Erdogan’s pharaoh method for Gulenists
TURKISH President Tayyip Erdogan named his political party “Justice and Development” as a display of his determination to transform Turkey’s elitist, militant secularist Kemalist regime into a democratic government that could function as a beacon and symbol of progress in the region and the Islamic world at large. He made promises of “the new Turkey” being a place that would embrace all minorities and protect the rights of ordinary Turks, affording them a space in public life.
However, after two decades of Erdogan’s rule, Turkey has been listed by many international human rights reports for the human rights violations of its citizens. Moreover, neither the US government nor the EU has introduced sanctions against the Erdogan regime for its daily crackdown on critics. Instead, they commend the AKP regime over its hosting of Syrian and Afghan refugees in Turkey.
Among the many Erdogan views as threats and political dissidents are members of the Gulen (Hizmet) Movement. His repression of the Gulen members can be likened to the method of the Egyptian pharaoh who would target baby boys who he feared would grow up to oppose him. The Turkish leader specifically targets educated, young members of the movement to prevent any future threat against his regime.
Turkey not only targets Kurdish armed groups in Turkey but also continuously attacks Kurds in Iraq and Syria, viewing the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) as terrorist groups. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, together with many media outlets, have reported that Turkish forces also target ordinary Kurdish civilians in these countries as these armed Kurdish groups kill civilians.
Besides Kurds, the Turkish state also targets Alevis, the largest religious minority in Turkey. Turkey’s religious authority Dinayet discriminates against the Alevi Faith for failing to recognise “Cemevi” as a place of worship and as they are different in their practise and interpretation of Islam. Tensions between Sunni rightists and Alevi leftists have increased since the 1970s, and Turkish nationalists from time to time target Alevis. Turkey’s Christian, Armenian, Jews and many other religious and ethnic minorities feel less comfortable and secure as Erdogan’s AKP has been involved in populist, Islamist and nationalist politics for the last 10 years.
However, if these minority groups are to remain silent on Erdogan’s injustices, not questioning Turkey’s official ideologies, and seeing themselves as ethnic Turkish citizens, they do not face systematic persecution. On the other hand, Gulen movement members, who are, in fact, mostly ethnic Turk and almost all adherents of Turkey’s Sunni practice of Islam, face a kind of genocide under Erdogan.
In a speech at Nizamiye Mosque’s Iftaar-Dinner in Johannesburg, South African’s renowned Professor Farid Essack likened Turkey’s ongoing witchhunt against Gulen Movement members to the pharaoh’s practices.
“The Hizmet Movement is an amazing lesson for all of us. How do we continue to serve in the various capacities that it is sharing, in the field of education, art and culture? The amazing thing is, there is no serious public articulation of the pain and the repression and dispossession that people connected to Hizmet movement are really suffering and undergoing,” Essack said.