Turkish Forum

Tag: Gulen

  • KILLERS! My Last Letter to Obama

    KILLERS! My Last Letter to Obama

    20 December 2013

    The Honorable Barack H. Obama President of the United States
    The White House
    1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
    Washington, DC 20500
    USA

    Dear Mr. President:

    KILLERS!

    You have destroyed the secular republic of Turkey. But it’s not only about you, Mr. President. It’s about Bush and Clinton and the other Bush and Reagan and Carter and Ford and Nixon and all the others like them who have been trying through the years to subvert Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s secular, democratic republic of Turkey. It’s also about your CIA and all its directors and its agents like Abramowitz and Edelman and Fethullah Gülen and Graham Fuller. And it’s about your CIA-inspired collaborating ambassadors to Turkey like Ricciardone and Jeffrey and Wilson and Edelman and Pearson and Parris and Grossman and Barkley and Abramowitz and Strausz-Hupe and Spain and Spiers and Macomber and Handley and Komer and all their double-talking predecessors beginning on 10 November 1938 when Atatürk died. But it’s mostly about your once best friend and key hit-man, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. And, of course, your under-educated, ever-treacherous under-cover CIA agent, religious huckster, and Pennsylvania resident, Fethullah Gülen. How good of you, Mr. President, to use these two religious hypocrites to employ God as a vehicle to divide and destroy a nation like Turkey. You, Mr. President, you and all the above American agent-provocateurs are guilty of subornation of treason. As a lawyer, I am sure you know what this means.

    You have aided and abetted these two traitors, Erdoğan and Gülen, to engage in high crimes and misdemeanors in destroying the sovereignty of the Turkish nation. You have allowed your puppets, Erdoğan and Gülen, to kill and maim the citizens of Turkey. You have allowed your Erdoğan and his political thugs to plunder the nation of its natural resources, its wealth, its security and its honor. You have allowed your Gülen and his Gülen-controlled police force to brutally attack the Turkish people. And now, fed up with the treacherous, embarrassing Erdoğan, you are trying to dump him. But he is your “child,” Mr. President, another made-in-America political thug. And now you are using your other “child” (via the CIA) to have Gülen’s police to topple him. How stupidly obvious can you be? Erdogan’s corruption (and his political party’s) has been known for years. As has Gülen’s treachery. Your Erdoğan and Gülen’s police killed, gassed, beat, stabbed and otherwise maimed thousands of “Gezi Park” protestors. You and your reprehensible ambassador sold the Erdoğan government tons of tear gas and tasers and long range acoustic devices to violently suppress a democratic expression of the Turkish people’s disgust with the Erdoğan government. It resulted in six murders by the police. Are you beginning to understand, Mr. President?

    How nice that now you too are disgusted with Erdoğan. And how clever of you to turn CIA “asset” Gülen against CIA “asset” Erdoğan. But what now, Mr. President? Do you think the “moderately” Islamic “gülenistas” in the AKP are any better than “moderately” Islamic Erdoğan? Do you think the Abdullah Gül puppet is any better than the Erdoğan model? Do you think the opposition party, now cravenly meeting with your ambassador, Ricciardone, is any better than Erdoğan? None of them are. Why? Because it is All-American garbage, that’s why. And it is because of you and your continuation of the sordid legacy of American gangsterism in the Republic of Turkey. Mr. President, Erdoğan and Gülen and you are enemies of the Turkish state. And the Turkish people know it. But, Mr. President, do you? Do you even care?

    Sincerely yours,

    James C. Ryan
    Istanbul
    20 December 2013

     

    untitlewd
    Erdoğan and Gülen

     

     

  • FOR GOD’S SAKE STOP SAYING “INSHALLAH”

    FOR GOD’S SAKE STOP SAYING “INSHALLAH”

    eating heart
    SYRIA

    Haven’t you learned anything yet, you victims of Islamo-fascism? You victims of high treason. You victims of occupation by foreign powers. Haven’t you learned that you and your Inshallahs are condoning, allowing, and approving the crimes of the fascist Islamists that have ruled Turkey for over a decade. All their plans are prefaced with barrages of “Inshallah,” as if Allah is complicit with their criminal schemes. You surely remember well their schemes. You have nightmares about them. Allah and God and Yahweh are not plunderers, not murderers, not liars, not traitors, not rapists, not conniving ignoramuses. So stop saying “Inshallah.” Allah is disgusted with his/her name being linked with such criminal, sinful behavior. If there were a judiciary system in Turkey Allah would sue the government for defamation of character. For if you continue using this defamatory mantra, you will be spiritual collaborators with those international felons who are destroying your country in the name of—guess who?—Allah! And in your name and the name of your Inshallahs!

