tuesday night, Istanbul was quiet, save for the occasional bout of tear gas – a reminder that the police had not forgotten about the protesters and were only waiting for a chance to charge at them. Elsewhere in the country, clashes continued, though with lesser intensity than in previous days, with the notable exception of Antakya down south. Several important trade unions planned strikes, and while few could tell exactly where their country was heading, most agreed that something fundamental had changed.
Over the course of just a few days, Taksim Square, one of the most iconic locations of Istanbul that had previously been turned into a police fortress, underwent a series of physical transformations. On Saturday evening, your Asia Times Online correspondent walked among burnt-out police buildings, buses, cars and ATMs, amid multitudes of people singing and dancing.
A day later, volunteers had cleaned out the debris and constructed nearby food stands and clinics to treat the wounded, as well as other communal infrastructure. The approaches to the square were blocked by multiple rings of makeshift barricades to stop the dreaded police heavy armored vehicles from approaching.
On the square and in the adjacent Gezi Park, where the protests had started with a peaceful sit-in, humanity walked: the left, the right, the hooligans, the blind, even a few religious women and women with headscarves.
"I don’t want my country to turn into Syria or Iraq," said 78-year-old Muhlis, whose skull cap and the headscarf on his wife’s headscarf identified them as religious, or members of the traditional support base of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "I’d like the park to stay, and I have seen no evil from Erdogan, but I know that people have different views."
Maya, an articulate secular 15-year-old high school student, also spoke in favor of pluralism. "The location of our city is between Asia and Europe," she said. "You can’t expect everyone to be in the same culture, to be in the same religion, so you have to respect that. I think [Erdogan] doesn’t respect it and doesn’t know how to address it."
Some said that they would stay until the prime minister quit, others that they just wanted to make a stand for what they believe is right. That includes saving the park, but also preserving the civil liberties enshrined in the secular constitution which Erdogan is planning to change soon. People protested against police brutality alongside the aggressive neo-liberal gentrification of their city and the religious values being pushed on them by their government.
Tensions had been running high for a few weeks, with police frequently firing tear gas at crowds of protesters mixed with tourists on the fashionable Istiklal Street, which starts at Taksim. On May Day, police fought pitched battles with protesters seeking to commemorate the anniversary of a 1977 massacre which is believed to have been orchestrated by pro-government elements.
Then just in the weeks since, parliament passed a law restricting the sale and consumption of alcohol, while the authorities warned against public displays of affection, triggering a nationwide kissing protest. Plans were also advanced for the construction of a third bridge over the Bosphorus, which would involve cutting down many trees.
And after police violently broke up the camp of peaceful environmental activists – for the second night in a row – early on Friday, attacking them in their sleep and injuring badly several, tensions exploded. Following a period of more than 24 hours of incessant clashes, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets, the police withdrew from the square.
It is believed that the order for the police to withdraw came from President Abdullah Gul, a member of Erdogan’s AKP party but also the prime minister’s bitter rival: the two are likely to run against each other in the presidential elections next month. "Clearly Gul is positioning himself opposite Erdogan," wrote Aaron Stein, an analyst at the Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies in Istanbul, in an email. "Gul is a masterful politician, his subtle and overt moves during the protests are very savvy," he added later in a tweet.
There is some more intrigue in the ruling party, revolving around Foreign Minister Ahmet "Zero Problems with Neighbors" Davutoglu, who is believed to have fallen out with Erdogan and could become a scapegoat for Turkey’s failed Syria policy. And while relations inside the government remain opaque, suffice it to say that Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc used Erdogan’s absence on a visit to Morocco to soften the party line.
Where Erdogan had called the demonstrators looters and railed at social media networks as a "menace" to society, Arinc apologized for the "excessive" police violence, at least at the start of the unrest. Protesters dismissed it as too little too late but nevertheless agreed to meet with him.
The relative quiet may continue or prove short-lived. There are some urgent grievances to be addressed, not limited to countless eyewitness claims that police had consistently fired tear gas canisters directly at protesters’ heads. Two people died this way in just five days, and hundreds – including at least two journalists and an opposition member of parliament – were injured. These crowd-control casualties (except the ones from rubber-coated bullets) are comparable to those in protests in the West Bank, long a scene of intense demonstrations, over a period of seven years. [1]
And while the show of solidarity and civic responsibility in Taksim suggested that the worst may be over for Istanbul, at least for now, several warning signs popped up. Particularly in Antakya, where a young man was killed by live police fire on Tuesday, the protests appeared to be taking an increasingly sectarian dimension, pitting Alevis against Sunnis. Though a large-scale spillover from the Syrian civil war into Turkey may not be imminent, it remains as a possibility.
