Monday, June 9

This morning we met at our medrese for a discussion of how Turkey's most recent history has affected its culture and people. Afterwards, we headed to the Grand Mufti's headquarters, where we met up with some other American students who were studying religion in Turkey. For those of you who, like me, had no idea what a mufti is, I'll explain. A mufti is an Islamic scholar trained in the interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. We met with the government-appointed mufti for all of Istanbul. We started in his office, which was definitely European in its decoration, plus two pictures of Ataturk thrown in for some nationalist pride. We were too big of a group, so we went to an auditorium which looked more like a press conference room.

When we got there, Yekta was asked to translate for the Grand Mufti, so she got to sit right next to him on the panel. Then, per Turkish tradition, the assistants of the Grand Mufti came around and served us all tea. Yekta started calling on people for questions, and the other groups asked some pretty dumb ones. One guy asked two questions, both of which were fairly antagonistic and rude. They were really more like accusations with questions marks attached on the end. His first question wasn't too bad, but his second question was ridiculous. It went something along the lines of, "All across the world, Patriarch Bartholomew I is recognized as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Istanbul in the Greek Orthodox Community, and is the spiritual leader of millions of Greek Orthodoz Christians. Why isn't he recognized as the Ecumenical Patriarch by the Turkish government?" And Yekta didn't really understand his question, because it was far longer and more confusing than the way I put it, so he was very rude and condescending to her when she asked him to repeat his question. The Grand Mufti answered that he and Bartholomew were friends, and that it is not his department that deals with that, and that hopefully this issue will work itself out. Then, Rudey McRudeface said quite rudely, "Can I quote you on that???" Yes, because I'm sure you will be writing a very enlightening article which will be published worldwide, idiotic college student...

The Mufti, ever so diplomatic, replied, "Of course; why would I say something that couldn't be written down?" That shut Rudey up. Ha. Some more dumb questions included asking the Mufti (keep in mind that he deals with the religious affairs of Turkey) what was being done to create jobs for Kurds in Turkey (an ethnic group, not a religious one).

After that disheartening look at America's young people and maybe a clearer understanding of why Americans sometimes carry the international reputation of being rude and stupid, we went to Yildiz University to meet with a professor of sociology and history ( he held two Ph.D's). We had a great continuation of our morning discussion and then walked around the university. We ended up having to take a dolmus, a large van that functions as a group taxi, back to Taksim Square. As always, hilarity ensued. Imagine four Turks in a van. Now imagine a group of ten Americans cramming into that van with them.