The methodology of the Hizmet movement in Turkey has always been two-faced. Their approach has been infiltration; covert and discreet indirect da’awah. They operate like a cult. They are not open about their agenda, about their goals, or even about their beliefs. They have tried to win over support through “service”, not through clear presentation of their purposes and their ideas. They are a perfect example of the ayah about those who say “we are only peacemakers”, while they are in fact pursuing a hostile agenda.
It is important to look at this because such a methodology is deceptive, and manipulative, and fundamentally cowardly. Allah told us, “O you who believe, speak straightforwardly”. The Believers are clear and direct, transparent in our goals and beliefs. If you agree, good. If you disagree, it’s your choice. If you want to argue about it, bring it on. We know what we believe and we stand up for it, and fight for it, not fearing the blame of the blamers. This quality makes the Believers brave and forthright. This is the opposite of the Gulenists. If you confront them, they deny everything. They say they are not political, they say they have no agenda. But they have worked in an extremely calculated way to place their members in key positions within the state, in the media, in academia, in the military; and on July 15th, we saw why.
But, you see, they failed to understand that you cannot train your people to be deceptive and non-confrontational, and then expect them to stage an uprising. The Americans clearly thought the Gulenists would pour into the streets in support of the coup attempt; expected them to explode into a “Turkish Uprising” as mentioned by the US embassy. It didn’t happen. And they are not rising up even now, as their members are being purged from every corner of the state. There are tens of thousands of them, maybe hundreds of thousands; who knows, maybe millions. But they are completely incapable of protesting the purge, because their whole movement has been based on avoiding confrontation, upon being sneaky, upon being deviously subversive; they do not have the conviction or character to stand up and fight.
If they were a legitimate movement, they would have formed a political party and articulated their plans, and sought public support in an open manner; like the AKP. The coup attempt only began exposing them for what they are, their spineless response to the purge is completing that process of exposure, and everyone can see now that they are nothing but a scheming, traitorous cult.