Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Keith Ellison Says Turkey Is 'Best Example of How Islam and Democracy Can Coexist' - Praises Gulen Schools
Keith Ellison Says Turkey Is 'Best Example of How Islam and Democracy Can Coexist' - Praises Gulen Schools
April 24, 2011
April 24 2001-Militant Islam Monitor-Congressman Keith Ellison, an Islamist who is often active on behalf of radical Muslim groups in the United States was on a visit to Turkey on the invitation of the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSCON). According to a story in a Turkish newspaper he stated that "Turkey is the best example of how democracy and Islam can coexist".
In his article "Islamist Turkey Overreaches" Dr. Daniel Pipes writes:
"Turks have been at the forefront of developing what I call Islamism 2.0, the popular, legitimate, and non-violent version of what Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden tried to achieve forcefully via Islamism 1.0. I have predicted that Erdoğan's insidious form of Islamism "may threaten civilized life even more than does 1.0's brutality." http://www.danielpipes.org/8467/islamist-turkey-overreaches
Ellison also praised radical Muslim Fethullah Gulen saying that the schools "established in the US by businessmen inspired by Fethullah Gülen and said these schools contribute to tolerance and dialogue and that he likes their approach to education." http://www.todayszaman.com/news-241777-turkey-best-example-of-how-islam-democracy-can-coexist.html
In an article entitled "Fethullah Gulen's Grand Ambition" subtitled "Turkey's Islamist Danger" Rachel Sharon Krespin documents Gulen's educational jihad:
"As Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) begins its seventh year in leadership, Turkey is no longer the secular and democratic country that it was when the party took over. The AKP has conquered the bureaucracy and changed Turkey's fundamental identity...
Gülen now helps set the political agenda in Turkey using his followers in the AKP as well as the movement's vast media empire, financial institutions and banks, business organizations, an international network of thousands of schools, universities, student residences (ışıkevis), and many associations and foundations. He is a financial heavyweight, controlling an unregulated and opaque budget estimated at $25 billion.[3] It is not clear whether the Fethullahist cemaat (community) supports the AKP or is the ruling force behind AKP. Either way, however, the effect is the same The core of Gülen's network is his educational institutions. His school network is impressive. Nurettin Veren, Gülen's right-hand man for thirty-five years, estimated that some 75 percent of Turkey's two million preparatory school students are enrolled in Gülen institutions.[12] He controls thousands of top-tier secondary schools, colleges, and student dormitories throughout Turkey, as well as private universities, the largest being Fatih University in Istanbul. Outside Turkey, his movement runs hundreds of secondary schools and dozens of universities in 110 countries worldwide. Gülen's aim is not altruistic: His followers target youth in the eighth through twelfth grades, mentor and indoctrinate them in the ışıkevi, educate them in the Fethullah schools, and prepare them for future careers in legal, political, and educational professions in order to create the ruling classes of the future Islamist, Turkish state. Taking their orders from Fethullah Gülen, wealthy followers continue to open schools and ışıkevi in what Sabah columnist Emre Aköz called "the education jihad."[13]
The overt network of schools is only one part of a larger strategy. In a 2006 interview, Veren said, "These schools are like shop windows. Recruitment and Islamization activities are carried out through night classes ... Children whom we educated in Turkey are now in the highest positions. There are governors, judges, military officers. There are ministers in the government. They consult Gülen before doing anything."[14]
The AKP's controversial education policies, coupled with the Islamist indoctrination in Fethullahist schools, have accelerated the Islamization of Turkish society. During AKP's first term in government, the Erdoğan government has changed textbooks, emphasized religion courses, and transferred thousands of certified imams from their positions in the Directorate of Religious Affairs to positions as teachers and administrators in Turkey's public schools.[15] Abdullah Gül, Turkey's first Islamist president and a Gülen sympathizer, appointed a Gülen-affiliated professor, Yusuf Ziya Özcan, to head Turkey's Council of Higher Education (Yükseköğretim Kurulu, YÖK). He has also used his presidential prerogative to appoint Gülen sympathizers to university presidencies. http://www.meforum.org/2045/fethullah-gulens-grand-ambition
Keith Ellison has once again been promoting an Islamist agenda and waging stealth jihad against the United States while in Turkey where anti-Americanism is rampant ("Turks regularly poll as the population most hostile to America in the world" http://www.danielpipes.org/5180/turkey-still-a-western-ally) and proven that his sympathies lie with Islamists attempting to destroy the West.
In his article "Islamism 2.0" Dr. Daniel Pipes wrote:
"To borrow a computer term, if Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Nidal Hasan represent Islamism 1.0, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (the prime minister of Turkey), Tariq Ramadan (a Swiss intellectual), and Keith Ellison (a U.S. congressman) represent Islamism 2.0. The former kill more people but the latter pose a greater threat to Western civilization." http://www.danielpipes.org/7770/islamism
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