The Gulen Movement

What do private schools and revolution have in common? The answer may surprise you. Join the guys as they bring on their intern Sam Teegardin and for a firsthand look at an strange and insidious conspiracy reaching from the Eastern US seaboard and journeying through locations across the world to fundamentally rock the political foundations of the Turkish state.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Welcome

(00:24):
back to the show, Ladies and gentlemen. My name is null.
They call me been, our our compatriot, our third Amigo's
fallen in battle. Yes, Matt Frederick has been temporarily afflicted
with a virus, which he assures us is neither terminal
nor at this point contagious. However, he's taking some R

(00:47):
and R and will be returning very soon. He's with
us in spirit as soon as he convalesces. Yes, as
soon as he convalesces and re reconstitutes. Uh. We're all,
of course, joined by our super producer Tristan McNeil, and
most importantly you are here, which makes this stuff they
don't want you to know. No, this is a a

(01:10):
little bit of a different episode for you and I,
isn't it. Yeah, it's a little I don't know, did
you ever? That's kind of the buffer I feel. I
feel a little bit exposed the way you're looking at me.
Did uh did you ever go to a did you
ever go to a charter school? I went to a
summer camp into a summer camp. It's the same thing

(01:32):
as I guess, it's not the same thing. You're gonna
have to teach me about charter schools. I understand it,
like basic view of what charter schools are. But we're
gonna have to go a little micro But no, Ben,
I did not. I went to a magnet school. Why
it's not the same thing. But it is, you know,
publicly funded. Technically it's a public school. But there's like, well, yeah,
what does amazing school get in unless you meet certain

(01:54):
criteria like you I had to sing Happy Birthday. Real well,
Tristan actually went to the same school. Yea behind the garden,
Me and test In, our old friends, a couple of magnets. Yeah,
we had magnetic personalities that played the violin, just painted
or something. I don't know what Tristan didn't Yeah, because

(02:15):
an artist, yeah, using the jazz band probably know what's
the charter. Yeah, So as as people know, regardless of
what country you live in, there are probably different specialized
versions of schools. Uh, and they are not separated by
grade level alone in the US, we have multiple types
of schools. There are magnet schools, right, type of public institution.

(02:38):
There are, of course public schools, they're private schools, they're
religious schools, and there are charter schools. Okay, So charter schools,
just like a public school, offer free tuition to children
who take these state mandated exams, but they're subject to
fewer rules, regulations and statutes than traditional schools. They also

(03:00):
receive less public funding and it's usually like a fixed
amount for pupil isn't a big part of it though?
That kids don't have to be zoned, like they don't
have to live specifically in the area that's zoned for
that particular school, right, Yeah. And they can be nonprofit,
they can also be for profit, so they have they
have wide variations within that within within that field. And

(03:21):
I know people are probably wondering, right, You're probably wondering,
why are the guys talking about charter schools? Promise you
there's a payoff, and it's a big and weird one.
It's it's really weird. So right now, there are a
little bit less than seven thousand charter schools in forty
two states and d C. That's of two thousand and sixteen,

(03:44):
and they have about three million students. They've been growing
like Gangbusters, especially into the current administration and the new
Secretary of Education. Isn't school choice? Isn't that a big
part of charter schools? Vouchers? And yeah, yeah, school vouchers. Yeah,
nail on the head. There's a big there's a big move,
and there has been for a number of years to
offer that choice. Because you know, for anyone who ever

(04:07):
has ever bought a house, one thing real estate agents
love to bring up is the school system. And there
will be a premium placed on a property because of
the zip code. Absolutely right, And this is something familiar
to anyone who has children, and we picked it out. Yeah,
I said to anyone who has parents, this issue has

(04:28):
or this practice of sending children to charter schools has
its proponents and its critics. Oh, we should also mention,
like a magnet school, they may provide a specialized curriculum. Right,
so you had you had a magnet school that focused
on arts, I would say, yeah, they could also focus
on mathematics, on on stem training, or on vocational training.

(04:53):
We're not here to argue the pros or cons about
charter schools. However, our special guests today came to came
to us off the air with an amazing and very
strange story about charter schools, not just here in Georgia,

(05:14):
but throughout the nation. And you may have heard us mentioned,
uh mentioned this guy on the show before, way back
in the day. But ladies and gentlemen, nol and I
would like to officially introduce you to uh stuff they
don't want you to know. As intern Sam T. Garden, Greetings, everyone, Hey,
thanks for coming on the show. So seriously, glad I

(05:34):
could be here. Do you agree with our our description
of charter schools? That seemed about right? I think it's
very accurate from my experience. Yes, Okay, Now, Sam, you
went to a charter school for a time, and when
you when you were at this charter school, it turned
out that not everything was as it seemed at the surface. Right,

(05:54):
that's correct. There are there are some things overall that
is we learned that. Hey, that's that's a little bit off,
that's a little bit weird. Could you give us just
some examples, some initial examples. So some initial examples were
the high turnover rated teachers. We'd have some teachers we
very much liked, but suddenly they move on. There was
an international kind of themed like instead of like a
cheerlead group. We would have Turkish dance, UM, we'd have

(06:17):
some kind of interesting very big science projects and um
other things that we would go to competitions with. But
our teachers did a lot of the work. And then
you come to the science fair one day and you
can see a giant test the coil in the middle
of the gymnasium and be like, I don't think middle
schoolers built that. Things like that. Let's learn a little

(06:39):
bit about the teachers. Could you describe some of your instructors?
So some my, my, my instructors were a mixed of
um American teachers that you they hired from around the
area and a lot of international teachers from outside of
the countries, more specifically from Turkey. These teachers. A lot
of these teachers were very good. They were all very
intelligent people, highly qualified. But some of them were overqualified

(07:02):
and kind of didn't speak the language as well as
you hope. For example, I had one teacher who was
had a degree in uh I believe it was atomic
engineering or atomic energy, but taught like the kind of
the feel wellness class, understand your emotions class. It's like
I think you're you're you're way more qualified for this.
You're very intelligent, because that's sort of like when they
get the gym teacher to also teach, you know, driver's