    You and your “Inshallahs.” Like a neurotic, nervous tic, you drone Inshallahs for every mundane event. You will go shopping and Inshallah there will be bread. You will drive to the city and Inshallah there will be a parking place. You will go on vacation and Inshallah there will be good weather. Inshallah, the fish will be delicious at the restaurant you recommended. Inshallah, the mechanic will have a carburetor for your automobile. Inshallah, tomorrow I will stop saying Inshallah, Inshallah, Inshallah, Inshallah………..…

    This so-called government of yours says “Inshallah” too. When it blinds your daughter, it says Inshallah. When it kills your sons, it says Inshallah. It gasses your children, destroys your mountains, your rivers, your farms, your security, all aspects of justice, and your human rights, then your government says Inshallah. It destroys the army and says Inshallah. It imprisons patriots and says Inshallah. It enslaves women in headscarves and says Inshallah. Your government perverts your educational system and says Inshallah. It finances genocide against the Syrian people and says Inshallah. Your government lies while addressing the United Nations and says Inshallah. It collaborates with America to betray your country in the name of Allah. It supports financially and morally the low-life scum that yells “Allahu ekber” while eating the hearts of still-living Syrian soldiers.  Indeed, how great is this God? How great is this Allah when your government’s police attack your children shouting “Allahu ekber?”  You say that these people are not your government, not your police. But your tax money finances them and your Inshallahs and their Inshallahs echo to the heavens all of them seeking Allah’s blessing. How sick is this? Just what is Allah to do, being bombarded with Inshallahs from all directions and for all purposes from trivial to bestial?

    For God’s sake stop saying “İnshallah!”
    And for Allah’s sake all you others stop saying “God bless America!” 

    James C. Ryan, Ph.D.
    Dublin, Ireland
    28 September 2013

     

  • The Best of Enemies ……. ERDOGAN vs. GULEN

    The Best of Enemies ……. ERDOGAN vs. GULEN

    Written by : Nicholas Birch
    on : Thursday, 5 Sep, 2013

    Tension mounts between Turkey’s biggest Islamist players, Erdoğan and Gülen

    ANATOLIAN DISPATCHES blog: Posts from across the Bosporus. The Republic of Turkey is turning its attention eastwards and proving itself a heavyweight in the Middle East arena. ‘Anatolian Dispatches’ sets the compass to the new Turkish orientation.

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech

    during the International Ombudsman Symposium meeting

    in Ankara on September 3, 2013 (ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images)

    In politics, the pursuit of power always wins out over ideological affinity. That seems to be the moral behind the latest round of tensions between Turkey’s two most powerful Islamic groups: the government itself and the Fethullah Gülen Movement. Tensions that became visible mid-August when the Movement published a response to what it called “slanderous accusations” against it.

    Most of the eleven allegations addressed in the August 13 statement are old hat: that its eponymous leader, based in Pennsylvania for the past 15 years, is a patsy of the United States and its pro-Israel and alleged anti-Muslim Brotherhood policies in the region, that its followers have infiltrated Turkey’s state bureaucracy and have used their power—among other things—to oppose the government’s Kurdish peace process.

    A couple more allegations look like theories dreamed up by sycophants to raise their profiles in the eyes of the increasingly paranoid Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: claims that a bug in Erdoğan’s office was planted by the Movement, and that the Movement came within a whisker of arresting Erdoğan in February 2012.

    Three, though, have never been aired in public before: the allegation that the Movement was responsible for the protests that swept the country in July, that its followers in the police and the judiciary blocked the arrest and trial of protesters, and that police linked to the Movement stoked protests by burning protesters’ tents and using excessive force.

    Never mind the apparent contradiction between police who burn tents and then fail to arrest the protestors. For Kadri Gürsel, a commentator who writes for the daily Milliyet, the fact the Movement feels the need to answer such allegations implies it has heard them over and again in private discussions with the government. “If these allegations are expressed in the way they appear in the statement”, he says, that suggests “growing enmity” to the Movement in government circles.

    On the face of it, there should be little reason for tension between the two. True, since its birth in the early 1970s, the Movement has played a much more cautious political game than the political Islamists of whom Erdoğan is the latest manifestation. While the latter were outspoken in their criticism of the Turkish secular regime, the Movement preferred to hedge its bets. It supported (and was protected) by the leaders of the 1980 coup. It did its best to keep a low profile during the army-led crackdown on political Islam in 1997, a crackdown that began with the forced resignation of Erdoğan’s predecessor and saw Erdoğan jailed for reciting a poem.

    In terms of ideology, though, the two are more similar than they are different. Like Erdoğan’s speeches, Fethullah Gülen’s writings are full of references to a powerful Islamic past. Both men more or less explicitly associate the collapse of the Ottoman Empire with a turning away from religion, and both dream of an Islamic renaissance. And nobody has worked harder than the Movement, with its vast network of schools across Turkey and the world, to keep faith alive in the hearts of Turks and nurture a new generation of devout and morally upright young people.

