The Gülenists, led by US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, is allegedly behind the failed coup attempt of July 15 in Turkey. Thus, according to existing international norms and conventions, Gülen is to be extradited to Turkey upon the Turkish state’s request. Turkey has officially requested Gülen’s extradition; however, the Obama government is tending to balk. This shuffling on the Obama government’s part stems from the US’s concerns to protect its national interests in the Muslim world. Indeed, Western media outlets are at pains to create an image that there is an ostensible overlap between Western interests and the Gülenists’ survival. This is predicated on the crooked belief that, among Muslims, the Gülenists are closest to the Western political ideals and ways of doing things. This is epitomized by labelling the Gülenists as “good” Muslims.
At first glance, this may appear to hold some truth, given the Gülenists’ overt allegiance to liberal-democratic politics and in general to Western ways of doing things. Yet, below the iceberg, Gülenism has a real face, a dark obscurantist zeal for world domination, in terms of its goals, and the path chosen to achieve them contradicts almost everything that is Western. Gülenism is rather a radical nihilist subject, which is antagonistic to liberal modernity.
[Politics Today, August 18, 2016]