(07:26):
exactly exactly, a little bit a little bit difference. We didn't.
She never taught me how to build a nuclear reactor,
which I was a little bit sad about. Or we'd
have some teachers who didn't really talk to us very much,
and all of our our work was just like worksheets
that they would hand out and we would hand them back,
and we didn't have a lot of interaction. It was
it was strange, we're creeping up on something. I think
we should go ahead and just this is a particular

(07:49):
type of chart, not not a tight necessarily, but almost
a chain. I guess you could call it, I think
network network. Because they all had different names that weren't
related to the brand chall we say, which is, uh,
how do you pronounce the movement? So they were called
things like the Busy Be Academy for you know, talented

(08:11):
youths and things like usually what high emphasis on math
and science, and like the one you attended was Fulton
Science Academy. Okay, so how could you argue with a
name like that. But I think you're absolutely correct, Nold.
That's what we need to establish because while these while
this network of hundreds of charter schools may have seemed unrelated,
they were in truth much more like limbs on a

(08:34):
branch or fingers on a hand, and the hand is
something that we just mentioned. The Ghoulan movements this. Yeah,
it's true. It sounds crazy and no offense, Sam, but uh, Nole,
Matt and I are pretty skeptical. At first. Oh, I
would have been you think you were skeptical. I was
in it and my mother was coming to me like

(08:54):
we might need to change schools, and like, what are
you talking about? And then she started going into this
stuff and I was like are you? Are you okay? So? So,
the Ghula movement is an Islamic transnational movement led by
a religious figure from Turkey named Fetla Gulon, and he
lives in exile in Pennsylvania currently and the Poconos. Yes,

(09:18):
just so, and he um. He is considered by some
to be the second most powerful man in Turkey, or
formerly the second most powerful, between one and four million followers.
I guess yeah, not just in the U S and Turkey,
but across the world. Because the school that Sam went
to turned out is one of these nodes in the

(09:43):
network and not in any way rare. That's the scariest
part because because this this school functions uh as what
the opponents would call a front or a um almost
a month away to move money exactly, and uh this

(10:05):
this movement. Like most people, if you're listening, when you
hear something described as a movement, at what point do
you does it get to be a movement? Yeah? Right?
And and his numbers game good? Is it bad? Right?
I mean four people is a movement? As a synchron

(10:25):
together in a line. You can look pretty intimidating a
group of four walking, But I think you hit the
nail on the head there. That's a group of people.
I feel like you need at least eight to twelve
to be a movement. See I'm I am relately joking,
but even that seems low to me. Like a movement
needs to be what like a like a revolution, like
a mini right, right, there's a change. I wonder if

(10:46):
there's a counter terrorism definition of it. We could That's
a turn that gets thrown on in politics a lot
like that during the last election. You know, our President
kept referring to his pain as a movement, right, And
I guess a lot of supporters of political candidates would be,
like the so called Bernie Bros. Would be, I guess

(11:09):
a movement. There's definitely a number here. Let's talk a
little bit more just to paint the scenery of what
the Ghoulon movement is. These people who are making money
off these schools and employing each other in these schools.
That's those. Those two things are all true. Those they
are very true. They be very careful not to disparage,

(11:30):
of course, where we're not trying to disparage because a
lot of the what the school does, at least there's
I had a very positive experience for a very large
portion of it. It was only after you kind of
pulled back the curtains of the whole machine and it
really became a problem. So the movement itself has been
characterized as Islam in a less hardline way or less

(11:55):
rigid application the nice parts of right. So it's technology friendly,
they want to work with current existing social structures. They
encourage interfaith conversations and that's that's a big deal to
a lot of people. But also, as you can see
it could be considered um, beyond controversial, you know, an

(12:18):
athema of sorts. I think it's more because it's kind
of a front for what they're kind of actual main
goal is you actually go in there. I have a
quote from Google on himself. From this, it's more kind
of it seems a little more insidious because at first glance,
it's like, Oh, it's a guy who's about interfaith dialogue
and who was very much into math and science. Why

(12:39):
wouldn't you want one of him opening up a school
in your neighborhood. See, it makes it like it makes sense.
But here just a quote from him, You must remove
the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence
until you reach all the power centers. You must wait
until such a time as you have gotten all the
state power, until you have brought to your side the
power of the constitutional institutions. So that seems a little bit,

(13:03):
a little bit kind of insidious, right, Yeah, that reminds me,
you know what, that that reminds me of back Whening
looked at communist worries and communist which hunts in the
fifties where people will talk about a so called fifth column,
you know, and a domestic sleeper force of sorts. Oh,

(13:24):
we do need to say, by the way, that as
we as we look at this, yes, this is an
Islamic movement and it does touch on Islam, but we're
not we're not bashing anybody for their religious beliefs. We
do have, we do have a little bit of foreshadowing here, Sam,
and I really appreciate that you put that in there, because,

(13:46):
like the opponents say, it's possible that the Ghulan movement
is not all it seems. It's not just uh. According
to its detractors, it is not just a a an
attempt to make a more friendly version of a religion
and then to build schools. There's an agenda at play.

