majorly revised version

1. The Gulen movement and its
contributions: New social
movements perspective
Liu, Yu-cheng, PhD
Assistant Master, Residential College of International
Development, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Assistant Professor, National Chiao Tung University,
Taiwan
E-mail: ycliu15@gmail.com
The 2013 CESNUR conference
Changing Religious Movements in a
Changing World
Dalarna University, Falun (Sweden), 21-24, June, 2013

2. • The Gulen community, some say, ‘one of
the most influential revivalist movements
in modern turkey,’ founded by Fethullah
Gulen, makes the silent reformation
possible (Özdalga, 2005, p. 430).

4. Fethullah Gulen paid
a visit to the late
John Paul II
in Rome in 1998

5. several characteristics of the Gulen
community and the movement
• The founder of the Gulen movement is
Fethullah Gulen, who was born in a
traditional Muslim family and was
educated as a thinker and preacher.
• His thoughts was colored heavily with the
teachings of Sufi orders, particularly those
of Said Nursi, Gulen’s teacher.

6. some characteristics-2
• among all fields, education was the most
important section emphasized and
developed by Mr. Gulen
• other sections the Gulen community
developed: economic enterprises,
publications and broadcasting, and
religious gatherings
• there is no strict organization governing
the activities of the Gulen community

7. some characteristics-3
• faith-based, apolitical movement:
–the Gulen movement is faith-based but
not religion-based in the sense that
those universal values supported by the
movement have their origin in Islam,
pursuing them is exactly on the right
way to the faith

8. some characteristics-4
• The Gulen movement gains its support from
businessmen, intellectuals, educators,
workers, and students, but not from militaries
and politicians (however changed recently).
• it is identity-oriented in that it combines three
elements as the identity of the movement:
Ottoman legacy, secular Turkey, and Islam
• the Gulen movement is secular: it
appropriates liberal market economy to gain
material supports and to make sure its
connection to the secular world

9. some characteristics-sum
• Advocating liberal market economy, close
to Sufi teachings and orders, reconciling
Islam with science, are characteristics of
the Gulen movement and of the teachings
of Mr. Gulen

10. regarding its aspects of social
movement
• the people, including Fethullah Gulen
himself, who participate in this movement,
are rational in that the movement
advocates liberal market economy and the
use of modern media technology
• the movement is purposeful, aiming at
world peace and intercultural dialogue

11. difference between social and NEW
social movements
• ‘a critical ideology in relation to modernism
and progress, decentralized and
participatory organizational structures,
defense of interpersonal solidarity against
the great bureaucracies, and the
reclamation of autonomous spaces, rather
than material advantages’ (Porta and Diani)

12. the Gulen movement as NEW
social movement
• The ‘newness’ lies in the fact that it is
largely an identity seeking and rebuilding
movement, and it concerns not just faith,
but also people’s life, starting from
educational reformation

13. • paradoxically, the aims of the Gulen
community are to some extent contradict
with liberal market economy through which
the Gulen community gains its power and
development

14. • first of all, the Gulen movement to some
respect advocates liberal market economy,
and regards it as a way for Turkey to
develop its identity combining Ottoman,
Turkish, and Islam.
• however, the Gulen movement does not
oppose the intervention of the state into
people’s life, which is not supported by
liberal market economy.

15. • The legitimacy of the Gulen movement is
generated through advocating liberal market
economy and democracy, and admitting that
Islam and science are not incompatible via
promoting education reforms.
• It was so in the society of Turkey by the
1980s that give legitimacy to various new
social movements and social groups,
including the Gulen community

16. the contributions-1
• The failing of Kemalism by the 1980s
created a kind of vernacularization in
political dimension and leaded to the
transmission of Islam from private to public
sphere, and that transformed the society
of Turkey, the Gulen community plays an
important role in this ‘deprivatization’ of
Islam.

17. the contributions-2
• the Gulen community plays the role of
mediator between the individual and the
state, for it ‘helps to formulate solutions at
the level of individual autonomy that
prepare the way for the development and
integration of the individual into the
modern nation state’

18. the contributions-3
• the Gulen movement voices for human
rights, justice, world peace, intercultural
and interfaith dialogue, environmental
issues, educational problems, and so on
• instead of liberal market economy, cultural
factors are important in supporting the
movement: society-centric, identity-
oriented, faith-based instead of religion-
based, and secular

19. four elements corresponding to four
cultural and social factors
society-centric ordinary people
identity-oriented Ottoman-Turkish-Islam
faith-based universal values originated in
Islam
secular liberal market economy

20. the contributions-4
• when globalization leads to a homogeneous world
and a westernized society, the particularity of the
Gulen movement lies in its delimitation to
globalization and liberal market economy
• the faith-based ideals and actions make the
participants of the Gulen movement to rethink the
role of capitalism and liberal market played in their
life, as a tool for supporting the movement, it is
possible for them not to be influenced by some
negative aspects of both of them

21. the contributions-5
• the faith-based character ‘pulls them out of’
the secular way, advocating capitalism and
liberal market economy, they are using to
achieve their goals.
• This is similar to what Heidegger talked
about: the ‘authenticity’ of life

22. the contributions-6
• It is also possible for those people who
participating in the Gulen movement
avoiding from the crisis of identity, which is
also one of the consequences of
capitalism and neo-/liberal economy

23. conclusion-1
• the Gulen movement as NEW social
movement, not exactly NEW religious
movement
• its NEWNESS lies in its legitimacy in
pursuing identity and universal values
when considering the formation of nation
state or modernity
• the Gulen movement should be
reconsidered in the sense of ‘the social’

24. conclusion-2
• four elements corresponding to four social
facts:
–they constitute its legitimacy not only in
Turkish society, but also in the world
–they may contribute and complement to
the world where the faith and values
have been lost while pursuing blindly
material achievements

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