Abstract
Cihan Tuğal problematizes the attempts to solve the political crisis that followed the protests by sidelining Prime Minister Erdogan and shifting the balance of religions forces in the country through an analysis of the discourses of the globally influential Turkish cleric Fethullah Güten. Use Gülenization of the regime is a deceptive middle road, he contends, showing us how Gülen “dehumanized” the protesters and stressed the need for a “common reason” that could safeguard national unity. For Tuğal, the Güten movement is a core producer of Turkish Islamic “democratic authoritarianism”, hence incapable of addressing the issues the Gezi revolt has raised.
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Notes
Nazih N. Ayuhi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab world (London: Routledge, 1991).
It should also be rioted that the newspaper also dramatically increased its coverage of ecological issues in the weeks following the protests. Repressing, attacking, taming and/or marginalizing protesters, while incorporating their discourses and demands, is a classical passive revolutionary strategy. See Cihan TuDZal, Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).
For the argument that Said interpreted Islam in a positivist way, see Şerif Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modem Turkey: The Case of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (New York: SUNY Press, 1989)
Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007).
Cihan Tuğal, “Islamism in Turkey: Beyond Instrument and Meaning”, Economy and Society 31 (1), 2002, 85–111.
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© 2014 Cihan Tuğal
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Tuğal, C. (2014). Gülenism: The Middle Way or Official Ideology?. In: Özkırımlı, U. (eds) The Making of a Protest Movement in Turkey: #occupygezi. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137413789_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137413789_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49002-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-41378-9
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