(14:10):
Opponents have labeled members of the Gulang community as secret missionaries,
and those who are sympathetic to the movement describe it
more as a civil society organization. Well, one point I
read in the Atlantic article that you sent me about it,
which was fantastic um, was that there was no evidence

(14:33):
whatsoever that there was any kind of Islamic doctor indoctrination
or radicalization built into the curriculum. And to the point
where if that became an issue with certain detractors it
would come off as being xenophobic, So that that was
really fascinating me because it's clearly not about any kind
of radicalization in that respect, and it was very inter faith,

(14:56):
almost friendly. It reminded me of like Unitarianism or something
like that, where it's not not not obviously it's secular.
It was. It wasn't secular, though, I mean, what were
there religious aspects to it? I'm I'm a little trying
to get Here's from my experience in the school, there
never really was anything that really kind of uh made
religionous center point of everything. It was very much all
about education and more than that there it was definitely

(15:19):
trying to make a have all the students have a
positive kind of view of Turkish culture in Turkey in general.
So I think it was more about the trying the
culture rather than religion, though I will say that um
at my school, and I can't say that this is
at all schools, but not There definitely was a prayer
room that was there and they it was open to
all students, but it seemed to me, at least from

(15:41):
what I was that only students of the Islamic students
were made aware of the prayer room. They weren't really
we weren't really made aware of it. If we wanted
to followed that ourselves. What what was the reason that
you sought out the school or how did it come
to your attention And is there some something in your
family's background that made this appealing to your parents in

(16:02):
some way? Or it sure did. My grandfather taught at
a charter school, and though that charter schools outside of
our range for it, what would be easier to go
to school every day? We thought, why not? These things
seem very interesting. It teaches outside the curriculum, and we're
already kind of seeing us slump in the schools near
our our areas. Why not give it a shot. We

(16:22):
came to the school that this The test scores were
really good. It was an international school which promoted multi culturalism,
and which is like, oh, that's really good. My mom
definitely was very much a pro for that, and I
was very interested to that. Were like, it had a
lot to do with the appeal of a very good
school with great test scores, and it had a lot
to do with dealing with other cultures becoming more exempting,

(16:43):
being very multicultural and just kind of getting more experiences
from my young uh, very kind of isolated American kid
just like I. I didn't really have to deal with
a lot of other cultures just from where I was.
So my parents thought, let's let's kind of immerse you
into it a little bit and probably a great language classes,
better opportunities to explore things that a public school might

(17:05):
not be able to concentrate on. You actually went to
Turkey as part of your time at this academy, that's
very true. That's the first point where we started to
pull things together, like something doesn't quite add up here.
That's when we started kind of digging into the school
and when we started getting kind of stone walled by

(17:25):
the administration. Could you tell us a little bit about
your trip. So the trip when it was first announced,
it was over spring break, ten days, ten nights, all
expense paid trip. All you have to do is pay
eight hundred dollars as a student and as a parent,
and for going to Turkey for over a week. That's
that's really good. So we're like, of course we've got
to go. But as it approaches, were like, can we

(17:48):
see the itinerary? And they're like, no, no, we don't
have the itinerary, and then as we keep going closer
and closer each day, they're like, we still you still
don't have the itinerary. If we don't have when we're
not going to go. So eventually like oh no, no, no,
here you go. But even then it was just a
list of the places that we were all going to go.
And it wasn't until like a few days before we
found out, oh, the students and the parents will be separate,

(18:11):
because you assume that as a parent, the parents would
come to help shaper and all the kids, because there's
gonna be a lot of us going, but we would
be even on different flights, in different cities, and without
any way real way to contact or communicate with each other.
M hmm. So there's already something that seems kind of weird, right,
and your your mother is one of the first people

(18:33):
who begins to put some pieces together. That's right. You
ran into another charter school too, correct, that's right. We um.
This was my mother was on an airplane traveling to
another one of the cities, and then she met a
oh look there was an American teacher in front of her.
She's like, hey, how are you doing? So they started
talking and they're like, wait, so you're on the same trip.

(18:54):
We've gone to a lot of the same places, but
we're not You're also a charter school, but you're we're
not affiliated. That's strange. They start talking about that, but
guess what, the principle of that other school comes over
and switches seats with her, so she can't talk with
my mom. And the strange part is later that trip
they found it. They met each other again at this
the same hotel they were both staying at, and that

(19:16):
was a lot of weirdness from her. But now there's
also some weirdness going on with me. So I'm we're
going around having the time of our lives, seeing ancient
Byzantine ruins, going to the Grand Mosque, it was amazing,
going through some bazaars. But then there's some weird stuff
that started to happen, like we would never really know
where we were going to go stay for the night.
They were basically kind of calling other friends in their

(19:37):
in their network saying, hey, do you have a room
for this many kids? This and the other thing, and
so this is the really weird thing. Now you have
to understand that we were a math and science school,
so you can, and we were. We were some very
nerdy kids, and I take pride in that, but I
understand that the kind of stereotypes that go with us.
So all of a sudden, we're at this kind of
a park and all these Turkish girls start coming over

(19:59):
from another chart school and they start being very kind
of uh interested in all the guys that are going
to our school, and that just didn't add up. That's
the thing like that, that's the part. That's the part
we're like, wait a minute, why this doesn't make any sense?
And it turns out later we actually went to that
exact school there. There was a friend. It's like a
sister school in Turkey. We're like, oh, what are the

(20:19):
odds of that? After this trip, which sounds like was
a it was a great trip. Everyone we met was fantastic.
Turkey the beautiful country, got to see amazing historical places.
It was absolutely the trip of the lifetime, if not
a little bit strange. Yeah, And so when you returned,
when you and your mother returned to the States, she

(20:41):
began to investigate, uh too, in hopes of connecting some
dots and finding some answers. And this is where the
story takes a bit of a twist, and we learned
that this charter school network and the Ghoulon movement may
have much much more to it than you would originally suspect.