    The two have cooperated politically too. After years of adamantly refusing to come down in support of any one single party, the Movement’s powerful media backed Erdoğan’s government to the hilt in the run up to general elections in 2007 and a referendum to change the constitution in 2011. Moreover, without its support, and the support of Movement sympathizers widely acknowledged to be powerful in the Special Authority Courts that have tried scores of senior military officers over the past five years, Erdoğan could never have reined in the military.

    But perhaps that is where the trouble all stems from: the alliance between the Movement and the government was cemented by a mutual hatred of overweening generals with a radically secular agenda and a deep hatred of anything that smacked of political Islam. The General Staff is now peopled with Erdoğan appointees and no longer presents a threat.

    The first explicit signs that things might be falling apart came in February 2012, when prosecutors attached to Special Authority Courts issued a summons for five senior National Intelligence officials, including the National Intelligence chief Hakan Fidan. The summons came during peace talks with the Kurds. Prosecutors said they wanted to talk to Fidan about his links with the civilian arm of a Kurdish rebel group, but many in the media called it an act of sabotage. It escaped nobody’s attention that Fidan was an Erdoğan appointee, indeed, probably Erdoğan’s most trusted bureaucrat.

    Erdoğan reacted fast. Within days, the parliament had pushed through an amendment preventing courts questioning the prime minister’s appointees. The government moved to whittle away the power of the Special Authority Courts. There were also widespread rumors of a purge of officials in the police and ministries known to be sympathetic to the Movement.

    And then peace seemed to return. Erdoğan said nice things in public about Gülen and Gülen said nice things about Erdoğan, and the pro-Gülen media continued on the whole to support the government. On the whole it also supported Erdoğan—and this is what makes the allegations addressed in the 13 August response so odd—during the July protests. While a handful of liberal columnists employed by pro-Gülen newspapers criticized the government for its brutality, the general approach of the Movement’s newspapers and news channels was to link the unrest to a generation of youngsters that had been given too much liberty and to hint that the government should work together with the Movement to teach them good manners.

    What the August 13 response makes clear is that tensions had never gone away. There are all sorts of reasons why this might be the case. Erdoğan is not known for his ability to forget, and the Movement’s role in trying to dislodge his political confidants, if it is true, is not the sort of thing he is likely to forgive. There are also hints that Erdoğan, ever the pragmatist, may blame the Movement for the ferociously severe sentences handed out by a court in August at the end of a mass trial of military officers (dozens of officers—including the last Chief of Staff, who was if anything a slightly unwilling ally of the prime minister—received prison terms of up to 200 years). Events in the Middle East have also driven a wedge between the two groups: Erdoğan sees the Muslim Brotherhood as blood brothers; Gülen has always been suspicious of them. On the other side, the Movement has been rocked by repeated government threats over the past year to close down the system of Dershane (classroom), private crammers that millions of Turkish teenagers attend every year in an effort to secure a university place, and a multi-billion dollar business for companies affiliated to the Movement.

    Underneath it all, though, the key issue is almost certainly power. Erdoğan, as his response to the July protests showed, is a man who is allergic to any form of dissent. The criticisms leveled at him by secular liberals employed by the pro-Gülen media may have irked him, but it is Gülen himself that he must find difficult to stomach. For Gülen has charisma and he has support, and Erdoğan’s Turkey only has space for one charismatic leader.

    Nicholas Birch

    Nicholas Birch lived in Istanbul, Turkey, from 2002 to 2009, working as a freelancer. His work—mainly from Turkey and Iraq—has appeared in a range of publications, including the Washington Post, Time Magazine, the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement. He was a stringer for the Wall Street Journal and the Times of London until the end of 2009. He now lives in London.

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    Tagged with: Fethullah Gulen, Justice and Development Party, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey
  • “THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS ISLAMIST” LIVES IN PENNSYLVANIA

    “THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS ISLAMIST” LIVES IN PENNSYLVANIA

    Angelia

    CanadianFreePress
    Fethullah Gulen, allegedly “the most dangerous Islamist on planet earth,” is alive, well, and living in Pennsylvania with over $25 billion in financial assets.

    From Pennsylvania, he has toppled the secular government of Turkey, established over 3,000 schools throughout Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, created a new country called East Turkistan, and formed a movement that seeks to create a New Islamic World Order.

    This reporter made a recent visit to Gulen’s 28-acre mountain complex at 1857 Mt. Eaton Road in Saylorsburg, PA – – the very heart of the Pocono Mountains.

    The complex consists of a massive chalet that is surrounded by numerous out buildings, including recreational centers, dormitories, and cabins for visiting foreign dignitaries. The property also contains a large pond, a helicopter pad, and, reportedly, firing ranges.

    The first floor of the chalet contains a dining hall capable of serving a small army. The second floor is an open area with a library, computer station, and open areas with divans where disciples pour over Turkish newspapers, Islamic texts, and the collected wisdom of their Hocaefendi (“religious master”). Gulen himself resides on the third floor and rarely emerges to meet with his followers, let alone inquisitive reporters.

