More from Today's Zaman

Now that we're back from Turkey, I'm kind of using this blog to park interesting things from media reports and editorials about Turkey and the Gülen movement.

Today, I read an interesting op-ed from my friend Muhammed Çetin, who introduced me to the work of the Gülen movement when he and I lived and worked in Houston, Texas. The op-ed, Gülen-inspired schools and SMOs, describes the tension between how members of the movement view themselves and their work and how those who oppose or fear the movement view and portray it.

Here's an excerpt:

Because of its brevity, outsiders tend to use "Gülen schools" rather than "Gülen-inspired schools." But the shorter term seems to imply some sort of central control of activities and even an ideology, while the second makes it clearer that there is no centralization in the movement. Gülen movement participants tend to use the Turkish term hizmet (volunteer services) for the projects and services they provide. This is a solution for the inconsistency in naming the Gülen movement and the institutions it inspires and in clarifying their identity for outside observers.