(21:05):
But we'll only learn that after a word from our
sponsor Ponder return. You learn you and your mother learned
that not only is this charter school run by members
of the organization known as the Ghoulon Movement or his

(21:26):
met in Turkish, but also you learn more about what
that movement is, uh, what that movement is really quote
unquote up to right, And that's what the kind of
interesting part was my mom when she first was investigating,
She's like, this is just sort of weird. She's trying
to get to the bottom of it, understand it. So

(21:46):
she started talking to these really good journalists, like really
high up there, these weren't these weren't Yahoo's and they're like, oh, wow,
this is really interesting. This is compared to something else
I'm going on. If you're willing to talk to me
about it, I'd love to have the information, but don't worry,
I won't use your name. Don't worry. It happened multiple times.
She's like, that's really strange. Well, I don't care if

(22:07):
they use my name. What's so, there's nothing to be
so sinister about this, But that's when she starts digging
and starts seeing the stuff that the move that the
school does that you wouldn't necessarily put on the brochure.
M hm. So this is stuff like this is stuff
that has been proven. This is so using a lot
of the tax dollars to build their schools, but always

(22:28):
doing it very cheaply. Somehow it's coming in under budget.
That money just sort of disappears. There's they start using
construction companies that you find out, oh wait, they're owned
by people who are either on the board of the
schools or on the boards of one of the sisters schools.
They start using a lot of the money for kind
of political contributions and to start taking a bunch of
politicians on the same trip that I went on, said

(22:51):
exactly a lot of self dealing. And then when they
did go for outside help, there's several cases where they
wouldn't they just wouldn't pay the contractors. Wasn't the school,
Yeah maybe maybe it wasn't yours specifically, but one of
the ones in Fulton County was quite in debt. That
is correct. Yeah, And is that because of that kind
of stuff like not paying local contractors? Like who were
they in debt to? I mean, if a lot of

(23:12):
the self dealing is going on, that would be harder
to trace, I guess. But were they not because I
know that they get taxpayer money to fund the school,
So was was there an issue with their use of
taxpayer money as well? Definitely something to do with the
use of the taxpayer money that kind of moving around.
I know there was a couple, if not with the
local one, but in several examples, there was lawsuits from

(23:33):
contractors like you didn't we built your school, you didn't
pay us the money after that, and they would just
kind of stop talking to them and they were just
ghosts on them exactly, which doesn't really work when you
have a big contract with someone, when you owe them
a lot of money and a permanent address, and on
the surface they were doing their job. You even you

(23:53):
as an insider, say it's it was a good school experience.
Test scores were good, the teachers were recept of and
you know, good it was. The whole environment was pretty solid. Yeah.
I think here's the thing. There are some teachers who
are very much part of the movement, and there are
some teachers who were there because of the benefits that
I gave. But one of the things they brought a
lot of people over with hib visas, which that means

(24:17):
they couldn't find hire someone who was qualified locally. You
can only apply for that if you can't do that,
So apparently they couldn't find a lot of a lot
of teachers math science and English teachers around. It's in
Georgia for some reason, and a lot of those teachers
like they would come over. But part of the agreement
is like you'll get paid this amount, but you have
to give like this much back to the movement. You

(24:39):
essentially have to tithe to his myth exactly. So that's
a That's another thing that makes it sound as if
things are financially not on the up and up. And
we know that we know that historically the connection between
religion and money. Not to shout out our previous episode
too hard, but the connection between religious and money is very,

(25:02):
very important, and often it's a love hate relationship. It's
a fine line to where it like become. Obviously, you
need money to continue any large organization where you have
overhead and you have infrastructure, and you have to pay
employees just like you would any other company or organization.
But when it starts to get out of hand, like

(25:23):
with the Creflo dollar type, you know, where you're using
tithe money to finance your jet, or as in this
situation where we see the leader of this movement using
some of these funds that were being generated to finance
political revolution. Yes, yes, But one other thing I just

(25:44):
have to mention about the school, and especially really into
the money, is that a lot of the really good
American teachers never really got promoted. Well, some of the
teachers who were who very quickly were rotated in, didn't
have the best grasp on the language and basically really
worked off of worksheets where they often got promoted and

(26:05):
got um and we're moved around and that sort of thing.
But well, they were kind of ignored. And it was
especially a problem with a lot of the women teachers.
They were not as um, they were not given the
same amount of respect, and I know that that led
to a bunch of the teachers leaving there and performing
their own charter school a charter school revolution. As well

(26:28):
as above so below reminds me of supersymmetry. Because no,
you you dropped a very important line there that I
want to make sure everybody listening understands. You said political revolution. Well,
I mean it's you know, there is evidence that we're
going to discuss that the leader of this movement was

(26:51):
not only you know, hiding funds and sort of washing
money that was being diverted to other things. One of
those things was an attempt to overthrow the government of Turkey. Yes,
just so, so this uh, this movement that promotes itself
as as a moderate interpretation of Islam. In two thousand

(27:14):
and sixteen, Yeah, let's emphasize that part um. Yes, uh.
In two thousand and sixteen, the government of Turkey requested
Ghulan's extradition from Pennsylvania and continues to do so because
they say that the Gholam movement was directly responsible for

(27:36):
a failed coup attempt in the Turkish government. And this
is where things start to get interesting, because if we
follow the money, and I think it was very smart
for you to construct that um that list for us.
If we follow the money, then I'm sure some of
some of us listening are thinking, well, problem, no, one,

(27:57):
this would be federal tax dollars supporting a religious movement
right or religious education possible right, so that could get sticky.
But more importantly, this becomes federal tax dollars to some
degree unknowingly supporting and intervention in the affairs of a

(28:19):
sovereign nation, which is in some cases considered grounds for
starting a war. This is a big and strange deal,
um we've got. You can see if you if you
check for the movement, you can see several of the
back and forth allegations along with criticism on both sides

(28:43):
where people call the current president erdigon a a despot,
right or a dictator. So in uh two thousand sixteen,
on July, just a little over a year ago, now,
uh there, this coup occurred. It was led by a
military faction operating outside the traditional chain of command. And

(29:07):
you know, a lot of revolutions occur when some like
minded higher up military officials get together, maybe with a
wealthy um aristocratic family on the outs or something. They
want to have the promise that if they succeed, they
will have support, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly,
because it's it's much harder to stabilize and maintain a country,

(29:31):
you know, it's it's it's still really hard to overthrow
a status quo, but it's much more difficult to institute
a new and lasting one. Destroying something's easy, building something
up as much more different. Yeah, yeah, that's that's a
really good way to say it. So, the when this
coup occurs or gone and co Um believe that this

