Monday, August 6, 2012

Gulen Movement and Fethullah Gulen discussed at CSIS

(Video Duration: 1 min. 39 secs.)

Members of the Center for Strategic and International Studies gather in Washington... The topics discussed include: the Gulen Movement.

The group's director Doctor Bulent Aliriza hosted the discussion... and said that the movement has grown rapidly... reaching out to the world for more than 40 years.

Aliriza added that the movement, led by Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen, provides the basic philosophy of serving people in order to serve God.

Doctor Alp Aslandogan, who is a member of the board, says that the movement is especially important to the youth because they find that faith, spirituality and science can work together.

The Gulen movement makes political choices by subject, values and attitudes rather than by political parties.

Members of the movement say they would like to see values such as being against corruption, democracy, and not abusing political power.

Aslandogan added it was impossible to pronounce an exact number for the institutions of the movement because they are prevalent in the society and the donations are made locally depending on the amount of the need.

When asked why the Army was against such a movement, Aslandogan explained that this was a simple case of over-generalization rather than speaking in terms of the Turkish Army, we need to single out individuals within the institutions, as some high rank officers after their retirement speak about the positive effects of the Gulen movement.