    The road leading into the complex is blocked by a metal gate and a sentry hut.Inside the Gulen Compound
    A visit to the Pennsylvania fortress of “The World’s most Dangerous Islamist”
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    – Dr. Paul L. Williams Monday, April 4, 2011

    imageFethullah Gulen, allegedly “the most dangerous Islamist on planet earth,” is alive, well, and living in Pennsylvania with over $25 billion in financial assets.

    From Pennsylvania, he has toppled the secular government of Turkey, established over 3,000 schools throughout Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, created a new country called East Turkistan, and formed a movement that seeks to create a New Islamic World Order.

    This reporter made a recent visit to Gulen’s 28-acre mountain complex at 1857 Mt. Eaton Road in Saylorsburg, PA – – the very heart of the Pocono Mountains.

    The complex consists of a massive chalet that is surrounded by numerous out buildings, including recreational centers, dormitories, and cabins for visiting foreign dignitaries. The property also contains a large pond, a helicopter pad, and, reportedly, firing ranges.

    The first floor of the chalet contains a dining hall capable of serving a small army. The second floor is an open area with a library, computer station, and open areas with divans where disciples pour over Turkish newspapers, Islamic texts, and the collected wisdom of their Hocaefendi (“religious master”). Gulen himself resides on the third floor and rarely emerges to meet with his followers, let alone inquisitive reporters.

    The road leading into the complex is blocked by a metal gate and a sentry hut.

    imageWithin the hut are high definition televisions that flash images from the security cameras that have been strategically placed throughout the complex. The post is manned day and night by Turkish guards, who speak little or no English.

    Before the hut is a sign that reads “Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center.” No visitor in his or her right mind could believe that the tiny, one room building serves as a house of worship, let alone a place for a weekend retreat. The building contains only a metal desk, two straight chairs, the monitors, and the sentries who, upon the occasion of this reporter’s visit, offered no word of welcome but instead called upon other members of the complex to escort this reporter and his photographer sidekick from the premises.

    The neighbors complained to this reporter of gunfire from fully automatic weapons coming from the complex and the presence of a surveillance helicopter that combs the property in search of unwanted intruders.

    They maintain that an army of approximately 100 Turkish guards stand watch over the property in order to protect their reclusive leader.

    Combing the parameters of the property, one can easily spot the guards. They wear suits, white shirts, and ties and do not look like traditional Islamists in cloaks and turbans.

    According to a source within the compound, the guards and other members of the compound follow their Hocaefendi’s orders without question and refrain from marrying until age fifty per his instructions. When they do marry, the spouses are expected to dress in the Islamic manner, as dictated by Gülen himself.

    The women do not live within the complex but rather in modest houses along Mt. Eton Road.

    Little about Gulen, as U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan discovered, is known – – not even his date of birth. Some of his followers maintain that he was born in 1934; others 1938; and still others 1942.
    How dangerous is Gulen?

    In his public statements, Gulen espouses a liberal version of Sunni/Hanafi Islam and promotes the Muslim notion of hizmet – – altruistic service to the common good.

    Despite the presence of the armed guards at his Pocono fortress, Gulen has condemned terrorism and called for interfaith dialogue. He claims to have met with Pope John Paul II, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomeos, and Israeli Sephardic Head Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron.

    Whether these meetings with Christian and Jewish leaders actually occurred is questionable. On his website, Gulen says that he has a UNECO award from Pope John Paul II in October, 2005. John Paul II died on April 2, 2005.

    In private, Gulen has stated that “in order to reach the ideal Muslim society every method and path is acceptable, [including] lying to people.”

    In a sermon that was aired on Turkish television, Gulen said:

    You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria … like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it … You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey … Until that time, any step taken would be too early—like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all—in confidence … trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here—[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here.

    Under the AKP, Turkey has become a militant Islamic state, transferring its alliance from Europe and the United States to Russia and Iran

    Anyone doubting the incredible power wielded by Gulen need only take note of the achievements of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma, AKP)- – a party Gulen formed this party as soon as he arrived in Pennsylvania. By 2003, the AKP became the governing party in Turkey and a powerful force throughout the Muslim world. Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s first Islamist President, is a Gulen disciple, along with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, the head of Turkey’s Council of Higher Education.

    Under the AKP, Turkey has become a militant Islamic state, transferring its alliance from Europe and the United States to Russia and Iran. It has moved toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria and created a pervasive anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and anti-America animus throughout the populace.

    Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of “TRT al Turkiye”, the new channel of the state run TV station TRT, Prime Minister Erdogan said Turkey will always be on the side of Muslims wherever they are.

    Within Turkey, Gulen also formed a vast conglomerate called Kaynak Holding, which today includes some 15 companies involved in the retail, I.T., construction, and food industries. The main division, Kaynak Publishing, maintains 28 publishing labels. It produces hundreds of books per year on and by Gülen, in addition to books on the glories of the Ottoman Empire and the achievements of militant Islam.