(29:53):
was entirely done um or orchestrated by the Ghula movement
and therefore by Ghula himself. So in the days and
weeks after the coup, there was a massive crackdown purges
affecting all entities affiliated with the Ghoulon movement individuals, businesses,
but bigger than that newspapers, schools, universities, and these are

(30:15):
now known as the two thousand sixteen to two thousand
seventeen purges. It's interesting you mentioned newspapers because one of
the thing that's kind of looked looked into by my
mom is they were all herself and all the other
kind of charters trips were all taken to this one
newspaper in Turkey that was very it's a it's a

(30:35):
very large newspaper, but it's very much kind of in
the google on sphere, and that was one of the
first ones that was purged ch after the revolution failed.
Let's let's look at some numbers here, because this is
some stuff that that definitely caught me by surprise. Uh.
During the coup, over three people were killed, more than

(30:55):
two thousand were injured. UM. Multiple government buildings were bombed
from the air, so whomever was orchestrating this did have
access to military aircraft. And there were mass arrests afterwards,
which we mentioned. At least forty thousand people were detained,
and at least ten thousand soldiers, almost three thousand judges,

(31:20):
fifteen thousand educators and they were suspended and one teachers
working in private institutions had their licenses revoked, probably because
they taught at charter schools schools in the region. Uh.
And to date, just on the basis of alleged connections

(31:44):
to Goulan, over one thousand people have been arrested or fired.
And this was all happen. You know, It's it's kind
of crazy, right, you were part of this unknowingly, and
if I'm not mistaken, that ended up involving quite a
bit more than you would have expected at this point
or that you bargained for overall. Right, absolutely, we're going

(32:04):
to get into that after one more quick little ad
break and we're back. So, Sam, you had been out
of this school for a time now, a couple of years,
that's right. I was well into high school and one
day you get a knock on the door, and the
door was two FBI special agents and they wanted to

(32:26):
talk with me and my mom about our experience with this,
with this whole, this whole charter school chain. It seems
like they were very interested. Now of course, um, they
told me when they left they would either confirm or
deny that they were even there. But I can say
that they were there, and they either they were or
are still investigating the whole charter school thing. But the

(32:46):
last thing you expect is to have the FBI knock
on your door. I can tell you that, yeah, especially
because you know you're your stand up kid at least
at that point you know I've committed no federal crimes.
We committed no to rule crime or stay crimes to
my knowledge, all around mensch. But the same you are

(33:06):
into like pop culture and stuff, and so to have
the FBI come and knock, and it's got to be
on one level terrifying, but also another level maybe kind
of cool. Oh, it's it's very much both. On one hand,
it's just it's like, have I ever done anything wrong
in my life? No? But what if I did, I
didn't know it. Yeah, I have stress dreams about that
kind of stuff, where like the FBI has been tracking

(33:29):
me for years for something I did that I didn't
even know. We've been looking at your Amazon purchases and
it turns out you can build an atomic weapon, right,
or they're pre criming me where they're like, you know,
putting together based on my browsing habits and my Amazon purchases.
They know that I will eventually commit a horrible crime.
And that's that's a new weather. That's that's that's topic
for another episode. But that's common in this country. Um,

(33:50):
you're right, that would be a great episode. But that's
common in this country for even the most squeaky clean,
law abiding person to feel that little, that little knife,
that stab of fear when they see, for instance, the
lights on a on a cop car turn on behind you.
I mean not even that. If I'm just driving along
the road and a cop car passes me, I know
I immediately slowed down a little bit and square up

(34:13):
in my driving too. Yeah, so the taken to the
next logical extreme. What was it like when the happy
and what kind of stuff do they talk to you about?
If you can even go into that, I can go
into a little bit, but we're right. When they came
into the door, I absolutely felt like I was underdressed.
I felt I was very much squared up, like yes, sir, yes, ma'am,

(34:34):
got a steering wheel, put your hands on exact exactly
sending the seat. Um. But well, a lot of what
they asked me about was basically the about the teachers
who went there, about the kind of quality of the school. Um.
Anything that I noticed was off, uh, some of the
places I went to when I was in my on
the Turkish trip, stuff like that. Mm hmmm. And were

(34:56):
there any questions that they asked that specifically stuck out
to you as a strange line of questioning. I think
the strangest line of questioning is asking how I felt
about the school, how I felt about the thing. It
was very much trying to get the kind of a
personal read on my experience, if I was hiding anything,
if if I I honestly think they were trying to

(35:18):
see if I was indoctrinated because I know one of
the kind of test, the tactics they did. Now, I've
gotten this from some of my friends, and and I
feel like some of the stuff is a feeling I have.
I got no evidence to back it up, but I
think some of our test scores were inflated. Now I
can't confirm any of that, but I also know some
of my friends where they're like, they thought they did
well on the test, they did poorly, and they're like, here,

(35:41):
come do some tutoring with us. They tutor them. Oh, look,
now you're getting good grades, even though if you actually
checked the stuff back and forth, guess what it was
the same. It was the same, the same answers well,
because it makes them seem like there they can absolutely
help you. Then it also adds more stuff too. It's
kind of like the thing with the project to the
school that gets so much a teacher help. Yeah, it

(36:04):
gets a lot more. It's more renowned to the school,
which leads to more awards, which leads to more state money,
and to more people who want legitimate exactly. Ultimately, ultimately,
it's it's a lot more legitimate. If anything, it seems
a little bit culty if I had to say anything
else some of the stuff. Now, I again, I need
to make this very clear. I've had some of the

(36:25):
best teachers I've ever had there. A lot of them
were Turkish teachers, and even the ones that weren't were
they were all very good. But I didn't it's kind
of hard not to ignore some of these things after
you see the whole big picture. So do you I mean, again,
we're in the realm of conjecture here, but do you
think this is the kind of thing where this uh

(36:45):
gentleman started this chain of schools with good intentions and
then gradually started thinking, huh, maybe I could use it
for this because it seems like the foundation is super
solid and it's a real school. I bother making it
that good it and like actually paying such attention to detail,
you know, the most fronts. That's why they call it

