It's hard to watch this man pace his living space, to look at his two daughters with middle names selected by Gulen. I watch him walk a line in the carpet and wonder is his family safe?
He can't check because his tie to Gulen is known. Contact will make his family a target. Fortunately, they live away from the worst of the fray. Fortunately, they are old and poor and do not have much to offer in the way of potential for resistance.
But that doesn't take them off the radar. After all, their son is living in America, has sat with Gulen, studied with him, reveres this man who, as my friend has shown in action, believes that compassion is the greatest quality a human can possess.
I don't know what's happening in Turkey, but I know what is happening here. The last time I shared an article stating Erdogan's tactics were believed to involve torture, friends of his family messaged me to thank me for my interest in Turkey but I had my facts wrong and I should share this Erdogan sympathy piece instead: [http://www.dailysabah.com/war-on-terror/2016/08/01/turkey-coup-attempt-of-gulenists-explained-in-special-report]
I want to believe the Erdogan regime is built on the same loving and inclusive tenets the Erdogan girls, once friends of mine, put into practice. But then I see their extensive network policing social media in an effort to counteract the damage of image-based and first-person accounts that freedoms are being repressed in the name of Erdogan.
And I see my friend's ability to connect to his family interrupted.
And I wonder at the world.