    Gulen also owns Feza Media Group, which publishes the Today’s Zaman (Turkey’s leading daily newspaper) and the magazine Aksiyon. A subsidiary of Feza is Samanyolu Broadcasting, which operates most of Turkey’s TV stations. Gulen and his followers also control Bank Asya, now Turkey’s largest Islamic bank, with billions of dollars in assets, and TUSKON, a Turkish businessmen’s association, with 50,000 companies as members.

    With his vast resources, Gulen established thousands of schools throughout Central Asia – – – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan – – in order to create a massive pan-Islamic state. Noted whistleblower Sibel Edmonds explains: “Turkey shares the same heritage/race as the entire population of Central Asia, the same language (Turkic), the same religion (Sunni Islam), and of course, the strategic location and proximity.”
    According to Bayram Balci, a Turkish scholar, the Gulen schools seek to expand “the Islamization of Turkish nationality and the Turification of Islam” in order to bring about a universal caliphate ruled by Islamic law.

    Because of the subversive nature of these institutions, these schools have been outlawed in Russia and Uzbekistan.

    Even the Netherlands, a nation that embraces pluralism and tolerance, has opted to cut funding to the Gulen schools because of their imminent threat to the social order.

    But Gulen’s 150-plus charter schools in the United States, which advance Gulen’s international agenda have received little national attention.

    All of these charter schools – – which advance the New Islamic World Order – – are fully funded by American taxpayers.

    A partial listing of the Gulen schools throughout the U.S.A.

    Arizona
    Schools Operated by Daisy Education Corporation

    * Sonorant Science Academy-Tucson Middle-High School 2325 W Sunset Rd., Tucson
    * Sonorant Science Academy-Tucson Elementary School 2325 W Sunset Rd., Tucson
    * Sonorant Science Academy-Broadway Kindergarten – Grade 8, 6880 E Broadway Blvd., Tucson
    * Sonoran Science Academy-Phoenix Kindergarten – Grade 10 4837 E McDowell Rd., Phoenix
    * Daisy Early Learning Academy, 2325 W Sunset Rd., Tucson, AZ
    * Davis Monthan Air Force Base

    Arkansas

    * Lisa Academy 21 Corporate Hill Dr., Little Rock
    * Lisa Academy-North 5410 Landers Rd, Sherwood

    California

    * Magnolia Science Academy 1, 18238 Sherman Way, Reseda
    * Magnolia Science Academy 2, 18425 Kittridge St., Reseda
    * Magnolia Science Academy 3, 1444 W Rosecrans Ave., Gardena
    * Magnolia Science Academy 4, 1010 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA
    * Magnolia Science Academy 5, 1530 N Wilton Place, Hollywood
    * Magnolia Science Academy 6, San Carlos
    * Momentum Middle School, 6365 Lake Atlin, San Diego
    * Bay Area Technology School (Bay Tech) 4521 Webster St., Oakland
    * Pacific Technology School-San Juan
    * Pacific Technology School-Santa Ana

    Colorado

    * Lotus School for Excellence, Aurora

    Florida

    * Orlando Science Middle School, 2427 Lynx Lane, Orlando
    * River City Science Academy, 3266 Southside Blvd., Jacksonville
    * Sweet water Branch Academy 1000 NE 16th Ave, Building C, Gainesville
    * Stars Middle School 1234 Blountstown Highway, Tallahassee

    Georgia

    * Fulton Science Academy Middle School, 1675 Hembree Road, Alpharetta
    * Technology Enriched Accelerated Charter High School, 4100 Old Milton Pkwy, Alpharetta

    Illinois

    * Science Academy of Chicago, Grade 1-Grade 8, 8350 N. Greenwood Ave, Niles
    * Chicago Math and Science Academy Secondary School, 1705 West Lunt Ave, Chicago

    Indiana
    Operated by Concept Schools, Inc.

    * Indiana Math and Science Academy, Grade 6-Grade 12, 4575 W 38th Street, Indianapolis

    Louisiana

    * Abramson Science and Technology 5552 Read Blvd., New Orleans

    Maryland

    * Chesapeake Science Point Secondary School 1321 Mercedes Drive, Hanover

    Massachusetts

    * Pioneer Charter School of Science Grade 7- Grade 10, 51-59 Summer Street, Everett

    Missouri

    * Broadside-Frontier Math and Science School Secondary School, 5605 Troost, Kansas City
    * Broadside Charter and Day School Elementary School, 5220 Troost Ave., Kansas City

    Nevada

    * Coral Academy of Science-Las Vegas, 8185 Tamarus St., Las Vegas
    * Coral Academy of Science-Reno Secondary School, 1350 East Ninth Street, Reno
    * Coral Academy of Science- Reno Elementary School, 1701 Valley Road, Reno

    New Jersey

    * Bergen Arts and Science Charter School, K-8, 200 MacArthur Ave, Garfield
    * Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology, 276 Wabash Ave., Paterson
    * Tuition Schools
    * Pioneer Academy of Science, K-12, 366 Clifton Avenue, Clifton

    Ohio
    Operated by Concept Schools, Inc.

