Addressing Anti-Foreigner Sentiments in Europe: Fethullah Gülen’s Philosophy of Peace

Abstract

This dissertation studies the cultural and historical roots and extent of anti-foreigner sentiments towards the culturally distinct Muslim others and how the perceptions of the self and of others in western European societies could be reworked through education by employing Fethullah Gülen’s philosophy of peace in order to address these sentiments and reconcile the majority communities and culturally distinct Muslim others. It analyzes Gülen’s writings and the books, articles, and conference proceedings on his thought and practice as a revolutionary leader of nonviolence and social transformation in order to ascertain the relevance of his ideas in western European context. The overall European Union (EU) immigration policies, the study concludes, lacking long-lasting vision and progress in line with the fundamental values of the EU, are politicized by the political elites and fail to address incrementing and mainstreamed xenophobic views on culturally distinct Muslim others whose overall cultural, intellectual, and creedal collective deficit contributes to this alterity and failure of integration. The general tendency in EU’s immigration policies is still attuned towards assimilation, and thus, constitute cultural and structural violence. Gülen’s creation-conscious, superordinate human identity-oriented, nondualistic, altruistic, and holistic peace-centered weltanschauung has produced an alternative narrative to the dominant Euro-Atlantic vision, and if introduced in educational settings across western Europe has the potential to address anti-foreigner sentiments, social injustice, and the lack of social cohesion.