​Tensions mount as Erdogan spars with preacher over education

ANKARA: Political tensions are mounting in Turkey ahead of an election-charged year, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan embroiled in a bitter row with an influential Muslim leader over education.
The feud between Erdogan and Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States, has exposed divisions in the Turkish strongman’s traditional religiously conservative power base.
Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for 11 years, faces a key test in local elections next March with his image bruised by mass street protests that erupted against his government in June.
Differences between Erdogan and Gulen, who remains a highly influential figure on the Turkish domestic scene, have long been simmering. But the dispute burst out into the open this week after Erdogan’s government tried to close down a network of private schools run by Gulen’s Hizmet (Service) movement that aim to help students prepare for high school and university.
The premier said he wanted to abolish an “illegal” and unfair education system which he charged turned children into “competition horses”, and denied his government was targeting anyone in particular. “Those who benefit from these courses are the kids of rich families in big cities,” said Erdogan.
Hizmet as well as the secular opposition and teachers have reacted angrily to the move. It has also sown dissent within Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), with one lawmaker facing expulsion for breaking ranks.
“What crime have we committed to justify being closed,” demanded a front-page headline in the Zaman newspaper, mouthpiece for the Gulen movement. Gulen himself reportedly likening the government action to the coups staged by the powerful military which considers itself the guardians of the secular state.
Gulen, 72, has been living in exile in the United States since 1999 to escape charges of plotting against the secular state in Turkey. His powerful network describes itself as a global social and cultural movement inspired by Islamic ideals. 
It is especially active in education, with around 4,000 of the so-called prep schools in Turkey as well as more than 500 schools around the world. Hizmet risks losing millions of dollars in revenue if the government succeeds in closing the Turkish establishments, which offer education to supplement normal schooling.
AFP