Let me begin by very warm thank to Mr. Canevi for the invitation and to all the people who has organized this, having organized things at much smaller level of 20 people I stand in awe of all the efforts that you and your group must have been going through these many months so thank you very much. It is a joy to be back in Istanbul. I was surprised when I heard Richard say that he’d been here first time 40 years ago and as I set here thinking I realized 1942 was the first time I was here. Each time I come back things become somehow more and more interesting. As you probably now in Egypt as in Iraq there is a phrase that “he who drinks from the Nile will come back” now I don’t know what I’ve been drinking from but I enjoy coming back time again to Istanbul. And what is especially interesting is to see the different parts of your very beautiful city as well as other parts of the country, which are very attractive. That said and the theme of our panel being co-habitation, neither clash nor convergence living together I would like to offer a negative appreciation of what’s going on. I speak as an American who lives under a regime of somebody who deserves to be called the worst president of the US, as ever have so take my remarks that follow in that light. I am very negative with what’s going to happen with respect to Americans especially trying to understand Muslims. In what follows I’ll try to make 4 points, not much hope. Let me tell you a few reasons why I have not much hope.

If you have been following the newspapers you know that 3 years ago a many by the name of Sami Al Arian, Palestinian born in Kuwait, raised in Egypt came to the US at the age of 17 to pursue his studies, did that, finished the PhD. Became a professor and was a very distinguished professor of statistics at the University of Southern Florida. Not only distinguished professor of statistics but also somebody whom the US air force trusted so much that they put him in charge of one of their laboratories and somebody who was invited on at least two occasions to the White House to meet none other then George W. Bush. Arrested suddenly on suspicion being a terrorist the mastermind of Palestinian jihad and a very unusual thing, put into jail but not only into jail also into solitary confinement. Here is a man about my size not an athletic person sure not somebody who could run from imprisonment and escape but also very sickly man who has diabetes and therefore requires medical attention was put into a situation where for 23 hours a day he was locked up without any kind of communication with human beings and allowed 1 hour out. Normally we would call that cruel and unusual punishment. Then Al Arian after 3 years of in confinement had a trial, a jury of his peers judged him and that jury found him not guilty on 8 of the 17 counts that the US government brought against him. It also was unable to say anything about the 9 of the other counts. 12 people trying to judge, 10 of them found him not guilty, 2 didn’t so the case could not be dismissed entirely. He was not entirely innocent. His lawyers arranged for a plea bargain with the prosecutor, the US government. In return for pleading guilty to one count what Sami Al Arian wanted to plead guilty but it did not come out that way was to rendering services to Palestinian jihad, the services that he rendered with help to his brother in law who had been imprisoned for 4 years without any evidence being presented, US government said that the evidence could not be presented because the way it was obtained making it public would hurt our intelligence efforts. The judge as you may know decided that Mr. Al Arian has to serve another 13 months in prison in solitary confinement. I find the whole thing to be utterly against the principles of justice that my country used to work on and then to make matters worse, one of the biggest newspapers in the US, Washington Post, the day after the judgment was made wrote an editorial in which the editors of the newspaper thought that it was necessary to say that this decision proved that Sami Al Arian was a liar. What does that have to do with anything? Somehow we are so hostile towards people like Sami Al Arian that we want to do anything we can to show that they are wrong. That is one case.

Do you remember the name Tarik Ramadan, Swiss born and raised, a professor at the university of Geneva as well as at the university of Fribourg in Switzerland. Philosophy kind of professor by accident of birth he happens to be the grandson of Hassan Albana, I am sure all of you have heard, I don’t have to explain. At one point the University of Notre Dame after having searched for 2 years to find somebody who could occupy and endowed chair in Islamic studies, offered the chair to Tarik Ramadan and he accepted. He did a very foolish thing after he accepted, he thought that an offer from a prestigious university in the US was something that was formal and beyond any different company. So he sold his furniture, closed down his house and got his children ready to come to the US at which point the government of the US decided that he was a threat to our well being and refused a visa.

