First of all, I would like to thank you for being an intermediary in announcing to the public the hidden aspects, experiences and regrets of the Gülen community, which has been seen as a closed box for years and has affected the course of our country negatively by operating in a non-transparent manner. I think that what is shared on this website will be an opportunity to reach the truth in the minds and consciences of people who already sympathize with the community or see themselves as members of the community.
As someone who has been in the congregation for about 10 years, I would like to share with you some of the events that I witnessed and considered important from time to time. At the first stage, I wanted to write about my experiences with the community giving exam questions to members of (Publıc Personnel Electıon Exam: PPEE) KPSS houses.
I was born as the youngest child of a farmer family with five children in a small town in Adana’s Yüreğir district. My three older sisters had to end their education because they had to help my family with the vineyard and garden works after finishing primary school due to financial difficulties. On the other hand my brother could barely finish Commercial High School. I went to primary and secondary school in the village school in our neighborhood.
As I witnessed the financial difficulties my family went through, I had taken an oath to study at a young age, become a civil servant and contribute to a comfortable life for my family. It was during my high school years that I entered the community and became acquainted.
In high school, I won 80% scholarship from the IŞIK training course, which I later learned was affiliated with the community, as well as the classrooms that can be considered good in our district. Since I earned the most discounts from this classroom, I enrolled in IŞIK training course in order not to be an extra burden on my family.
In the second and last year of high school, I went to this private teaching organization and got enough points in the university exam and placed in the Department of Economics at Gazi University.
I wish my family had a good financial situation, but I would not have gone to a paid private teaching organization and encountered this community that would make my life miserable. Maybe I would win my dream job as an average civil servant and become a more independent and self-reliant person who tries to help his family.
With the guidance of my guidance teachers at IŞIK organization, I stayed in the student house of the congregation in Ankara during my university years. Since my first goal was to graduate from university as soon as possible and start working as a civil servant, I did not act voluntarily to the duties given, apart from helping the secondary school students who came to the community house. They had decided that I would help them with their work.
In the last year of the university, I started to stay in the KPSS working house with the last year university students studying at other universities in Ankara and staying in the community house, with the guidance of the regional brothers to whom the community house is affiliated, to prepare for the career exams. In addition, I was entitled to attend a KPSS course in a private teaching institution with 100% scholarship, as I followed my courses closely and got into the top three in the department. Since I was preparing for the exams seriously, I got the right to take the written exams of almost all institutions by getting a score above 90 in the KPSS exam.
My other housemates who stayed in the study house before the KPSS exam went to the house of the brother in charge of the study house the evening before the exam. When my roommates did not return home even though it was midnight, I slept before it was too late because I was going to take the exam the next day. Therefore, I did not know what time the other friends arrived. In the morning, after a short breakfast, we left the working house to go to the schools where we will take the KPSS exam with my housemates.
When the exam results were announced, some of my housemates who did not go to the KPSS classroom, whose school lessons were mediocre, and who prepared for the exam in a mediocre way, also scored around 85-90. Even my friends, whose English is very weak, got more correct in the English exam than I did. After the exam results were announced, some of my friends with whom I stayed in the same community house mocked me by saying that going to the private teaching institution did not do me any extra advantage and that they were entitled to take many institution exams by getting as many points as I did. After the developments in our country after 17/25 December and 15 July, when the illegal activities of the community started to be talked about in the public/press, I started to question the activities of the community I was in for a while.
As a result of the investigations carried out in this context, when it was revealed that the exam questions of many institutions in our country were distributed by the community for a long time, I reviewed my past experiences and I am convinced that before the KPSS, which we entered together, the elder brother, who was responsible for the work house, invited other my housemates and gave the KPSS questions them in his own home.
I think that KPSS questions were not given to me because the responsible brothers in the community thought that I would get a high score in the exam because my university average was high and I went to a free private teaching course or they did not trust me enough in the first place.
Fortunately, as God’s will, I have not made such an offer to me and I have not entered the rights of nearly a million students who took the KPSS exam. Because very few people who experience exam stress and who have been deprived of their free thought and individuality by acting with the community (herd) psychology for a long time can say no to such an offer.
Later, I passed the written exams of MASAK, Undersecretariat of Treasury, Undersecretariat of Foreign Trade and SGK Inspection Board with my own knowledge, without taking exam questions from my brothers. However the brothers in the workhouse said that I should also take the exams of institutions such as the Central Bank, BRSA, Competition Board, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since I have a high score and sufficient language score that it would be better for the community to get a job in one of these institutions. I ignored the words of my brothers and I thought that I should go through the interviews of each institution where I passed the written exams and get rid of being a burden to my family as soon as possible, so I took all the interviews seriously. However, I was very disappointed by being eliminated from the interviews of these institutions.
