US Congressman Charlie Dent: Many Americans think Turkey’s leadership in Middle East will be constructive

When Congressman Charlie Dent was offered an opportunity to visit Turkey, he thought this could be a great opportunity to assess the country’s influence in a tempestuous region.

He had a chance to see Turkey over the span of a week with his wife, Pamela. Although they had different reasons to be excited about the trip, they both found many more during their stay. Since 2005, Congressman Dent has represented Pennsylvania’s 15th district in the US House of Representatives. Although a member of the Republican Party, the congressman has been elected four times in an area that generally favors Democratic candidates. Congressman Dent is a member of the US House Committee on Appropriations and serves on several of its subcommittees, including Homeland Security; State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies. He has visited different parts of the Middle East at various times, but had not been to Turkey until October. The trip gave this distinguished couple a chance to meet people from different walks of life in Turkey. Upon his return, Congressman Dent spoke with Sunday’s Zaman on topics ranging from politics to culture and from history to current affairs. What was your perception of Turkey before this trip? Did your thoughts change after it? I wasn’t sure if Turkey was going to be a more European or Middle Eastern country before the trip. I wasn’t quite sure. I always sensed that İstanbul was much more European and other parts of Turkey in Anatolia might have been more Middle Eastern. That was my perception walking in, but the more I visited Turkey, the more it struck me as frankly more European than Middle Eastern. The country is much more modern and more secular than I [had] anticipated. Particularly İstanbul is much more secular.

Fethullah Gulen Condemns 9-11 Terrorist Attacks

Turkish Schools Offer Pakistan a Gentler Vision of Islam

Carolyn Drake for The New York Times

Students in Istanbul under a portrait of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founder. Pakistan has a new network of Turkish schools. More Photos >

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Published: May 4, 2008

KARACHI, Pakistan — Praying in Pakistan has not been easy for Mesut Kacmaz, a Muslim teacher from Turkey.

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Schools Sow Seeds of a Moderate Islam

 World View Podcast: Sabrina Tavernise on education in Pakistan.

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Carolyn Drake for The New York Times

Mesut Kacmaz, principal of a PakTurk school in a poor neighborhood of Karachi, and his wife, Meral, in their home. More Photos »

He tried the mosque near his house, but it had Israeli and Danish flags painted on the floor for people to step on. The mosque near where he works warned him never to return wearing a tie. Pakistanis everywhere assume he is not Muslim because he has no beard.
“Kill, fight, shoot,” Mr. Kacmaz said. “This is a misinterpretation of Islam.”
But that view is common in Pakistan, a frontier land for the future of Islam, where schools, nourished by Saudi and American money dating back to the 1980s, have spread Islamic radicalism through the poorest parts of society. With a literacy rate of just 50 percent and a public school system near collapse, the country is particularly vulnerable.
Mr. Kacmaz (pronounced KATCH-maz) is part of a group of Turkish educators who have come to this battleground with an entirely different vision of Islam. Theirs is moderate and flexible, comfortably coexisting with the West while remaining distinct from it. Like Muslim Peace Corpsvolunteers, they promote this approach in schools, which are now established in more than 80 countries, Muslim and Christian.
Their efforts are important in Pakistan, a nuclear power whose stability and whose vulnerability to fundamentalism have become main preoccupations of American foreign policy. Its tribal areas have become a refuge to theTaliban and Al Qaeda, and the battle against fundamentalism rests squarely on young people and the education they get.

The Gülen Movement

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: His name is Fethullah Gülen. He is a 69-year-old Turkish Islamic scholar and author, apparently in poor health, who came to the US seeking medical treatment. He lives a secluded life at a retreat in Pennsylvania. So why was he voted by his admirers in a survey by Foreign Policy magazine as the most significant intellectual in the world? Among those admirers are Kemal Oksuz and Alp Aslandogan.