The stock market also saw one of its biggest falls on Monday, shedding some 10.5% of its value. While it recovered some of the losses on Tuesday, an overwhelming sense of fragility remains. There is little indication for now that the opportunistic Gulf Arab investors who flocked to the country following the Arab Spring in fear of having their assets frozen in the West are about to pull out, but analysts say that the economy appears to have peaked, and the simultaneous strike of public sector and manufacturing workers could trigger powerful shocks with unpredictable results. [2]
While Occupy Gezi Park may not be a Turkish Spring, as some have suggested, it certainly carries of the uncertainty and excitement of one.
1. The full list of Israel’s crowd control weapons revealed in a new report, B’Tselem, January 28, 2013.
2. Turkey: the triple strike that could change everything, Roar Magazine, June 4, 2013.
Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst.
(Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Influential Turkish religious figure chides Erdogan
– Turkey’s most influential religious figure has chided the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the demonstrations that have for a week convulsed the country, but at the same time criticised those who have taken to the streets in protest.
-Fethullah Gulen heads an Islamic movement whose supporters run Turkey’s largest circulation newspaper and one of its biggest business organisations. The Gulen movement’s influence extends across swaths of the Turkish economy and society – including, detractors say, parts of the police and judiciary.
– Supporters say it is non-political and highlight the Gulenists’ accomplishment in setting up schools in some 140 countries around the world, as well as hundreds of educational establishments in Turkey itself.
Speaking in the US, where he lives in self-exile, Mr Gulen this week appeared to suggest Mr Erdogan was to blame for the protests, asking: “Are the ones at fault those who were unconcerned, who underestimated [the protest] by labelling it as ‘this and that’?” But he also criticised “those who turned the streets into an arena of war”.
Mr Gulen added: “If innocent people are killed, if some are choked with gas bombs and if some are blind enough not to see this, the fire could rage.”
– Last month in comments seen as a veiled attack on Mr Erdogan – or at least consistent with criticism of him – Mr Gulen warned against the arrogance of power, saying “even if a person is a believer, they can morally be a pharaoh . . . He may always look at people from on high, telling them ‘stay in your place’.”
– But Mr Gulen’s remarks on the unrest in Turkey showed limited sympathy for the protesters, saying: “If this was about rights, [the protesters] would have gathered in a square, expressed their feelings gently and humanly and left.
“All the world media is now against Turkey,” he added. “Some legitimate demands of innocent people are being exploited by those inside and outside of Turkey.”
– Some leading Gulenists have become increasingly critical of Mr Erdogan’s government, which in turn has come to see the movement as partly a challenge to its authority. Many are much more supportive of Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, who is seen as a more emollient figure.
– Abant Platform, a group linked to the Gulenist movement, issued a statement blaming the use of “disproportionate power” for the spread of this week’s demonstrations and criticising “regulations perceived as interfering with lifestyles” and “discourse which disregards the sensitivities of different belief groups”.
– Mr Erdogan has been widely criticised for recent legislation imposing restrictions on the use and promotion of alcohol in public and for his decision last week to name a new bridge over the Bosphorus after Sultan Selim I, who massacred members of the country’s Alevi minority and established the Ottoman Caliphate.
While leading Gulenists have increasingly depicted the prime minister as an authoritarian figure who has forgotten his zeal for reform, Mr Erdogan has cooled on some of the causes championed by the movement – notably long-running politically charged investigations known as Ergenekon and Sledgehammer, in which hundreds of people have been detained.
– In the past, Mr Gulen, who is rooted in Turkey’s Sufi tradition, has made common cause with Mr Erdogan, notably in 2010 when he called for even the dead to vote for constitutional change championed by the prime minister.
– But people close to the government allege that Gulenists were behind an attempt last year to drag a trusted Erdogan confident, Hakan Fidan, the head of the country’s intelligence service, before a court – a clear challenge to the prime minister’s authority.
– Gulen figures deny such claims, but the government has since shifted a number of police and prosecutors out of their positions, in an apparent attempt to stem Gulenist influence.
While Mr Erdogan has dismissed the demonstrators as “looters”, Mr Gulen appeared to suggest that the government should not underestimate the possible effects of the protests. “When the issues are small, when the fire is small, try to put it out,” he said. “When it gets bigger, you may not be able to handle it.”