(37:06):
a front, because there's nothing there. It's just like a facade. Right. Well,
I think that's kind of the point, because it's more
than just a front. I feel like if you do anything,
it's something that that's kind of part of the legitimacy.
And I think it goes with that quote I said earlier.
It wants people to kind of infiltrate because even if
even afterwards, I definitely have a lot more positive view

(37:28):
on Turkey than I did before, even with all the
stuff that happened, I definitely have a greater appreciation for it.
So if you do things right and you actually start
converting people, when I converting seems like it's a charge
with but try and get people acclimated to Turkey, to
their culture, to liking you. That I think that's basically
it's a I think it's a have your cake and

(37:48):
eat it too sort of situation. Yeah, it's a soft diplomacy,
which is a core part of many strategies from different
state actors in China. China, for instance, has in the
US the Confucius Institutes, which are all UH intent on
UH educating people regard educating people in the West regarding
Chinese culture. I do want to say, before anybody writes

(38:11):
in on this um, that Gulan himself claimed the recording
he is on. He is on record. You can hear
a recording of Guglan saying the quotation that Sam read
at the top. Gulan, for his part, claims that the
recording was altered, which we know, we know can happen,
but it's the easiest thing in the world without its

(38:35):
sounding I mean there, it's getting better. Like I think
there's like a I want to say, Adobe was kind
of shopping around or like showing off at some conferences
this like photoshop for audio thing where you can piece together,
you know, and I'm on audio engineer and I don't
have that still. Yeah, but but I heard some examples
and it's pretty wild, but certainly not it wasn't available here.

(38:57):
I think the thing for me about the whole thing
is that the message of of definitely tolerance and getting
kids excited about math and science is very good, and
it faced volu that's very nice, but I think that
I don't really feel like that it's that genuine for
the basic reason because when we went and asked my
principle at the time, oh, are you related to these
other charter school he said, no, we're completely in affiliated.

(39:19):
But even with a few Google searches, we found out
that's not true. If they would have just acknowledged there,
like yeah, we're part of the largest network of charter
schools in America, over a hundred fifty schools, we probably
would have ended there like, oh, that's fine. But the
fact that they are trying to hide it, and for
good reason, because it holds all these things about double
dealing and contributions and the kind of moving money around.

(39:43):
I feel like that's the kind of part for me
that kind of tarnishes the whole experience. But it makes
me a little bit, uh, paranoid about it, for lack
of a better word. Well, in the course of our
off air research, when when you first hipped us to this, uh,
one of the things we found was that, according to
the BBC, his MET has no formal structure, a visible organization,

(40:05):
no official members or at least no published list. Yet
it may have grown into the world's largest network of
its kind, the world's largest Muslim network. He meant, by
the way, it simply means service, and of course their
official line is they promote work for the common good.
I'd like to explore some of the finger pointing that
happened after the coupe, because the story is kind of weird.

(40:27):
Al Right. So there's a political party called the AKP
closely associated with er Uh, and in the aftermath of
the failed coup attempt, Gulan came out and said I
condemn in the strongest terms the attempted military coup in Turkey.
Henameiled the New York Times, and he said, you know,

(40:49):
government should be won through free and fair elections, not force.
And he's um. He says, he's praying for everyone. I'm
I'm paraphrasing a little. He says, as someone who's suffered
under multiple military coups during the past five decades, it's
especially insulting to be accused of having any link to
such an attempt. I categorically deny such accusations. President er A.

(41:11):
Gon contacted the United States when he wanted Gulan extradited,
and he said, I call on you again after there
was a coup attempt. Extradite this man in Pennsylvania to Turkey.
If we are strategic partners or model partners, do what
is necessary and then late the Labor Minister of Turkey
fellow fellowed by the name of Soliman solu Uh, claimed

(41:35):
that America was behind the coup. That's where I think
it gets interesting, because we know that this country, regardless
of whatever you feel your political or spiritual ideology is,
it is in arguable that this country has instituted multiple
underground coups. Yeah, from maybe not even just to destabilize
the government. That's like a competing on some any number

(41:57):
of levels with or whatever. Yeah, we're not nice. Parts
of us aren't nice. I mean, but we are willing
to go to go that extra mile to make this happen.
It's not a stretch. This accusation rings true. And they
know they knew it, and I'm sure it's like there's
enough evidence out there. It's like, yeah, yeah, we do that.

(42:18):
Of course we would. And uh, in August, almost a
year ago exactly now. Uh, a former US diplomat, a
pillow named James Jeffrey, who was the ambassador to Turkey
from two thousand eight two thousand and ten, pointed the
finger back at the Ghoulaw movement and he said, uh,
they have infiltrated. They made some infiltration at least in

(42:39):
the military that I'm aware of. They had extreme infiltration
into the police and judiciary. Um. And he says very
clear that significant segment of the bureaucracy in Turkey was
infiltrated and had their allegiance to the movement. And that's unacceptable,
it's extremely dangerous. It's highly likely that that led to
the coup. So the FBI investigates this innocent high school

(43:06):
kid stuff that happened two years ago on the off
chance that he became a sleeper agent. I mean, I
that that's the kind of feeling I got from a
little bit there they were. Now, maybe it's just me
and this is my only first and only interaction with
FBI agents, But they were, of course very nice, very polite,
but they did seem a little bit suspicious of me,

(43:28):
which I found weird because it was my mom and
my own kind of kind of digging into this whole
thing and starting contacting documentary people and people writing books, journalists,
so it seemed a little odd. So now we we
reached this point where tensions are escalating between the US

(43:50):
and between Turkey, and this stuff has obviously been simmering
for a while. This was when Barack Obama was still
president and Urgegon Uh wrote specifically to UH President Obama
to ask for the extradition of Ghulan, and then the

(44:12):
US government said, we will need evidence of his guilt
before in the extradition UH. And then Urgegon brought out
some of the dirty laundry and said, when you asked
for the return of a terrorist. We did not ask
for documentation, just give them to us, let us put
them on trial. And at this at this point, oh
and um, the US officially said, any reports that we

