Fethullah Gülen died in the USA, where he lived for many years.

He has spent the last ten years or so being labeled an “enemy of the state” and even a “terrorist leader.”

Did he deserve this?

Considering that there are strong indications that Turkey has a connection with the ‘coup attempt’ that disrupted its chemistry in every sense, I do not think that it will be difficult to answer this question.

The coup attempt forced everyone who had sympathized with him and the movement he led, who had come to his aid, and who had participated in his activities, even if they did not share his sensitivities, to reconsider their views.

Most of those people have been in prisons for years…

Because they were labeled as “ FETO members” …

I am sure that the vast majority of them do not approve of the true face of the structure that emerged later, and especially that they will never support the ‘coup’ attempt.

Those whom they once sympathized with are now being held accountable for their actions, and they are the ones who are being punished.

Four months before the coup attempt, in early April 2016, I published my book , “This is How I Saw It: The Cemaat’s Test with Politics.” In that book, I tried to show how the structure that was called “the Cemaat” from the day it first entered the country’s agenda , and later introduced itself as the “Hizmet Movement” , initially tried to keep itself non-political, and even above politics in some ways, but gradually turned into a political actor.

It was their appetite for politics that brought about their end.

The date of the sharp transformation is not the 17-25 December (2013) development; the transformation actually started with the 12 September 2010 referendum.

The 58% ‘Yes’ result in the referendum in which they invited everyone they could reach to the ballot box with the statement made in Pennsylvania , “We need to raise those in the graves and make them vote ‘yes'” , was evaluated by that structure as their own success.

Appearing to be connected to the structure became the shortest path to rise in official ranks.

The organization in the state, which was later reflected with the word “infiltration” , was not actually a secret cadre formation; that structure used the door opened to them by politics on behalf of their acquaintances…

That’s how important positions fell into the hands of people who would become notorious after July 15. When appearing affiliated worked, even unthinkable people headed to Pennsylvania.

It had become inevitable that the process of gaining a position in the state would be followed by involvement in politics.

They must have thought that the way to achieve this was to put the current government, which does not have the opportunity to be represented in the Parliament, in a difficult situation.

The 17-25 December developments that challenged the government were related to the effort to have a say in politics.

The war that started resulted in a ‘coup attempt’ .

I don’t think even those closest to them could convince themselves that they would dare to stage a heinous attempt like a ‘ coup’ .

All signs point to their involvement in that treacherous attempt.

If they had succeeded in that way, what kind of a Turkey did they envision that would have been created by the revolutionary council that we learned was called “Peace at Home” ?

As far as I can follow, the people whose affiliations are known did not discuss this issue in public; they denied their connection to the coup attempt for a long time, despite all indications to the contrary.

They abused the sympathy they received from all segments of society when they first started out and turned people into ‘terrorists’ whose only crime was to help them succeed because of their appearance at the time.

The media is looking for answers to the question , “What will happen next?”

Nothing will happen.

As is the case with all social structures dependent on individuals, this structure also owes its existence to Gülen . His death will cause the structure to lose its importance completely. No matter what those left behind do…

Most recently, when someone I knew to be a member of that organization, who had come to a scientific meeting in the US as a listener, asked me , “What do you recommend should be done?” , the sentence I specifically advised him to convey to Gülen as a message from me was: “Let him get on the first plane, come to Turkey and give the account that needs to be given.”

Gülen died without giving an account, which was demanded from thousands of people .

Those thousands of people are either in prisons or worried about making ends meet.

If they had acted in accordance with the periods in which they were sympathetic, instead of the path they followed after 2010, when they became interested in politics, our country would have a different environment in every respect than it does today.

Türkiye should consider this death as an opportunity to become a more self-confident country.