As a result of the hearings and experiences I gained later, I understood that the responsible brothers in the community were a reference for the students who were members of the community, who were prepared to enter each institution and they did not give my name to the interview commission (they were not a reference for me). Since I do not have an effective acquaintance with politics or bureaucracy, I thought that I was eliminated from these interviews even though I got a high score.
When I failed in the first three interviews I took, I started to prepare for the written exam of the BRSA, which I applied with the guidance of my brothers. The day before the BRSA exam, the brother responsible for the work house invited me to another work house.
A responsible brother, who is an education consultant, came to the house and made the three students who were with me swear that we would not tell anyone what was said in this room today. Then he left the house after giving us the classic questions on the A4 paper to solve. Together with the other students in the room, we tried to solve the questions of each field left by the brother separately. Since the exam questions asked in the classical style are quite difficult, we could not solve most of the questions completely.
Now I can better understand that the members of the congregation in the examination commission in the BRSA asked such difficult questions in order to prevent the non-congregational students, whom they called as competitors, from winning, and that by leaking the questions to the members of the congregation, they only laid the groundwork for their own men to win.
On the other hand, the brother, who was an education consultant, came back home late at night and said that some brothers from the congregation, who had a master’s degree, solved difficult questions and brought the right solutions to the questions that we could not solve. We memorized the questions we solved ourselves and the solutions brought by our brother and dispersed to our house.
The education consultant warned that it would be enough for us to answer enough questions to pass the 70 threshold in each field, that it would be right for everyone to answer different questions, and that we should stay until the end of the exam and talk to anyone about the difficulty/easiness of the exam questions during the exam.
The next day, we left the house to take the written exam of the BRSA. In the exam, I was asked the same questions that I had solved the day before. After answering enough questions to get enough points, I waited for the results to be announced. As expected, I passed the written exam and qualified for the interview. Frankly, I couldn’t be more happy with the success I have achieved on my own, as I have a great guilt over a success that I gained by gaining the support of the congregation and usurping the rights of other candidates. In addition, I could not accept that I was unfairly eliminated from the interviews of the institutions where I passed the written exams without the support of anyone.
The brothers, who wanted me to find effective references for the interviews of the institutions where I voluntarily entered and won the written exams before, said that I did not need to find a reference for the interview of the BRSA which I won with their support and that it would be enough for me to go to the interview calmly without getting excited.
As a result, I was eliminated from the exams I had won with my own efforts, and I started to work as an expert after winning the BRSA’s interview completely in line with the planning/agenda of the community.
I am just one of the young people that a community that has presented itself as a movement to serve God and Islam has recklessly used the pure, poor and intelligent Anatolian sons for their illegal purposes/agenda. For years the community has made thousands of young people like me partners in crime and haram, contrary to conscience, law, Islam for their own purposes by stealing the questions of central or institution exams.
Giving exam questions was the most important tool used by the brothers in the congregation to take full control of many Anatolian children like me, who struggled to individualize and survive with their own efforts and to instill a sense of gratitude.
I am eternally grateful to my Lord for being able to realize the illegal activities of the congregation by questioning the mistakes of the congregation, even if it is too late, by using my reason and common sense, which Allah has bestowed on us to distinguish between right and wrong. Because we are witnessing that a large group of educated and cultured people, who have witnessed the sins and unlawfulness of this structure, which is considered as a community/service, or have given instructions and mediated about such criminal events, still do not activate their minds and consciences.
Subsequently, after 15 July, I was expelled from the BRSA with a Decree and I am currently working as an insured accountant in Istanbul with a financial advisor who is close to me. I would like to thank God endlessly for making him realize the value of the money earned with my hard work and wish that my life experiences which I have lived as a quirk of fate, will be a lesson to my own children and my younger brothers, who are trying to be detached from their national and spiritual values by calling the Z generation today.
In accordance with the hadith “An intelligent and mature Muslim /believer is not stung through the same hole twice, he is not bitten” I hope that my young brothers in high school and university in our country will not fall into the same mistakes/trap within the scope of the restructuring/revival activities of the community.
May Almighty Allah be instrumental in these people, who call themselves members of the community or Hizmet movement volunteers, to act with their minds and consciences and reach the rightful place as soon as possible.