Lesley Stahl: And that the whole idea is just to get Turks to come into the United States and this is an easy avenue for them.ĭavid Dunn: Which is just categorically not true. Do they serve a function other than educating our kids? One accusation involves immigration fraud: that the schools are providing work visas for hundreds of Gulen followers from Turkey. His movement does lack transparency: its funding, hierarchy, and ambitions remain hidden - leading our State Department to wonder in cables between Ankara and Washington if Gulen has an "insidious political agenda."Īnd now some of the suspicion revolves around the U.S. Seeming to have such power, this "Wizard of Oz" recluse invites conspiracy theories that he's running Turkey from the Poconos and is bent on global Muslim domination. I mean, it is the case that two or three people who've written books highly critical of the Gulen movement are now in jail. What are they afraid of?Īndrew Finkel: There's a fear of reprisal. Lesley Stahl: You know we have confronted real fear about this movement, particularly when we've tried to get critics to give us an interview. In this Internet sermon, he even told followers: "If you don't seek ways to be wealthy.that is a sin in the eyes of God." So his disciples in Turkey became successful businessmen and built a multi-billion dollar Gulen empire that beyond the schools, includes TV stations, a major bank, Turkey's largest trade association, and biggest newspaper. Starting in the late 60s, as a young imam, he urged crowds of middle class Turks to learn from the West and embrace its values - including an unexpected one: making money. They're often multi-million dollar hi-tech facilities where girls are equal to boys and English is taught starting in first grade. We went to Turkey to learn more and found Gulen's schools are everywhere and considered the best. So there is a need for skilled teachers in the United States in that fields. The United States, especially in math and science, is not really good. Lesley Stahl: It's so counterintuitive that people from Turkey would come here to get involved here in education.Īlp Aslandogan: People do go to other countries, including Africa. In sermons on the web, he actually says: "Studying physics, mathematics, and chemistry is worshipping God." So Gulen's followers have gone out and built over 1,000 schools around the globe - from Turkey to Togo from Taiwan to Texas.Īlp Aslandogan: His message is that if you want to solve any social problem for the longer term, the solution has to go through education.īusinessman Alp Aslandogan chairs a foundation in Houston that advances Gulen's teachings. Well, the answer seems to lie with this mystery man: the Turkish imam Fethullah Gulen who tells his followers that to be devout Muslims they shouldn't build mosques - they should build schools and not to teach religion, but science. Why are they building public schools here? Here's what's curious: they're founded and run by immigrant businessmen and academics from Turkey. Together they form the largest collection of charter schools in the country. There are a total of about 130 charter schools like Harmony in 26 states. [Lesley Stahl: When did you get here, to the United States? The enthusiasm is hard to miss, as is the fact that many of the teachers are Turkish, some just recently arrived and hard to understand. Most of them are high-achieving academically, they stress math and science, and one more thing: they're founded and largely run by immigrants from Turkey who are carrying out the teachings of a Turkish Islamic cleric: Fethullah Gulen. Over the past decade scores of charter schools have popped up all over the U.S., all sharing some common features. The following script is from "The Gulen Movement" which aired on May 13, 2012. Lesley Stahl travels from Turkey to Texas to report on how the movement is spreading, and on the man behind it all. Yet Gulen himself remains shrouded in mystery. Some have even started a chain of successful charter schools here in the U.S., with an emphasis on math and science. (CBS News) Fethullah Gulen is the Turkish Islamic cleric at the center of a popular and growing movement, with millions of disciples who follow his teachings of tolerance, interfaith dialogue, and education. charter schools tied to powerful Turkish imam 13:32
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