I can go on and on. Madeleine Bunting earlier this morning reminded me of the time a few months ago when the US government decided that Zeki Badavi the venerable man who has had among other things a chance to confer in private with Queen Elizabeth and who was at that time either late 70’s or early 80’s came to the US was stopped at New York and interrogated for number of hours then put on a plane and sent back to England. I am very tired today and I just flew only from Washington. I was not stopped at the airport and interrogated and I think I would be terrible physical shape had I had to be turned around and sent back. I don’t know what the US is doing by this sort of thing but we are clearly trying to tell different people of Muslim origin that we are afraid of them that we are suspicious of them and we do not want them. What is going on is the problem 9/11 and a mentality that is us versus them that mentality is exasperated by the fact that somebody at the very beginning of the time after the whole incident decided that what denying 9/11 perpetrators were doing was attacking freedom. You may remember the famous ceremony in which Prince Al Walid Bin Saud after giving 10 million dollars to New York city tried to suggest gently to his audience as he was handing over his check that one thing the US ought to think about is that its Middle Eastern politics because part of what was going on Usama Bin Laden has said it, is the US policy vis-à-vis and the Palestinians. Major Juliani refused the check and so Prince Al Walid was duly shamed. Well ladies and gentlemen, let me reassure you that Major Juliani refused the check only after he had deposited it!

There is another incident of problems, Prof. Bulliet own university has come under attack recently by a group and part of the group that, I’ll let him tell about his university if he wants but part of the group that has attacked is known as campus watch. Many years ago when I was a very young boy there was a terrible person in the US Senate by the name of McCarthy and McCarthy was able to scare the Americans about the possibility of Communists to the point that many people were hunted out of jobs, had leave carriers and lost a good way of life. Well, now many of us who teach in universities find ourselves being threatened because the people who run campus watch have decided that we are dangerous. If you go to campus watch you will find my name and a picture that god knows where it came from over my left shoulder is a picture of a Bus bombing in Israel. The lit bus bombing, so that if you were simply to look at it you’d think that this was my doing. I assure you it was not, what am I guilty of? I am guilty of the following, on a chat line, internet somebody was accusing Sami Al Arian when he was first arrested obviously being a terrorist. I explained by relations with Sami Al Arian, spoke about the institute that he had run at the university of southern Florida, defended it and its work is allowing people like myself to come into contact, this is back in the early 90’s, at the moment we are beginning to be aware of political Islam, to come into contact with different figures who were committed to Islam and yet wanted to carry that commitment into political arenas much as Prime Minister Erdoğan has succeeded in doing in Turkey. For that my name was put on campus watch and number of people tried to have me fired from the university. All I can say is thank god academic freedom is still alive and well in the US and that ploy did not succeed.

There is one other thing, there is a bill pending before Congress now which tries to say that when Middle East studies are engaged in, when universities teach about the Middle East it will be the sense of Congress that they have to prove that they’re providing a balanced view of the Middle East so that if there is one course on Turkey, there should be one course on that little country, little bit south of Turkey that doesn’t get enough coverage according to the sponsors of the Bill or if there is a course on Iran or Iraq same sort of thing. The Bill still pending we all hope it doesn’t pass but you can see how there is more and more attempt to have government influence even over the academy. For an American standing before a Turkish audience speaking in English, it won’t strike you strange if I say that we Americans are very poor when it comes to learning languages. We always been poor, it seems to me nowadays that we are becoming even poorer. The students I come in touch with have less and less interest in learning languages. That makes understanding others much more difficult. There is a little bit of hope because there is a government pushed influence for difficult languages Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, I haven’t heard Turkish being one of them but may be somebody can interest the US Congress in making Turkish also be considered as a difficult language. And surprisingly there is less interest in travel, I have never been so shocked as I have been in the last 2 or 3 years in talking to undergraduate students about an old tried and tested habit, American students used to go abroad for a year then it became a semester and now nothing, we are coming back more and more into our own borders.

A second point that I want to raise is the history of understanding others in the US. I think that normal position of American is ‘be like us, don’t criticize’ and this has become much more pronounced in recent months and years. Said Kotlub came into US in the late 1940’s, he spent number of months in the Middle West, in Kansas if I am not mistaken by some of the things that he saw especially the forcing by Roman Catholic clergy member, a priest of boys and girls to dance together in social event bothered him immensely as you can imagine from his perspective.  Over and over recently the press has decided to introduce Americans Said Kotlub and his writings but what they do is approach it from point of this blundered fool who couldn’t see what the culture of the US was. A second point along those lines, I think that we Americans do respect faith but the kind of faith that we respect and the way we would like to see faith presented is very definitely narrow Christian perspective. Be what ever you are but don’t show it. Now that is coming more and more into conflict with the habit of non-Christians to show by their dress their faithfulness. Young men of Jewish faith wearing a head covering and young women of the Muslim faith wearing a head covering and so we are having to come in and open our minds a great deal about that. I’ve heard more criticism especially of the Muslim women then I heard praise and that is a problem.

