One of the interesting distractions of moving to a different country is becoming familiar with a completely different set of national debates and controversies. You might ask why anyone would want to take on a second set of problems. Simply because I could play the role of an uninvolved bystander, that’s why. I could leave my own country’s seemingly intractable problems far away and sit on the sidelines as a dispassionate observer.
Shortly after we moved to Turkey, Sankar and I took out a subscription to one of the country’s daily English language newspapers, the Hurriyet, which means freedom. Before long I began enjoy a column written by one Mustafa Akyol. This young writer was good at locating middle ground in the country’s most passionately-argued controversies: religion versus strict secularity in society, and the rights of Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
Akyol showed sympathy for Turkish women who choose to cover their hair with the traditional headscarf. For the past 75 years, these women have been prohibited from entering government buildings, including schools and universities. And Akyol didn’t demonize Turkey’s Kurds.
Newspapers outside Turkey were beginning to notice Akyol. Last May, he published an article in the New York Times entitled, Can Islamists Be Liberals?
Mr. Akyol now has a book out. It is called Islam Without Extremes. He also gave a Ted Talk recently. During it he answers questions about Islam that many Americans have:
–Why do Muslims believe in separating men and women?
–Why do Muslims adhere to practices like female circumcision that the rest of the world considers barbaric?
–Why is there so much anger directed from devout Muslims toward the West?
–Is Islam incompatible with freedom and democracy?
–Why is Turkey different from other Muslim nations in the Middle East?
For his balance and wide appeal, I consider Mustafa Akyol the Thomas Friedman of Turkey. I also encourage you to Google him and watch his Ted Talk.
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