Gülenist Diaspora’s Competitive Victimhood and Intergroup Emotions

The chapter begins with a discussion of the history of the Gülen Movement in Turkey, and the group’s complex relationship with the Turkish state. It describes the evolution of this relationship over the decades, showing how the Gülenists were at first oppressed by the Kemalist state before finally being framed and securitized as the AKP-led state’s key internal enemy. Evolving from allies to adversaries, the Gülenists have shifted from staunch supporters of the AKP (2002–2012) to its primary foe, marginalized and dehumanized as one of the securitized ‘dangerous others’ within Turkish society that face a national and transnational witch-hunt and genocide. The Gülenists are deeply alienated from the Erdoğanist portions of the Turkey-originated diaspora, which see them as anti-state terrorists, perverters of Islam, or religious fanatics. A segment of the Gülenists interviewed empathized with the other minorities’ collective victimhoods but showed distrust of those groups. It seems they have absorbed the Turkish Sunni majority’s mainstream anti-‘other’ narratives. While shared by only a few, the existence of these narratives is reflective of the power of the Turkish state propaganda, which has found a permanent home in the imagination of many of its citizens even when they are demonized and dehumanized by the very state itself. The Gülenist case is a complex one, comprising strong competitive victimhood as well as inclusive collective victimhood.