Just another point, the other day on the biggest radio station in the US, national public radio this was after the letter from President Ahmedinecad to President Bush, a reporter is speaking to an Iranian specialist and asks him, “do you think that AhmediNejad wanted to make Bush an Islamic?” a reporter doesn’t understand how to talk about Islam.

Still moving on, we do have events like this Forum Istanbul and we have an attempt to reach out to others. More and more I think there is in our days respect for others. What I see the group of people brought together by Forum Istanbul representing is a kind of successful entrepreneurship. In the US, there was this famous man of the middle 19th century Horahito Algir. He came from nothing worked hard and eventually became a successful entrepreneur. Even with all the problems we are having of entrepreneurs for being arrested for cheating their clients, Enron scandal and all the other scandals, we still respect entrepreneurship especially mall entrepreneurship seems to be something that very widespread among the Muslim community in the US. That’s a positive force and it may be the force that helps us to understand things better.

Just one last point and I will close. What can be done? I think we need continued outreach but now the outreach really has to come from those of you in Turkey in other countries beyond Europe, from the Middle East. You have to reach to us and try to teach us about yourselves and about your culture. There needs to be greater attempt to educate other people about Islam and especially about the way Islam works in a modern society. We have too many false images of what Islam is all about. And here I think Turkey is remarkable example because of the way it does work and work so successfully. Much greater emphasis need to be made on student exchanges. I know because I’ve known Dr. Fatma Canevi for years that she benefited from a student exchange so do that her husband, so did Prof. Bulliet and myself, these are the kinds of things that do allow us to understand one another, to reach across the great gaps. The gaps are great now but they can be bridged.

Let me tell you something after having criticized my country so much, let me tell you about couple of things that are very promising. There is a small group becoming much more important in US called the center for study of Islam and democracy. That’s one group and there is many others like it for example another one called the minaret of freedom. Small groups that are trying to show by doing that Islam and democracy, Islam and capitalism are compatible and bringing that lesson to more and more Americans and then as the Minister of State Mehmet Aydin mentioned last night there is this marvelous attempt, the alliance of civilization, huge UN attempt that’s trying to get people to talk about what it is that they have in common and how can they break this notion that we’re really opposed to one another.

By way of conclusion just let me use that last thought to impress upon you something that I would like to see us talk about more. I don’t think that we should talk about civilizations. Huntington in the very beginning did not make a very clear definition of the word civilization. What he tried to do and it was to talk about culture and what he should have talked about was a clash of cultures. We are one civilization I would argue even though we have many cultures. What we need to do is to try to learn about different cultures and see how one culture can help another culture learn more about what it means to be a human being and part of the big family of civilization. Thank you very much.


Questions - Answers

Prof. Dr. Tayyar Sadıklar: Başkent Üniversitesi öğretim üyesiyim. Birlikte yaşama kaygusu içindeyken dünyada birdenbire beliren bu soykırım konusunu ağzımıza aldığımız zaman bizi cezaevine gönderecek kararlar alabilen parlamentoların tutumunu nasıl değerlendiriyor konuşmacılar?

Barbaros Dinçer: İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Bölümü öğrencisiyim. Benim sorumun özel olarak bir konuşmacıyı hedef alması gerekmiyor. Konuşmacılar bahsettikleri konular itibariyle kültürün çevresinde döndüler. Hepimizin bildiği bir gerçek var. Geçmişte çok kültürlülük, toplumların beraber, birlikte yaşaması ve barış içinde yaşaması için bir söylem olarak dile getirildi ve bunun sosyal anlamda yaşanacak olan problemleri bir çözüm olabileceği ileri sürülmüştü. Ama bugün geldiğimiz noktada sosyal krizler ve toplumsal anlamda çok büyük sorunlarla karşılaşmaktayız. Benim bu noktada düşüncem şu: Çok kültürlülük de artık bazı sorunların çözümüne cevap olamamakta. Bunun yerine kültürler arası diyalog, kültürlerin karşılıklı olarak birbirini anlaması sözkonusu. Bu bağlamda, demokrasi kavramı özellikle temsili demokrasinin günümüzde çok ciddi anlamda bir krizde olduğunu düşünmekteyim ve katılımcı demokrasi konusunda konuşmacılarımız ne düşünüyor. Farklı kültürleri kabul edelim, birbirimize paralel yaşamlar yaşayalım yerine, içiçe geçmiş yaşamlar, herkesin temsil edilebilmesi, herkesin demokrasiye katılabilmesi anlamında bir çözüm olabilir mi?

