When Fethullah Gulen published his article on Financial Times, I was expecting a response from the infamous Islamophobes or those who happen to be in close connection with them. My prediction came true with the latter. Stephen Schwartz, who always seems to attack the mainstream Muslims in the U.S., published a incendiary and biased article in response to that of Mr. Gulen. Mr. Schwartz was mostly busy with attacking Mr. Gulen than criticizing the content of Mr. Gulen's article. He even brought that fallacious Gulen Charter Schools concept to the table again. Anyway, a timely and nice response came from Dr. Scott Alexander.
It is pretty ironic that Fethullah Gulen, a moderate Muslim, is defended by a Catholic, Dr. Alexander, and is attacked by a Muslim, Mr. Schwartz! You decide who is right. Here is Dr. Alexander's response:
I am puzzled by the fact that a man as seemingly intelligent and
articulate as Mr. Schwartz appears to have deliberately misread the
Op-Ed piece by Mr. Gülen. I say this because, in the very beginning of
Mr. Schwartz’s critique, he clearly demonstrates that he has no
intention of striving for even the least degree of objectivity and
fairness in his analysis of Gülen’s remarks. In fact, I am saddened to
say that what Mr. Schwartz attempts to offer as a trenchant critique of
Gülen and the global Gönüllüler Hareketi (“Volunteers’
Movement”) amounts to little more than a hatchet job on a religious
leader who has inspired thousands, perhaps millions, of men and women to
a reawakening of their faith and a faith-based commitment to service.
How else can one explain Schwartz’s absolute refusal to take Gülen at
his word, despite the fact that what Gülen says in this Op-Ed piece is
utterly consistent with his thought as articulated in numerous
publications which span at least three decades? Why does Schwartz imply
with insistence that Gülen’s agenda is to enact hate speech laws in the
U.S. when Gülen is explicit in the piece that “We can do whatever it
takes within the law to prevent any disrespect to all revered religious figures“? Why does Schwartz assail Gülen,
who seems to recognize the need to respect the legal systems of various
societies in the fight against anit-religious bigotry, but not the
Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon, Bechara Rai? Just one week after the
pope’s visit to Lebanon, Patriarch Rai boldly proclaimed: “We shall not
simply accept a condemnation, but shall ask the international community
to issue a United Nations resolution that will ban denigrating
religions” (http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Patriarch-Rai-tells-Muslim-leaders:-no-insults-against-religions-25903.html).
Although additional evidence for my indictment of what Mr. Schwartz
has written can be found throughout his text, there are a few
particularly tell-tale moments. For example: in his opening paragraph,
Schwartz refers to Mr. Gülen as “enigmatic.” Why? What is “enigmatic”
about Gülen? Not unlike Pope Benedict XVI (albeit on a somewhat smaller
scale), Gülen is a global religious leader who has a website which
makes his writings and speeches accessible to the widest possible
audience (www.fethullahgulen.org).
The former have been translated into over 30 languages and the latter
are available (in Turkish) on a weekly basis, if not more
frequently. True, Gülen lives a reclusive life, making few
public appearances. But this is no different than many highly regarded
but deeply humble religious figures who shun the public spotlight.
In this regard, allow me to return to the papal analogy. Before Pope
John Paul II set the novel precedent of papal “pilgrimages” to nearly
every continent (and the consequent numerous public appearances beamed
around the world), most of his predecessors could well be described as
“reclusive.” The faithful could get a glimpse of the pope if they made a
pilgrimage to Rome. But even after traveling long distances to Holy
See, the best these pilgrims could ever do was to spy the pope from afar
as he stood on the iconic balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, or from a
considerable distance at a grand liturgical ceremony. And even in this
age of comparatively frequent papal travel and satellite TV, popes like
John Paul II and Benedict XVI were/are not exactly “out there” in the
way that Mr. Schwartz is rather disingenuously implying Mr. Gülen ought
to be.
Despite the spotlight which Pope Benedict seems to occupy so
regularly, he still does not give interviews to the media, and only
meets personally with high-level and highly select individuals and
groups. In fact, were it not for the fact that the Bishop of Rome is
also a head of state–a position which Mr. Gülen decidedly does not
hold–one might well maintain that such papal meetings and travels would
be substantially fewer than they currently are.
Which raises the question as to whether or not Mr. Schwartz would
describe the popes as “enigmatic,” rather than simply
“reclusive.” Beyond this, as a Roman Catholic, I wonder whether Mr.
Schwartz would describe Benedict XVI in the distinctively negative
context in which he portrays Gülen? Would he dub the pope as ”an
ingenious priest” who controls an “army” of followers? This is certainly
the way popes were described by people like Thomas Whitney, Congressman
from the Fifth District of New York and one of the founders of the
infamous anti-immigrant, and especially anti-Catholic, “Know-Nothing
Party. Whitney is the author of a classic mid-19th-century nativist
tractate entitled, A Defence of the American Policy, as Opposed to
the Encroachments of Foreign Influence, and Especially to the
Interference of the Papacy in the Political Interests and Affairs of the
United States (New York: DeWitt and Davenport, 1856). In this
text, Whitney uses almost exactly the same rhetorical tropes as does
Schwartz. Whitney speaks of “the course of Jesuitism” as a “subtle and
insidious” force of the papacy, designed to further the designs of
“Romanism” in the U.S. which, according to Whitney, is nothing less than
the “despotic” and quasi-militaristic conquest of the American Republic
(pp. 79-82).
Perhaps I am mistaken, but I’m guessing that Mr. Schwartz would not describe
Pope Benedict in the same terms as he casts Mr. Gülen. When I wonder
why this is, I am led to the strong suspicion that Mr. Schwartz’s
problem with Gülen is not that the latter is a reclusive religious
leader who is the inspiration behind a large group of faithful who see
themselves as having a global mission. I strongly suspect that Mr.
Schwartz’s problem with Mr. Gülen is that Gülen is a Muslim.
This may seem ironic, given the fact that Mr. Schwartz is himself a
Muslim. Upon closer examination, however, the irony begins to fade.
This is for a many reasons. One is that some of the fiercest
condemnations of religious figures and movements tends to come at the
hands of co-religionaries who are at significant odds with one another.
And this certainly applies to Schwartz vis a vis a great many of his
fellow U.S. American Muslims. The mission statement of Schwartz’s “think
tank,” the Center for Islamic Pluralism, says that the purpose of the
center is to challenge “the dominance of American Muslim life by
militant Islamist groups.” Here Schwartz is taking to an even higher
level the incendiary, highly subjective, and completely unsubstantiated
claim made by Shaykh Hisham Kabbani at a 1999 State Department forum
that 80% of the mosques in the U.S. are “being run by the extremist
ideology, but not acting as a militant movement.” It is, therefore, not
surprising that someone who actively chose to attack the mainstream
organized Muslim community in the U.S., has an ax to grind.
Rest of the article continues here:
http://www.islamophobiatoday.com/2012/10/08/response-to-hatchet-job-on-turkish-scholar-m-fethullah-gulen/
