With its author Ahmet Şık arrested in the early hours of 3 March 2011 and the book itself destroyed before its release, Imam’s Army (Imamın Ordusu) has been a symbol of oppression, censorship and draconian silencing of criticism in Turkey. In Fahrenheit 451 style, the book’s digital drafts circulated the internet and multiplied in copies. Memetics dictates that it will never be extinct.

The book is a collection of evidence and news supporting the claim that members of Fethullah Gülen’s Islamic sect have infiltrated the police force among other public institutions with the aim of complete control of Turkish affairs.

Still in a jail cell, Şık has recently witnessed the mysterious if not conspicuous death of an inmate. He and many other writers and journalists are in Silivri prison under judicial custody, waiting to be told what exactly they are guilty of. They have therefore already served long and decaying sentences. The mainstream media in the West continues to laud Turkey’s unsustainably bloating economy and the Turkish AKP model for reforming Arab states after the so-called Arab Spring. However, reasonable, free thinking and progressive minds in Turkey have a different opinion. With the highest number of pending cases at the European Court of Human Rights and a world number one rank for jailed journalists with 57 behind bars, Turkey is hardly the modern secular democracy it was supposed to be. As words like “moderate” or “liberal Islam” become the nauseous norm, Turkish society heads down a dangerous road of acceptance toward backward religiousness that has kept the Middle East in darkness for centuries and blind addiction to an exploitative capitalism that is crumbling the West.

Şık’s book is now out in Turkish. It’s called “000Book: Those who touch, burn” (000Kitap: Dokunan Yanar), published by Postacı Yayınları. The title comes from Şık’s own words which he uttered as he was being put in the back of a police car. The book has 125 authors – all putting their name on it in support of Şık and free speech.

The book was launched in the Istanbul Book Fair. There had been news that the book would be translated into English, which now seems realistic following the official release of the original. However, at TurkeyEmergency we thought we’d kick start things and provide the translation of the first six pages only. A thank you goes out to the mind of reason who suggested and carried out this translation.
000Kitap

“Those who touch, burn”

aka The Imam’s Army
by Ahmet Şık and 124 others

Fethullah Gülen’s organisation began systematically taking over the Turkish security apparatus from the mid-1980s, and it is now common knowledge that the great majority of this is in the hands of his followers. Another important observation is that it is not wrong to say that Fethullahism, commonly seen today by the military and others as an “Islamist threat”, was itself enriched by the very same leaders of the 12th September 1980 coup who now see it as a threat.

During the 28th of February 1997 postmodern coup [1] process and aftermath the President of Turkey and therefore head of the National Security Council (NSC) was Süleyman Demirel. In an interview with him on its second anniversary, he said that “this is a process. I mean, it began with the establishment of the Republic and it is a continuing process. It will continue. It will go like this” [2]. He claims that this continued throughout the era of the NSC commanding the essential components and decisive strength of the military from 1923 to the 28th February, saying “whenever there are reactionaries this process shows itself… If reaction continues for a thousand years, the 28th February process will as well. It is not over” [3]. How far do these almost identical claims and the claim that “the opposition to reaction began at the announcement of the Republic, continued until the present day and will continue” reflect reality? Let’s look at whether this really is the situation.

Actually, eradicating the danger in this country posed by threats to the regime expressed at every opportunity by reactionary opposition has been a scourge. As Kıvrıkoğlu has emphasised, the more Islamism has reared its head, the more the army has responded. Already in the 2000s it was not their own initiative, but a mere curbing of Islamist displays of force and threats to the state the moment that the need arose.

The Green Force Project against the Red Forces

In a movement backed by big business and imperialism – as with all successful Turkish coups – the fact was that the 12th September 1980 coup was not intended to solve the crisis of big business and put into effect the 24th January 1980 IMF economic support program to impoverish on a wide scale; it was to include Turkey in the global economic cycle and to change Turkey into America’s frontier post in the Middle East. But while this plan was being carried out, one of the basic motives of the 12th September coup was to halt the rise of Turkey’s radical socialist opposition.

This “danger” of a threat to business profits needed to be excised, and was on the 12th September. After the steamroller-like 1980 coup, an American-concieved “green force against red forces” project was established to remove “the threat of communism” and pacify the left, which was seen as the sole danger, and this project was much applauded by the Islamist fringe. The newly instituted system was named “the Turkish-Islamic synthesis”. The junta, who had seen leftist cells emerge even within the army, made efforts to develop nationalist and religious thought through its own institutions even before the 12th September coup, and after the coup brought the system to life through all state institutions in all four corners of the nation. For religion and Islam, the truth was that Islamists were ready and open about being used by the state to suppress left and socialist thought. Thus dogmatically emerged the partisans’ relationship of mutual succour.