Sefa Erkan: Marmara Üniversitesi İktisat üçüncü sınıf öğrencisiyim. Charles Butterworth’ün konuşmasından şunu anladık: Amerika, Müslüman profesörlere dahi vize vermeyerek, şu mesajı veriyor: Müslümanları sevmiyoruz, tanımıyoruz, tanımak ve anlamak da istemiyoruz. Ben buna katılmıyorum. Çünkü Amerika yüzbinlerce insanla Irak’a gelip, orada bazı İslami araştırmalar yapıyor. Demek ki, İslam’a alaka duyduğunu gösteriyor. Kendi ülkesinde görmek istemiyor ama kendisi buraya geliyor. Hatta son zamanlarda İran’da da bazı araştırmalar yapmak istiyor. Acaba bir zaman sonra Türk İslamını da daha yakından tanımak, zorla tanımak ister mi? Zorla tanımaya çalışmak bir Amerikan tarzı mı? Asla değişmesi mümkün değil mi?

Naci Ekşi: Sayın Turan konuşmanız her ne kadar kültür ve medeniyet konumuz öyleyse de, işin bir ekonomik boyutu olduğunu işaret ettiniz. Kültür ve medeniyet başlığını unutmadan bugün AB’ni düşündüğümüz, AB’ne girmeye çalıştığımız bir devrede nasıl ki bir zamanlar Müslüman olduklarını bile bile bizim insanlarımızı alıp, Avrupa’da çalıştırdılar ise, bir gün AB acaba ekonomik nedenlerden dolayı kültür ve medeniyeti co-habitance bir tarafa bırakarak “gelin arkadaş, biz size muhtacız, kolkola girelim” diyebilirler mi? Özellikle yabancı konuşmacılardan bu konuda bir değerlendirme istiyorum.

Coşkun Varlık: Erciyes Üniversitesi İşletme Bölümü öğrencisiyim. Konuşmacıların bahsettiği Islamic Fobia denilen İslam korkusundan bahsedildi. Bu şimdiye kadar yeni oluşan bir şey sanırım. Bunun temelinde acaba petrol kaynaklarının İslam dünyasının elinde bulunması olabilir mi? Yani Sayın Bulliet’in bahsettiği gibi, Avrupa dolayısıyla Amerika kültürünün temellerini İslam dünyasından almıştır ve İslam’ın kelime manası barıştır. Nasıl böyle bir şeyden korkulabilir?

Hayrullah Özkan: Konunun sürecinde medya sessiz çoğunluğun etkileşimi, dışlamalar kimlik tartışmalarında basının yerini bölümleştirmede fayda görüyorum. Bu tespitimi yaparken ben İngiltere’de 4 yıl, Amerika’da 9 yıl yaşadım. Üniversitede araştırma asistanlığı ve mühendis olarak bulundum ve İstanbul’da yaşayan bir kimliğim vardı ve hiç rahatsızlık duymadım. Fakat son 10 yıldır memleketimde buradan İngiltere’ye, buradan Avrupa’ya ve Amerika’ya baktığımda, çok çirkin bir yapı görüyorum. Gerçi ben Amerika’dayken sürecin geldiğini hissediyordum. Yani Lübnan’da bir savaş varken, arka planda cami gösteriyordu. Kişiler korkutularak planlanıyordu. Hadise şuna geliyor: Dünyadaki güç dengeleri finansal ve yapısal olarak, bunlar dünyayı nasıl yönetmek isterlerken, kişilere olayları nasıl aksettirmek istiyorlar. Burada zaten dün akşamki açılış konuşmasında bu iş şöyle tanımlandı. Güç sahipleriyle değerler sahiplerini buluşturma. Bence kimlik tartışmasını da doğru bulmuyorum. Çünkü kimlik, ötekini yaratır. Yani Fenerbahçe/Beşiktaş, Avrupalı/Avrupalı olmayan. Daha ziyade temel olarak ontolojik questioning yapmak lazım. Sorgulama şu: Ben hangi takımdayım değil de, ben insan mıyım? İnsanlık değer nedir? Paylaşmak mı? Yoksa hayvansal güçlerle güçlü olan öbürünü yemeli mi? tartışmayı bu zemine taşımak lazım.

Sayın Kırdar: Çok teşekkür ederim. Enteresan bir paneldeyiz. 3 panel üyesi Anglo Sakson olduğu için müsaade ederseniz, ben sualimi İngilizce olarak sormak istiyorum.

First of al let me introduce myself, I have a Turkish passport but have been living for 32 years in New York and I worked for UN and I consider myself a global citizen plus I am a member of New York Interfed society which has been chaired by Dean Molten who used to be Dean of St.Johns Cathedral so I’ve been involved with this subject. The point what I am trying to drive and ask is a question to you, instead of looking as a clash of civilization, it is not the clash of religious that what are the basics of quote and unquote “civilized societies”. If we look from that point of view we see couple of points, first of all one of the most valuable thing is freedom of life and freedom of expression so our common search should be for instance to maintain that.