(44:35):
had any previous knowledge of a coup attempt, or that
there was in the US involvement in it, that we
were anything other than entirely supportive of Turkish democracy are
completely false, unequivocally false. So the last missing pieces of
puzzle here is like who if? Because there clearly was
a coup, So who does Gulan think was responsible? If

(44:56):
it wasn't his movement, wasn't his men? He said, he
said that Urdagon did it, that it was a false flag.
What do you think about that? I think that's very interesting.
I think that's on one hand, you definitely do see
Um are to Wan does does seem to be kind
of consolidating power. And I know there were some accusations

(45:19):
about um their connections before and then suddenly all this
dirty laundry about him suddenly came out, like, oh, look,
are to Wan and his son had been hiding millions
of dollars and shoe boxes in their home. That's strange.
Who found that out? Oh? It seemed to be this
one newspaper that has connection to Googlan, So it does

(45:40):
seem like it could be a false flag trying to
remove them. Another hand, it could be it did seem
like the coup from what I understand, wasn't full. They
were discovered early on, so they just tried to rush it, like,
let's hope we can still make it work. So maybe
it was just, you know, one using the best of
a bad situation. But let's say it was Googlan for
this kind of just hypothetical, what does the United States

(46:02):
know about that? Because at this point um, the United
States generally likes putting people in power who are stabilizing
factors and who will allow us to be strategic partners
against Russia and other kind of large powers in the region.
So the thing is it's something that's sponsored by the
large parts of the government. Is this just kind of

(46:23):
a smaller project of another hand, the left hand not
speaking to the right hand. Who knows? That's kind of
the real kind of question. But it does seem interesting though,
because the Ghoulan does definitely seem to be soft power
rather than revolution in the streets. And that's the thing.
It just doesn't fit the profile, but maybe that's just

(46:43):
because he hasn't tried before. And we talked about where
his money comes from and like his background. That's an
excellent question and thank you, thank you for getting us
on that. So we do need to learn a little
bit more about this person that we have. We have
painted as a shadowy figure, but we must say to
be fair regularly rights to media institutions and maintains his innocence.

(47:06):
So he was born in nineteen forty one in April.
He's a preacher, a former, a mom, a writer, obviously
involved in politics. There's still some confusion over his Earth dates,
so some people say thirty eight and some people say
forty one. Some some critics say that the of the

(47:29):
date he gives for eight of ten November is propaganda
because it's the same day that the founder of modern
Turkey out of Turk died. Um So there's also possibly
just the fact that this would have been a time
when people have physical records, and if a physical record
was destroyed then it's just word of mouth at that point,

(47:51):
which happens more often than you might think. Um. So,
his father was also in a mom and he gave
his first sermon when he was fourteen. People consider him
sort of a Turkish nationalist aligning with religion. In one
of the great debates, or one of the tensions behind

(48:14):
this movement, is that modern Turkey is embroiled and obsessed
with a question are we a secular country or are
we a religious country? Are we a democracy? Are we
a theocracy? And the Turkish military has often stepped in
to keep the country quote unquote secular. So to people

(48:36):
who would prefer it to be a secular country, any
form of theocracy or religiously guided um government, no matter
how mild or how friendly, is still going to be
incredibly dangerous. And I think it can overlook the part
where Turkey has been trying to be entered into the
EU for a long time, and this stuff just more

(49:00):
that these kind of embroider battles happen, the less likely
that it's going to be interested in the EU. But
it's still a very strong and important part of NATO.
H Yeah, that's true, NATO and the EU being separate.
And speaking of Gulan's willingness to speak to the press,
he actually did an interview on NPR with Robert Siegel
uh this month July eleven quote to this day, I

(49:24):
have stood against all coups. I suffered during the military
intervention of May nineteen sixty, and then again on March twelfth,
nineteen seventy one, and again on September twelfth, nineteen eighty
and I was targeted February. My respect for the military
asside I have always been against interventions. I don't know
the people who attempted the July fifteen coup. They might

(49:45):
know me, They may have attended some lectures. I have
no idea. Thousands of people have come here to the
retreat to visit, among them fifty members of parliament, former
President Abdullah Goal, former Foreign Minister. I'm at Dabutagalu for
this reason. Many people might know me, but I don't
know them. One other thing is I live here thousands
of miles away from Turkey. Some soldiers decided to do

(50:08):
the coup, and despite the many questions and suspicions that
remain of the government account of what transpired that night,
if such claims are still taken to be credible, I
shudder an astonishment. But if I were to humor that idea,
if anyone among those soldiers had called me and told
me of their plan, I would tell them you are
committing murder. So that's pretty explicit, absolutely and specific. Uh.

(50:32):
There's also despite the fact that the Turkish government officially
designated the Ghula Movement or his met as a terrorist organization,
there's at this point it doesn't seem like there's direct
evidence linking the man himself Gulan to anything. M hmm, well,
I think that's kind of part of the point that

(50:54):
that's kind of the strength of the network is that
it doesn't acknowledge each other. It will work with each other.
They know they can identify other members, but they won't
acknowledge their kind of togetherness terroristic life. But that's the
way and when I think, when I think needs to
be known, this is a lot of this isn't necessarily

(51:16):
um It's not something that's trying to attack the United
States or anything dramatic like that. At the end of
the day, it's something that's basically trying to get both
physical capital and political capital wherever it goes. And I
think the only the only real problem that a lot
of people have with it is with how shady it

(51:37):
does and the illegal practices that it promotes. If it's
just the if it follows the stated goal of interfaith
dialogue and a promotion of math and science education. I
don't think anyone has problems with that. I think it's
the real problem with how it's using it to move
people and money in and out of the country. Right. Yeah,
and existing in some ways in a is ingenuous gray area. Right.

