RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL? THE GÜLEN MOVEMENT IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

Abstract

This paper asks: when and under what conditions does religion become a source of coopera- tion rather than conflict? The Gülen movement is an Islamic social movement that bases its philosophy on increasing religious consciousness at the individual level and making Islam an important social force in the public sphere. It is this intellectual and social activism that has made the movement a global phenomenon and the focus of socio-political analysis. The Gülen community brings different sectors of society together to facilitate ‘collective intellectual effort’ and offer ‘civil responses’ to social issues, seeing this as a more subtle and legitimate way of influencing public debate and policy. To this end, the movement initiated a series of symposiums, known as Abant Workshops in Turkey. The scope of these meetings was later expanded to include a wider audience in Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East. This paper looks specifically at the Abant Workshops and the movement’s strategy of bridge building and problem-solving. It uses the press releases, transcripts and audio-visual records of the past 14 meetings to discuss their objectives and outcomes. This material is supplement- ed by interviews with key organisers from the Journalists and Writer Foundation and other participants. The discussion aims to understand how far religiously inspired social groups can contribute to the empowerment of civil society vis-à-vis the state and its officially secular ideology. Beyond that, it aims to explain the role of civil society organisations in democratic governance, and the possibility of creating social capital in societies lacking a clear ‘overlap- ping consensus’ on issues of citizenship, morality and national identity. The hesitancy at the beginning turns into friendship, the distance into understanding, stiff looks and tensions into humorous jokes, and differences into richness. Abant is boldly moving towards an institutionalization. The objective is evident: Talking about some of the problems the country is facing, debating them and offering solutions; on a civil ground, within the framework of knowledge and deliberation. Some labelled the ideas in the concluding declarations as “revolutionary,” “renaissance,” and “first indications of a religious reform.” Some others (in minority) saw them “dangerous” and “non-sense.” In fact, the result is neither a “revolution” nor “non-sense” It is an indication of a quest for opening new horizons or creating a novel vision. When and under what conditions does religion become a source of cooperation rather than conflict in the civil society? The Gülen movement is an Islamic social movement that bases its philosophy on increasing religious consciousness at the individual level and making Islam an important social force in the public sphere. It is this intellectual and social activism that raises the Gülen movement of Turkey as a global phenomenon to the focus of socio-political analysis. The Gülen community brings different sectors of the society together to create and facilitate a ‘common intellect’ to brainstorm and offer ‘civil responses’ to social issues. The move- ment sees this as a more subtle, but more effective, and legitimate way of influencing public debate and policy. Hence, the movement initiated a series of symposiums, known as Abant Workshops in Turkey. The scope of the meetings was later expanded to include a wider audi- ence in Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East. In early 1990s the Gülen Movement launched a silent but persistent public relations cam- paign. Fethullah Gülen openly met with the prominent figures of government and politics, and gave interviews to some popular newspapers and magazines. With a thriving media net- work, private schools, and business associations the movement seemed to have entered a new stage in its relations with the outside world. This new stage was not a simple outreach effort; it was rather a confident step to carve a niche in the increasingly diversified Turkish public sphere. The instigation of a series of workshops known as Abant Platforms was one of the biggest steps in this process. The workshops brought academics, politicians, and intellectu- als together to discuss some of the thorniest issues of, first, Turkey, such as secularism and pluralism, and then the Muslim World, such as war, globalization and modernization. This paper seeks to explain the motives behind this kind of an ambitious project and its possible implications for the movement itself, for Turkey and for the Muslim World in transition.