First point is, how to maintain secularism which is being endangered as Prof. Butterworth has mentioned, I can see how the system becoming politicized today. That is common danger.

The second point is freedom expression. In Europe, a few months ago there been the case of that cartoon and at that time it was defended as freedom of expression. Prophet was equaled to a terrorist and that is being argued as a freedom of expression. Nowadays we see under the freedom of expression a law being pushed so that the French Senate referring to Armenian genocide should become kind of crime to be punished. So should we look at it at the end of this panel? Thank you.

Atilla Silahtaroğlu: Silkar A.Ş.’yi temsilen burada bulunuyorum. Çok kültürlülük deyince, dünya üzeride çok kültürlülük sanki sırf İslam kültürüyle, orta doğu kültürüyle Avrupa kültürü beraber yaşaması çok kültürlülük gibi anlaşılıyor. Başka kültürler de var. Uzak doğu kültürü var. Afrika kültürü var. Bugün uzak doğu kültürüyle Türk kültürü ya da İslam kültürü orta doğu kültürünün ya da Amerika kültürünün beraber yaşamında hiçbir problem olmuyor. Afrika kültürüyle de aynı şekilde. İslam kültürünün ya da orta doğru kültürünün beraber yaşamında bir problem olmuyor. Problem genelde Avrupa kültürü ile İslam kültürü arasındaymış gibi algılanıyor. Bu neden böyle algılanıyor? Niye bunun üzerinde odaklanıyoruz?

İkincisi, refah düzeyi daha yüksek olan toplumun bireylerinin refah düzeyi daha alçak olan toplum bireylerini kültür farklılıklarını anlamakta daha büyük sorumlulukları olduğunu düşünüyorum. Amerikan kültürü, uzak doğu kültürü arasında da olmuştur. Aynı şekilde orta doğu kültürüyle İslam kültürüyle de Amerikan, Avrupa kültürü arasında da olması gerektiğini düşünüyorum. Onları yönetmek yerine, onlarla beraber yaşamak ve anlamak çerçevesinde.

Aydın Bandırma: Eskişehir’den katılıyorum. Birinci konuşmacımız Sayın Richard Bulliet’in sunumundan şunu çıkardım: Avrupa medeniyetinin gelişmesinde İslam dininin birtakım rolü olmuş. Avrupa insanları İslam dininin mesajlarını iyi algılayıp, kendi medeniyetlerinin gelişmesini kullanmışlar. Ancak, ters yönden baktığımızda, İslam ülkeleri nedense bu mesajları alamamış ve gelişmelerini sağlıklı bir şekilde tamamlayamamış olduğu ortaya çıkıyor. Burada o zaman konumuz gereği, co-habitance ile Avrupa ülkelerine de bir görev düşüyor diye düşünüyorum. Avrupa ülkeleri İslam ülkeleri ile biraraya gelerek, iyi niyetlerle toplantılar, görüşmeler yaparak, İslam’ın mesajlarının daha iyi algılanmasını sağlamakta bir rol oynayabilirler diye düşünüyorum. Bu konuda görüşleri nedir acaba?



Prof. Dr. Charles E. Butterworth: I will be very brief and speak to three points. First, the question from the student in the fourth row makes me fearful that I did not make myself clear. What I wanted to say that showed criticism of Islam was not my opinion but my attempt to explain American opinion. I hope that it is understood that I do not agree with that at attitude but I hope that you understand what the underline causes of that attitude are. I was trying to be analytical and to show you what leads to it.

Second point, there is a major problem with respect to democracy. When you have many people with different interests involved. The best kind of democracy would be democracy of a very small population that is homogenous and that allows all people to have a single view of the public good. That does not seem to be anything we can aspire to reasonably today. We might not even want to aspire to it. Remember the fighting that went on among your Greek neighbors in the early days of democracy in Greece. Turkey has a marvelous system that needs to be thought about in this modern era, I am thinking of the “millet” system. Where communities are able to have personal interest in taking care of in the community and then think about bigger issues national issues outside the community. That needs to be worked out but that seems to me to be to use your terminology the model that we might want to ask about. The whole goal more then ever before is to live in peace with one another. And again to return to the student and his question what the US is doing in Iraq for me is a perfect example of what is fraud, erroneous about our foreign policy. I see no good reason for us to be there.