    * Horizon Science Academy-Cincinnati Middle School-High School, 1055 Laidlaw Avenue, Cincinnati
    * Horizon Science Academy-Cleveland High School, 6000 South Marginal Rd., Cleveland
    * Horizon Science Academy-Cleveland Middle School, 6100 South Marginal Rd. Cleveland
    * Horizon Science Academy-Cleveland Elementary School, 6150 South Marginal Rd. Cleveland
    * Horizon Science Academy-Columbus High School 1070 Morse Rd. Columbus
    * Horizon Science Academy-Columbus Middle School 1341 Bethele Road, Columbus
    * Horizon Science Academy-Columbus Elementary School, 2835 Morse Rd., Columbus
    * Horizon Science Academy-Dayton, 545 Odlin Ave., Dayton
    * Horizon Science Academy – Denison, K-1, Grades 4 – 8, 1700 Denison Avenue, Cleveland
    * Horizon Science Academy – Springfield, Grades 5- 8 630 South Reynolds Road, Toledo, OH 43615-6314
    * Horizon Science Academy – Toledo, Toledo High School, 425 Jefferson Avenue, Toledo
    * Noble Academy-Columbus, K-Grade 8, 1329 Bethel Road, Columbus
    * Noble Academy-Cleveland 1200 E. 200th Street, Euclid

    Oklahoma
    Schools operated under the Cosmos Foundation, TX.

    * Dove Science Academy-OKC Secondary School, 919 NW 23rd St., Oklahoma City
    * Dove Science Academy-OKC Elementary School, 4901 N Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City
    * Dove Science Academy-Tulsa, 280 S Memorial Dr, Tulsa

    Tuition school affiliated with Raindrop Turkish House

    * Bluebonnet Learning Center of Tulsa Nursery, Pre-School and Pre-Kinder Education, 280 S Memorial Dr., Tulsa

    Pennsylvania

    * Truebright Science Academy Secondary School, 926 West Sedgley Avenue, Philadelphia
    * Snowdrop Science Academy Pre-School – Grade 7, 233 Seaman Lane, Monroeville

    Texas
    Operated by The Cosmos Foundation

    * Harmony Science Academy-Austin Secondary School, 930 East Rundberg Lane, Austin
    * Harmony School of Science-Austin Kindergarten- Grade 8, 11800 Stonehollow Drive, Suite 100, Austin
    * Harmony Science Academy-North Austin, Grades 6- 10, 1421 Wells Branch Parkway, W Suite 200, Pflugerville
    * Harmony Science Academy-Beaumont, Kindergarten- Grade 10, 4055 Calder Ave, Beaumont
    * Harmony Science Academy-Brownsville
    * Harmony Science Academy-Bryan/ College Station
    * Harmony Science Academy-Dallas Secondary School, 11995 Forestgate Dr., Dallas
    * Harmony Science Academy-Dallas Elementary School, 11995 Forestgate Dr., Dallas
    * Harmony Science Academy- El Paso, 9405 Betel Dr., El Paso
    * Harmony Science Academy-Fort Worth
    * Harmony Science Academy-Grand Prairie, 1102 NW 7th St, Grand Prairie
    * Harmony Science Academy-Houston Secondary School, 5435 S. Braeswood, Houston
    * Harmony School of Excellence-Houston, Elementary and Secondary School, 7340 North Gessner Rd, Houston
    * Harmony School of Innovation-Houston, 9421 West Sam Houston Parkway, South Houston
    * Harmony School of Science-Houston, 13415 W Belford Ave., Sugar Land
    * Harmony Science Academy-Northwest, Kindergarten- Grade 10, 16200 Tomball Parkway, Houston
    * Harmony Science Academy-Laredo, 4401 San Francisco Avenue, Laredo
    * Harmony Science Academy-Lubbock, 1516 53rd Street, Lubbock
    * Harmony Science Academy-San Antonio, 8505 Lakeside Parkway, San Antonio
    * Harmony Science Academy-Waco, 1900 N. Valley Mills Dr., Waco
    * Texas Gulf Institute Career Center Adult Education, 9431 W Sam Houston Pkwy., S #203, Houston

    Operated by Riverwalk Education Foundation, Inc

    * School of Science and Technology Discovery, K-12, 5707 Bandera Road, Leon Valley
    * School of Science and Technology-San Antonio Secondary School, 1450 NE Loop 410, San Antonio
    * School of Science and Technology-Corpus Christi