A Confession from the Nur Organisation

Mehmet Kutlular, owner of Yeni Asya newspaper and one of the Nur Organisation’s big names, made a big confession in an interview with Ruşen Çakır: “the edge of this supports this so-called deep state. State politics changed after 1980. Before that, anarchists and Marxists posed a danger, afterwards religious fanatics. Therefore it was necessary (for the deep state) to establish relations with these religious groups and to work together with them. The goal was to make peace between them and the state. With this goal in mind, the people making state appointments established ties with those in the higher echelons of the religious groups. Members of the intelligence services approached Fethullah Gülen’s group. They came to me too; “let’s work together overseas against Milli Görüş and the Süleyman-ites (two politicised religious groups with firm bases among German Turks)”, they said, but I refused… This “deep state” I talk of has agreements on a large scale with all Islamic groups. This is not expedient: they each have their own agenda. The state said to these groups “be respectful to Atatürk and we will help you”. See how some Islamic groups expanded after the 12th September. But did they grow by their own steam? No.” [4]

Another person issuing a similar warning is Galatasaray University lecturer Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnsel. In conversation with Neşe Düzel of Taraf Newspaper whilst evaluating the Justice and Development Party government (the present governing party, hereafter JDP) record on democracy [5], İnsel answered the question, “is the public sector being filled with nationalists?” with the answer “it has already been filled. At the moment they make up the management and selected employees. We can already see today how the National Education Ministry is acting as a missionary, trying to dissipate Alevi identity by representing it as Sunni Islam
. The same people are gaining employment inside the Home Office. Fethullah Gülen’s people are being hired within the police force. They have partially entered the Justice Ministry. And soldiers are coming under surveillance and are being purged following the 28th February event because they are afraid of the monsters they themselves created.” On this, Neşe Düzel asked, “were the Fethullah-ites the monster created by the deep state?” and İnsel responded: “Yes. In a very clear way this mechanism was their making through supporting them in the 1970s and strengthening them in the 1980s. It wasn’t only Fethullah-ites who were supporting them. There were other components of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis and other movements. These circles are now in conflict with the military in order to develop to a level where they can fight for themselves. They are all nationalists. Fethullah Gülen is a nationalist. They grew up and were politicised in the anti-Communist movement. Gülen himself founded an anti-Communist group in the 1960s. The deep state allows them to continue, as long as it is under its regulation. If something escapes their regulation, it becomes a threat. There is Gülen’s claim of raising a golden generation. Here we come to the topic of unbelievable Muslim Turk elitism. They are the same as Jesuit priests… It smacks of ‘we are going to raise a golden generation in our schools. Soon with this elite generation we will inherit the earth, rule the world’.”

The sound of Mohacs coming from the 1971 coup

In a different part of the interview mentioned above, Mehmet Kutlular said that Fethullah Gülen, a man influenced by Said Nursi like himself [6], was supported by the state and had personally expressed that after the 28th February he had wanted the military to come out against the Welfare Party so that he could then attack them after their work was finished.[7] But Kutlular, as we said before, was free of influence and explained in the interview that the Islamists were planning to become more powerful and once ready, to use the state as their weapon. At the start of Kutlular’s article we see that Islamic religious groups on the verge of becoming Gülen-ists must have played an important part in the military-led coups and in generally supporting Gülen’s search to exploit strategic advantages. Various Islamic measures organised by these sects and congregations were ideologically opposed to Kemalism, but they were always strongly in support of, defending and upholding the power of the state, because every time there was a coup in service of these sects’ strategic advantages, measures could be taken to erode the strength of progressive and revolutionary forces.

At this time, one of Said Nursi’s lawyers and a man known to have influence within the movement, Bekir Berk, wrote candidly while analysing the army’s memorandum in Yeni Asya newspaper on the 10th February 1971 that: “This sound is the sound of history. This sound seems to come from Mohacs. This sound is louder than Manzikert. This sound echoes the veterans of Nagykanizsa. This sound is the sound of our freedom and independence, our religion and belief, the sound of the watchful generals (paşalar) over our honour and virtue, it is the sound of the spirit of our fighting men… This sound is not the sound of clumsy punches to right and to left, it is the sound of a commander who knows where the danger is coming from, seeing it and giving the order ‘fall in line’. This sound is the sound of those who wish problems to be solved through the rule of law, and the sound of those who have vowed to save the spirit of this nation.”[8]

