The Hizmet Movement and the US as an example of Neo-Missionary work

It was 2009. We were in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with a Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) group for an international meeting. In a city where poverty and insecurity were rampant, we were witnessing unforgettable scenes.

It had become commonplace to encounter members of the Gülen Community at all the meetings I attended with AKP deputies.

This time, on the day we were to leave the city, they had come to the hotel again under the pretext of seeing us off.

When we set off in one of their cars, he brought up the schools they operated in Addis Ababa. He began to talk at length about the service they provided and to question why I, unlike other deputies, did not visit their schools.

As a result of the questions I asked, I learned that he had been educated in the US by the “Hizmet Movement” and was an engineer.

So, what was he doing here? The answer I received was: “In return for all the help given to him, he is paying back his debt by working for them, by teaching.”

I asked how much he was paid. “300 dollars a month,” he said.

I was surprised; living on this money was not even possible in Ethiopia.

However, he said with pride, “Money is not important, I am working for our cause.” In fact, he was also a missionary and thought he was working for Islam.

They had opened 3 private schools in such a poor country. How did the public find the money to send their children to these schools?

The explanation given was very striking: “We are already educating the children of state officials. Because they will be the leaders who will govern this country in the future with the values we instill in them.”

This answer coincided exactly with the goals of the missionary schools that operated on Anatolian soil between 1820 and 1923.

The Hizmet Movement also aimed to spread its power through a cadre of leaders to be raised in the schools it opened in every corner of the world.

While the US Missionary Projects were continuing, it took us years to understand that a new model of this project was being put into effect using the religion of Islam.

Of course, it was the US that designed the project and supported its financing.

As clearly stated in the report of the Parliamentary Research Commission established in the TBMM to investigate the July 15 Coup Attempt: “Fethullah Gülen’s relationship with the CIA began as a result of the relationship established with the Moon Sect in 1983.”

The official name of the Moon Sect is the “Unification Church.” The US, wanting to form a bloc against communism, decided to support Fethullah Gülen, whom it found suitable for this, and to ensure his growth after this date. It is not a coincidence that Gülen was among the founders of the “Turkish Association for Fighting Communism,” which effectively carried out CIA-backed, anti-left counter-guerrilla activities in the network of relations formed with the US.

It is noteworthy that during his time as a preacher in Edremit, Manisa, İzmir, and Çanakkale, he used all his leave abroad on a preacher’s salary and constantly obtained medical reports to avoid going to work.

Fethullah Gülen and his organization have been involved in the “Interfaith Dialogue” process, which the World Council of Churches developed in cooperation with the Vatican since 1983, with the concept of “Moderate Islam.”

Within the framework of the Interfaith Dialogue process, the following expressions were included in the Encyclical published by Pope John Paul II in 1991:

“Interreligious dialogue is a part of the Church’s evangelizing mission, the mission to bring all people to the Church. This mission is in fact directed to those who do not know Christ and the Gospel and who belong to other religions. God calls all people to himself through Christ.”

In his millennium message published on December 24, 1999, the Pope said: “In the first millennium, Europe was Christianized. In the second millennium, America and Africa. In the third millennium, the target is Asia.”

Fethullah Gülen visited Pope John Paul II in 1998, and then Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron.

He also gave a letter to the Pope.

The letter is as follows:

The letter, which begins with “Your Holiness,” continues as follows: “We are here to be a part of the mission of the Pontifical Council for Interfaith Dialogue. We wish to see the realization of this mission. .... We have come to you to offer our most humble assistance in the way of performing this very valuable service of yours, in the most helpless way, perhaps even with a little audacity.”

One of the proposals presented to the Pope was the establishment of an “independent university” in Harran with a comprehensive curriculum that would meet the needs of all three religions.

The letter was signed as “a humble servant of the Lord.”

There is no need for many words; Gülen wanted to support the mission of the Pontifical Council, which is to unite all humanity in the Christian religion.

We were now facing an Evangelical Muslim Model, and one with prophecies and miracles at that...

It is also very noteworthy that the symbols used by the Hizmet Movement overlap with missionary symbols.

• For example, the 1000-Year Golden Age that Evangelicals expect and that will be experienced with the Second Coming of Jesus overlapped with the “Golden Generation” to be raised by Gülen.

• The model of spreading religion through missionaries’ educational institutions was copied exactly.

• The missionaries’ strategy of opening hospitals, establishing publishing houses, and becoming a foundation was applied even more widely by the Hizmet Movement in accordance with the requirements of the age.

• We observed the propaganda that missionaries carried out through seminars, small groups they formed, and volunteers in the Gülen Community through “sisters,” “brothers,” Light Houses, seminars, test-prep centers, dormitories, and professional organizations.

• As in missionary activities, the Hizmet Movement showed “donations” as the source of all its assets.

Countless schools, universities, hospitals, media and financial institutions, holdings, foundations, and what not in 180 countries... What these donors were capable of!!!

The fact that the US chose, supported, and protected the so-called representative of “Moderate Islam” as a neo-missionary model is undoubtedly a clear example of taking the Islamic World under its control.

US Presidents have not repeated for years in vain that Islamic countries need a “caliph,” using the “Pope” analogy.

This is why requesting the extradition of Fethullah Gülen, who was understood to be a terrorist organization leader with the July 15 Coup and who is a US project, means nothing to the US...