    Tuition schools affiliated with Raindrop Turkish House

    * Bluebonnet Learning Center of Houston Nursery, Pre-School and Pre-Kinder
    * Education, 9303 W Sam Houston Parkway South, Suite 200, Houston
    * Bluebonnet Learning Center of Dallas Nursery, Pre-School and Pre-Kinder Education, 1416 E Collins Blvd., Richardson
    * Bluebonnet Learning Center of El Paso Nursery, Pre-School and Pre-Kinder Education 9405 Betel Dr., El Paso

    Utah

    * Beehive Science and Technology Academy, Secondary School, 1011 Murray Holiday Rd., Salt Lake City

    Wisconsin

    * Wisconsin Career Academy Middle-High School, 4801 S 2nd Street, Milwaukee

  • Three Powerful Men Decide Turkey’s Future

    Three Powerful Men Decide Turkey’s Future

    By: Kadri Gursel for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse. Posted on March 12.

    Turkey’s future is to be decided by the nation’s three most powerful men, by the equilibrium they shape among themselves and by deals they forge with each other.

    Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan leaves a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Ankara

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan leaves a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, in Ankara, Aug. 1, 2012. (photo by REUTERS/Stringer)

    About This Article

    Summary :

    Kadri Gursel writes on the three men who are critical to Turkey’s future: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned head of the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK]; and Fethullah Gulen, exiled head of the Gulen Sunni movement.

    Original Title:
    Three Powerful Men Decide Turkey’s Future
    Author: Kadri Gursel
    Translated by: Timur Goksel

    The first and the most powerful is already at the zenith of political power: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He is also the most powerful, most capable civilian leader after the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. His colleagues who know from his younger days speak of him as “reis,” [”president” in formal usage and ”chief” colloquially]. The people who joined him at his current post call him “patron” [the boss]. In official bureaucratic milieu, among party members and businessmen close to him he is “beyefendi” [sir or esquire]. Not only is he the most powerful man of Turkey, but because he enjoys exercising his power and doesn’t want to share it with anyone else, he is a personality that instills fear in his party AKP, in the state structure and the society.

    The second most powerful man is serving a life sentence and has been in prison for 14 years: Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the separatist, armed Kurdish organization, the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] in 1978 and who personally led it until 1999 when he was apprehended in Kenya and handed over to Turkey. Since his imprisonment the PKK has changed drastically. The Kurdish issue became politicized and regionalized and has become a mass movement. Among many political and societal variables the key issue that hasn’t changed in the Kurdish movement has been the loyalty to Ocalan’s historical leadership. This is why the Kurds close to the PKK say “Honorable Ocalan’’ or in brief “the Leadership” when they speak of him. Ocalan is a figure that unites Kurdish nationalists.

    The AKP rule and their media use a code for Ocalan that is derived from the name of the island where his private prison is: Imrali.

    Those in the power, to avoid perceptions that they are in a dialogue with Ocalan through intelligence officials, refrain from using his name and prefer to say “Imrali.”

    The third powerful man is a Sunni religious leader living in voluntary exile in the United States for 14 years: Fethullah Gulen. Gulen, who started out as a mosque imam, is the founder of an Islamic socio-political movement that is now spread worldwide. He is its spiritual leader. The movement has several labels: “Gulen Movement,” “Service” or the most popular version in Turkey, “Cemaat” [a congregation or faith community]. Their followers are known as “Gulenists.” Those who admire Fethullah Gulen call him “hocaefendi” [a scholar esquire].

    Those who don’t like him call him ‘’Pennsylvania’’ after the state he moved to in 1999 when he left Turkey because of military pressure. Some call him “Across the Ocean.”

    The main engine of the Gulen Movement that has long become globalized is education. They have close to 1,000 schools in more than 120 countries, including universities.

    In Turkey they have a nationwide school and student hostel network with tens of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of students. Vast majority of their students are on scholarships. The revenues that turns the wheels come from their capitalist ventures and donations collected by a network of organizations of powerful businessmen. The movement also has a strong media network with daily Zaman and Samanyolu TV channels as its flag ships.

    But the most extraordinary political power attributed to the Gulen Movement is the network it has reportedly built inside the state mechanism, especially in judiciary and security sectors.

    Today, many impartial observers agree that the current neo-Islamist rule of Turkey has been able to eliminate in just three years the military-bureaucratic tutelage power centers that saw themselves as the guardians of the Ataturk Republic with police actions and judicial procedures mainly thanks to harmonious work of the Gulenist cadres in the police and the judiciary.

    Although their statures are widely divergent, there are commonalities in the leaderships of Erdogan, Gulen and Ocalan that render them powerful and consequential.

    All three are extremely charismatic, all three have exceptional influence on their constituencies, all three are visionaries and finally all three have alternative societal projects. All three with their visions and leaderships carried changes they brought about to outside of Turkish borders.

    And there is no fourth man who has similar attributes.

    Until recent past, chiefs of general staff used to be counted among the powerful figures of the land but not anymore. Turkey has changed and will change more.