His arrest during the 1971 coup

Gülen was arrested and sentenced to 3 years in prison for the crime of “facilitating, organising, inciting or administrating a society with the goal of assimilating religious fundamentals and beliefs into the state’s assemblies, economy, politics or basic law in opposition to secularism, and entering organisations or inciting others to join organisations for this purpose” under the 163rd article of Turkish Criminal Law in the period of the 1971 memorandum – the memorandum that Said Nursi’s (Gülen’s source of thought) lawyer had supported. The Izmir Martial Command Military Court’s 20th September 1972 judgement was confirmed by the Military High Court 3rd Region in 1973. But in 1974, at the start of Bülent Ecevit’s Prime Ministry, an amnesty was issued and after 7 months imprisonment Gülen was freed. Gülen, whose attachment to the military was unshaken by this period in captivity, wrote these words of the 12th March 1971 coup: “The 27th May was a leftist-led manoeuvre. They wanted the 12th March to be too. But five minutes before the insurrection it came into the hands of Memduh Tağmaç and his friends, who removed some of the leaders of the memorandum adventure. The leftists, who hadn’t predicted this audacity, were unsure how to act. They had foreseen that the opposition on the 12th March would be unready and insufficient. If those who had wished to act on the 9th March had not been obstructed, the subversion carried out would have been very different, the draft ‘Revolutionary Constitution’ would have been put into force and Turkey would have become, bar the name, a complete Communist country… This was the common hope of these leftist powers and the civilian vanguard they had mentored. Thus during the Ziverbey interrogations their true colours were revealed and one by one their atrocious ideas came to light. The 12th of March was not an insurrection and coup. It was a warning to the government in clear terms. Certainly we cannot approve of it taking military form. It is impossible to approve of them choosing to bring a government to its knees by force. But it is possible to view this operation as the prevention of a much worse one. I mean, it is bad, but compared to the much worse scenario, it wasn’t that bad.”[9]
Footnotes

[1] The decisions made on the 28th February 1997 by a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) which reached a conclusion that passed into Turkish political history. The Welfare Party (WP), led by Necmettin Erbakan, came out as the leading party, ahead of the True Path Party (TPP) and Motherland Party (MP). The coalition government of the latter two parties formed after the election was dissolved after losing a vote of confidence which the Welfare Party had petitioned the Constitutional Court for. Due to this, the Welfare Party, as the largest party in Parliament, joined the second largest, the True Path Party, in a coalition which won a vote of confidence on the 8th July 1996. But the existence of this government provoked already uncomfortable soldiers into adopting the attitude that they would behave as they wanted and brought to life a number of dark conspiracies ending in the 28th February process. The National Security Council’s 28th February 1997 meeting published an official memorandum which began “Measures must be taken against the reactionary actions of the opponents of this regime”. The memorandum explained with examples that many religious groups’ beturbaned and gowned members were political activists and that many Welfare Party controlled local councils were employing personnel the NSC believed to be reactionary members of anti-secular movements and religious brotherhoods, using the phrase “the NSC being the regime’s guardian” to stress this point. Shortly after, the Welfare-Path government Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan offered President Süleyman Demirel to resign in favour of TPP leader Tansu Çiller on the 18th June 1997 to “refuel mid-air”, in his words. But Demirel paid no attention to the protocol surrounding government formation and gave the right to form a government to MP leader Mesut Yılmaz, who had no majority in parliament. One month later President Demirel, viewing the threat of a potential military coup if Mesut Yılmaz could not win a vote of confidence by persuading TPP members of parliament to resign from their party, divided t
his party group. On the 12th of July an MP-Democratic Left Party (DLP)-Democrat Turkey Party (DTP) government recieved a vote of confidence from parliament to form the 55th Turkish government under Mesut Yılmaz’s leadership. Until the 18th April 1999 elections this government governed to the letter of the 28th February decisions. The 8 year uninterruptable education law was accepted by parliament. This law closed vocational middle schools including the Imam Preaching Schools (IPS). Additionally, in order to reduce the power of the IPS, the decision was taken to lower the number of additional points given to vocational high school students who had made the choice to study at university outside their department. The case for closing the WP, which was opened by Chief Justice Vural Savaş, was concluded on the 17th January 1998 in the Constitutional Court. It decided to close the WP on the grounds of “proof of activism contradictory to the principle of a Secular Republic”. Necmettin Erbakan and 6 other party members were given a 5-year ban from politics.

[2] Milliyet Newspaper, 29 February 2000.

[3] Akit Newspaper, 28 February 2000.

[4] Milliyet Newspaper, 26 June 1999

[5] Taraf Newspaper, 14th January 2008

[6] When Fethullah Gülen was put on trial in absentia and accused of being behind a Nursi-ist organisation, his lawyers included the following from him in their defence, “I am not connected with any movement – Nursi-ism or etc. – outside being a Muslim. Up to the present day, discriminating in the sense of using “ists and isms”, in this sense I have claimed time and time again that I am not connected with any movement outside being a Muslim and therefore that I am not a Nursi-ite. I am nobody’s caliph”.

[7] Milliyet Newspaper, 29th June 1999

[8] Çağ ve Nesil Journal, number 9, May 1984

[9] http://tr.fgulen.com/content/view/3500/128/