(52:04):
That's you know, that's a great point because regardless of
how somebody may agree or disagree with the activities here,
there does seem to be financial corruption at the at
the minimum. I'm Sam. I would want to ask, what

(52:25):
what do you think is the future for these, uh,
these charter academies? And have you written to any of
your former teachers? UM written to I am in contact
with one of my former teachers. She's actually started another
charter school. This is the person you mentioned earlier. UM.
She started another charter school and is trying to get
that up off the ground to basically be just be

(52:45):
like a follow what the original point of that that
school was to be a a math and science academy.
It promoted for youth for the youth, and I think
that that might be something that continues on. There's a
lot of fighting going back and forth on whether the
schools here would remain like they have a kindergarten through
high school right now, and it was gonna see if

(53:08):
they can remain charter schools or not. Well, after back
and forth and seeing a lot of the kind of
stuff that goes on, the they lost the charter and
they moved to a private institution. So I feel like
that the charter schools are definitely becoming more popular, but
is more and more money goes into them, and I
feel like this will be more scrutiny. So either the
schools are going to have to shape up or they're

(53:30):
going to have to go into private institutions. My only
concern is, and now I know this is this goes
again into the kind of allegory. There's a lot of
the money that goes into gaining political support. There's a
lot of it that goes into saying, look where charter
schools were exactly what you want. There's been a lot
of times where they take people on good will trips
to Turkey, like the like the one that I went

(53:51):
on and let me it was a very nice trip.
And if there's a lot of politicians that all they
sees the test scores. All they see is the uh,
the various awards. They go on a trip to Turkey. Oh,
of course, why wouldn't I support this? This is very
nice and it follows my political base, and I might
get some political donations out of it that might sustain it.

(54:12):
It just really kind of depends on the zones, and
the more awareness of this, the better keep people honest
and stuff like that. But otherwise I think it's gonna
go on a state by state by basis. I can
still see there's definitely a lot of room for growth,
but I don't know if it's sustainable. No, what do
you What do you think about this whole situation? I

(54:33):
think it's really interesting. Um, I don't think we have
enough information to make any definitive final conclusions. I mean,
you know, his his defense was so strongly worded and
cutting dry that I couldn't help but be a little
bit taken in by it. That could just be the

(54:54):
work of a very charismatic con man, you know, Um,
I don't know. I mean, I think the whole I
I'm more fascinated with if it wasn't this than what
was it? It opens up more a lot more questions,
like the whole thing is a real quagmire. And with
the way that there's a lot of censorship and there's
a lot of conflicting stories even from people. There's people

(55:16):
who are on the ground who who still protests the
government or for the government that it's it's very unclear
what was going on in that situation, and it's still
kind of on. But here's the thing I find interesting
even here talking to other My parents have talked to
other parents who, even after it's very much clearly shown

(55:36):
the link, a lot of their parents are like, who
cares who? As long as I'm getting a good education
from my kid, who cares what they're doing with the
government's money. That's what I was saying a minute ago.
It's like, it seems like everything was in place, and
it was a positive experience and you did get what
you signed up for, at least on the surface, and
you learned Turkish dance. It's true. You should see me

(55:59):
in a dresses amazingly, well, h sadly for everybody who
is out there in the audience today, Uh, this is
an audio podcast, so look at him twirl way should
we go? So we hope that you have enjoyed this episode.

(56:19):
This is something that um, Noelan, Matt and I had
never heard of, and we really appreciate you taking the
time to be our first I think you are our
first human intern. Did you know that? Well, I think
that's kind of disparaging towards the NSA agent. Well, that's true,
but then we had the puppet and um the skeleton skeleton.

(56:40):
But I'm just glad I was able to come on
the show, I was able to tell my story and
you weren't immediately dismissive of the whole crazy affair. Well,
uh we uh, we are all about finding ourselves in
situations where the truth is stranger than fiction. If you
would like to learn more about the story of his
myth a Ghoulon movement and uh Sam's adventures therein, we're

(57:03):
also both very glad you're okay, Uh, then do check
out a documentary called Killing Ed Killing. It is this
uh it very exteen documentary that um it definitely has
its perspective and it's very very strongly coming in there,
but it has a lot of really good information, a
lot of very good quotes, and it really gets to
the heart of a lot of people who were just

(57:25):
like me in the experience, and I feel like just
seeing the different kind of perspectives and hearing the first
hand accounts that I think is very important. And it
remains the only independently produced documentary to uh investigate the
movement's apparent involvement in the school system and possible political corruption.

(57:46):
But let's say political activities and the alleged connections to
the coup attempt. And this brings up a whole another
kind of cannon warms with the whole charter school thing
in the first place. There's a movie called Waiting for
Superman I think it's called that's about the implement take
of charter schools and how it seems very appealing on
the surface, but there's a lot of odd politics involved
in that system in general. And now we're seeing, you know,

(58:09):
with again the current administration, the idea of school choice
sort of a misnomer. It doesn't you don't really have.
It's almost like the choice aspect of it is sort
of a little bit of a red herring kind of
So I don't know, we I almost think we should
revisit charter schools specifically and looking to look a little
deeper into that. Yeah, and in the meantime, we are

(58:31):
going to head out today. We will return next week
with something equally bizarre but probably also completely different. We
do hope you enjoyed this episode, and most importantly, we
hope you right in today and let us know what
you think about this movement, what you think about charter
schools in general. Did you go to one of these schools?

(58:53):
Do you have anything to add to Sam's perspective? If
you're one of my classmates from let me know, send
me a Facebook message, we'll talk. Wait, you were in
middle school in oh Man. We gotta go, all right,
So apparently, uh, Noel and Tristan and I have to
go get the early Bird special somewhere, So we're going

(59:15):
to head out in the meantime. You can find us
on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We are Conspiracy Stuff show
and Conspiracy Stuff at the other two. If you'd like
to talk to us, if you have a topic that
you think would be great for your fellow and listeners
to hear, or maybe even if it's not great important
for your fellow listeners to hear, then you can write
to us directly. We are Conspiracy It has stuff works

(59:38):
dot Com