FETHULLAH GULEN VOTED WORLD’S TOP LIVING PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL
Today’s Zaman
June 24 2008
Turkey
Turkish intellectual Fethullah Gulen, one of the world’s most
influential Islamic scholars, has come out on top of a list of "The
World’s Top 20 Public Intellectuals" organized by the magazines
Foreign Policy and Prospect.
The top 10 names on the list, closely observed by millions all over the
world, were all Muslim scholars, including two Nobel laureates: Turkish
novelist Orhan Pamuk and Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi.
Also on the top 20 list were activist Noam Chomsky, best known for
his scathing criticism of US foreign policy extending back to the
Vietnam War; Former Vice President Al Gore, who championed the campaign
against global warming; historian Bernard Lewis, one of the foremost
historians of the Middle East; Umberto Eco, a famous Italian novelist;
Amartya Sen, the premier welfare economist of the 20th century;
Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International; and Gary Kasparov,
the chess grandmaster and a democracy activist from Russia.
In its May/June issue the Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine
published a list of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" in the world
and asked its readers to cast their ballots for the top 20, which
it promised to publish in the next issue. The magazine said they
did not expect "an avalanche of voters," but that half a million
people visited the foreignpolicy.com site to pick their favorite
candidate. The magazine added: "Such an outpouring reveals something
unique about the power of the men and women we chose to rank. They
were included on our initial list of 100 in large part because of
the influence of their ideas."
Published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the
bimonthly is one of America’s leading magazines for researching and
analyzing international affairs and making recommendations for US
foreign policy.
Foreign Policy explained how it had chosen the top 100 out of so many
more candidates: "Candidates must be living and still active in public
life. They must have shown distinction in their particular field as
well as an ability to influence wider debate, often far beyond the
borders of their own country." The magazine asked readers to select
the top 20 from among the 100 mentioned. It also allowed readers to
offer a write-in candidate. Stephen Colbert, a TV host and satirist,
became the top write-in candidate. Colbert is a host of the popular
late-night fake news show The Colbert Report. Colbert has become one
of young America’s go-to sources for news analysis.
Foreign Policy noted that Gulen had gathered the most votes after
Turkey’s largest-circulating newspaper, Zaman, picked up the story and
carried it on its front page. Foreign Policy wrote: "Part of being a
public intellectual is also having a talent for communicating with a
wide and diverse public. This skill is certainly an asset for some who
find themselves in the list’s top ranks." Foreign Policy indicated
that press coverage profiling these intellectuals appeared around
the world, with stories running in Canada, India, Indonesia, Qatar,
Spain and elsewhere. Some names on the list, such as Aitzaz Ahsan,
Noam Chomsky, Michael Ignatieff and Amr Khaled, mounted voting drives
by promoting the list on their Web sites.
Foreign Policy introduced Fethullah Gulen to its readers as an Islamic
scholar with a global network of millions of followers who is both
revered and reviled in his native Turkey. "To members of the Gulen
movement, he is an inspirational leader who encourages a life guided
by moderate Islamic principles. To his detractors, he represents a
threat to Turkey’s secular order," ForeignPolicy.com said. A news item
that appeared in yesterday’s edition of the Guardian daily completed
this introduction by saying, "He was cleared of trying to topple the
state in 2006 after being charged over footage in which he apparently
urged civil service supporters to await his orders to overthrow the
system. He said the film had been doctored." The Guardian piece said
that Gulen is "credited with establishing a global network of schools
that preach Islam in a spirit of tolerance and has been praised in
the West for promoting dialogue."
Foreign Policy included descriptions of other figures who made the top
10. For Pamuk, it wrote that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature
in 2006 after a year in which he faced criminal charges in Turkey for
his controversial remarks on the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians. It
added, "His most famous books are My Name Is Red, Snow, and Istanbul:
Memories and the City."
Foreign Policy also said Gulen has kept a relatively low profile since
settling in the United States in 1999, having fled Turkey after being
accused of undermining secularism, but did not mention that seven
out of the 10 Muslim intellectuals topping the list are living in the
West and that all have had problems with the established authoritarian
regimes in their countries. Two other names also had conflicts with
their native countries’ established regimes: Aitzat Ahsan has been a
target of violence during Pervez Musharraf’s rule in Pakistan, and
Yusuf al-Qaradawi lives in Qatar because he is not welcome in his
native country, Egypt. The magazine, however, noted that the ideas
of the top ten, particularly concerning Islam, differ significantly.
Foreign Policy credited Fethullah Gulen’s supporters for the result
of the poll, saying: "Within hours, votes in his favor began to pour
in. His supporters — typically educated, upwardly mobile Muslims —
were eager to cast ballots not only for their champion but for other
Muslims in the Top 100." Surprised by Gulen’s name coming first in
the poll, Prospect Editor David Goodhart admitted that he had not
heard of Gulen previously. Speaking to the Guardian, Goodhart said,
"The victory of Gulen draws attention to the most important conflict
in Europe, played out in Turkey between the secular nationalist
establishment and the reforming Islamic democrats of the AK [Justice
and Development] Party." Foreign Policy added to this comment by
saying that identity politics carried the day during the polls.
But the supporters of Fethullah Gulen were not surprised at all. Harun
Tokak, the president of the Writers and Journalists’ Foundation
(GYV), of which Gulen is the honorary president, told Today’s Zaman
that Gulen deserved this fame and more. "For us, the fact that the
editors of these two magazines placed Gulen among the Top 100 was
valuable. The people already knew Gulen. That his name was on the
list meant that the intellectuals confirmed his value, too," he said.
Asked about the typical qualities of the people voting for Gulen,
Tokak warned that he would rather speak about why Gulen was voted
first. "There are other intellectuals; what makes Gulen distinctive
is that he not only thinks and writes, but also puts his ideas into
action. He is an intellectual activist. The number of the books
written by him is not important, but what is important is the fact
that the ideals he mentions in these books are actualized in real
life through his guidance," he said.
Ozcan KeleÅ~_, president of Dialogue Society, which organized an
international conference about the Gulen movement in October 2007,
told Today’s Zaman that the results of the poll revealed that Gulen
appeals to an international, young and educated audience. "This is
a generation that uses the Internet, reads in English and is open to
the world. This is not a Turkish magazine organizing a poll," he said.
Regarding allegations that Gulen’s selection was a result of an
"organized vote," KeleÅ~_ said that in an age of where no one has
any time, "if one man is able to have hundreds of thousands of people
spare some time to enter into a site and vote for him, he is certainly
a great man."
Tokak says this should be just a first step in a worldwide confirmation
of Gulen’s service to world peace. He mentions the answer Gulen
himself gave to Foreign Policy’s question about who he would vote
for. Gulen named John L. Esposito, the American scholar of Islam,
as his candidate, because, he said: "For Esposito, Islamophobia
is nothing but another threat to world peace. His contributions to
interreligious understanding and dialogue are substantial."
Tokak says Gulen’s response reveals his worldview: "He yearns for
global peace. He works for it, and he encourages his followers
to pursue it. Ten years ago he changed our understanding of the
‘other.’ Until that point, coming together with people of different
faiths and races was something foreign to this land. He brought the
differences together at his own dinner table. This is a life story
that deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, not just a top place in a list of
100 intellectuals."
Though wishful about a Nobel Prize for his "hero," Tokak is not
hopeful. "Chingiz Aitmatov clearly deserved a Nobel Prize for
Literature. His books were translated into 157 languages. But he
passed away recently, without even being named as a candidate. Some
people do not get what they deserve," he said.
–Boundary_(ID_fonOzu4BL5CvNOvZMK78Lg)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