    The change in Turkey now proceeds on two axes: Erdogan’s overly personalized authoritarian president project, and peace with the Kurdish movement.

    What Turkey’s new regime will look like and status of Turkey’s relations with the Kurdish reality in the Middle East will largely be determined by the interaction between these two axes.

    To make is clearer and more concrete we must say this:  Although there was no cause-and-effect relationship, the a la carte presidential model Erdogan wants for himself and settlement of the Kurdish issue became linked to the peace negotiations at Imrali. Despite efforts to keep them under wraps, it is now known that the negotiations between Turkish intelligence officials who represented Erdogan’s authority and Ocalan have been going on since last October.

    The negotiation platform of a “new constitution” on which the presidential system and peace issues were debated was in a format of give-and-take.

    For the presidential system Erdogan desires, a constitutional amendment is required as well as for the settlement of the Kurdish issue. To meet the equality demands of the Kurds a neutral definition of citizenship that doesn’t require “Turkishness,” education in the mother tongue and partially fulfilling the demand for autonomy by empowering local administrations are all required constitutional adjustments.

    If progress is wanted in the peace process, then the constitution has to be amended to meet these Kurdish demands. Erdogan’s AKP doesn’t have enough parliamentary seats to submit a constitutional draft to a public vote. AKP can negotiate only with the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party [BDP] for a presidential system. Other parties are categorically refusing to negotiate for such a system.

    A reality emerged when the daily Milliyet on Feb. 28 published the minutes of the meeting three BDP parliamentarians held with Ocalan at Imrali a few days earlier. The topic of BDP supporting the presidential system was on the agenda of the Imrali meeting and Ocalan, despite some reservations, was amenable to support Erdogan’s presidency.

    Nevertheless, it will not be easy for the Erdogan government to market a “AKP-BDP constitution” to majority nationalist conservative Turkish public unless the PKK military forces  leave Turkey before a possible constitutional referandum in the fall and for Turkey’s 30-year terror question to be considered as done with.

    An interesting feature of the “’Imrali Minutes” report was the harsh accusations of Ocalan against the Gulen Movement. Ocalan claimed the summons by the specially authorized prosecutor of Hakan Fidan, the undersecretary of National Intelligence Organization for questioning on Feb. 7, 2012, was “”actually a coup attempt” and implied it was the Gulen Movement behind it. Ocalan went as far as to claim that the objective of the summons was to arrest the prime minister on charges of treason and labeled the Gulen Movement as new “counter-guerrilla.”

    We will perhaps understand better in the future why Ocalan made such severe accusations against the Gulen Movement. The Gulen media since 2009, especially after 2011, have been increasingly supportive of police operations that resulted in arrests of thousands of Kurdish activists, there has been a perceptible antipathy against the Gulen Movement in Kurdish public opinion. But this is not enough to explain Ocalan’s outburst.

    What is definite is this: The crisis that began Feb. 7, 2012, with the summons for questioning of Hakan Fidan, the MIT undersecretary who happens to be one bureaucrat Erdogan trusts most, culminated in ending the de facto partnership for power between the Gulen Movement and the AKP.

    It is true that the Gulen Movement, with its media assets, its undeniable influence over conservative voters and its potential power within the state, is a key actor. But what is apparent is that the movement has not yet decided its final position on Erdogan’s presidency and the peace process with the PKK and that they are somewhat undecided with these issues.

    The Gulen Movement has adequate power to influence these processes this or that way once it makes up its mind.

    The clarification of the interaction among “the three” also depends on the Gulen Movement to determine its inclination.

    Kadri Gürsel is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor‘s Turkey Pulse and has written a column for the Turkish daily Milliyet since 2007. He focuses primarily on Turkish foreign policy, international affairs and Turkey’s Kurdish question, as well as Turkey’s evolving political Islam. He joined the Milliyet publishing group in 1997 as vice editor-in-chief of a newly launched weekly news magazine, Artı-Haber, and was Milliyet’s foreign news editor from 1999 until 2008. Gürsel was also a correspondent for Agence France-Presse between 1993 and 1997, and in 1995 was kidnapped by the PKK, an experience he recounted in his book Dağdakiler (Those of the Mountains), published in 1996. He is also chairman of the Turkish National Committee of the International Press Institute.

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/erdogan-ocalan-gulen-turkey-pkk-peace-process-presidency.html#ixzz2NRFfoUTn

  • Continuous Beauty (Natacha Atlas & Fethullah Gülen)

    Natacha Atlas’ın seslendirdiği şarkı. Sözlerini kim mi yazdı? Sıkı Durun : Fethullah Gülen

    “Rise Up” is the colorful new album voicing words of peace through the universal language of music, at a time when battle cries are heard all over the world. With lyrics written by Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish poet and philanthropist who affectionately embraces people of all languages, faiths, and backgrounds from Asia to the Americas, from Europe to Africa, this album brings together singers from 12 different countries under the banner of peace.

    Listen / Dinle