Former Friends, Now Bitter Foes

Sada صدى

Former Friends, Now Bitter Foes

January 14, 2015 |  Ilhan Tanir | http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2015/01/14/former-friends-now-bitter-foes/hzc5?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoluqTIZKXonjHpfsX57eUuUaeg38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YADTcZ0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYTLB2t60MWA%3D%3D

The two most influential Islamic groups in Turkey—namely the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Gülen movement led by Pennsylvania-based retired Imam Fethullah Gülen—have been openly at war with each other for over a year. The Gülen movement, a former Islamic ally of the AKP, has tended to eschew partisan politics in favor of media and cultural influence within Turkey, yet it has become the target of Erdogan’s “with us or against us” rhetoric and governance style.
These developments mark a dramatic reversal. When it first took office in 2002, the AKP government sought to build alliances with other Islamist parties, liberals, and religious movements. Acutely aware that the first Islamist Prime Minister, Necmettin Erbakan, was ousted in 1997 by an army-engineered soft coup, Erdogan and his men strove to enlarge their ruling circle with other stakeholders to resist secular backlash. Gülen entered a partnership (albeit short-lived) with the AKP, becoming an effective powerhouse in Turkey and expanding its media empire and educational program, including thousands of schools and dormitories. Indeed, Gülen invested heavily in the education sphere as part of his decades-old strategy to raise a pious, nationalist, and conservative elite that would hold sway in the Turkish state and society.