Both American and Muslim

"Both American and Muslim" can strike some people as strange. In fact, that it strikes anyone as strange is stranger still. However we may choose to approach, from here, US policies toward the Middle East and its attitude toward the Islamic world, there is a sizeable Muslim population in the US, people who take Islam seriously in the best way they know how, who try to live it and reflect on it. For these Muslims, the policies of "their own country" toward Muslim countries are a subject they can work on, criticize and become involved in at every turn. In election contexts, Muslims can now bargain not only over the state's policies toward Muslims within the US but also over its policies toward the Islamic world, and steer their votes according to whether they obtain the political declarations they want.

Within the Democratic Party there are 90 delegates who are immigrants or Muslims of American origin. Muslims make up 3-4 percent of the population in America, and 90 is low relative to a total of 5,000 delegates, but given the general history of Muslims in this country, it is a rising rate of representation. Among Turkish Muslims there had never been political participation at the delegate level until this election season, when Murat Güzel of Malatya was chosen as a delegate from the Pennsylvania region by invitation. Murat Güzel came 26 years ago to do a doctorate in engineering and settled here; he is exceedingly active and full of a sense of responsibility. For years he has successfully organized the activities of Wisdom-net, which brings Turks in the US together and has built a strong network for them.

This year I am in New York, where the highest-level representatives of all the world's countries are present for the annual regular meeting of the UN, on a different occasion. The Muslim American Society (MAS) is meeting to discuss the participation of American Muslims within the country and a roadmap for getting the US to develop a healthier relationship with the world, and particularly with Muslim countries, one with which Muslims can be content. They decided to hold this year's meeting in New Jersey partly because of a promise they had received from Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to attend. The meeting would normally have been expected in the first week of September in Washington DC, so they changed both its date and its venue.

During the 4 days I spent among them, I personally witnessed how much they value Turkey, with its prime minister, its president and its foreign minister. I also saw everyone wholeheartedly agree with the following words of MAS's coordinator in one speech: "That a country like Turkey has brought a leader like Erdoğan to its helm at this time, and that Morsi in Egypt and Ghannouchi in Tunisia have come to leadership in the same period, is a blessing from God to the entire Islamic world. This is not a situation that will always fall to the lot of the Islamic world."

At the last minute the prime minister did not attend, and then the news that Davutoğlu, who was to head the Turkish delegation, could not come either because of his extreme workload caused great sorrow for everyone. Thankfully, this sorrow was considerably eased thanks to the minister's practical-minded and efficient press adviser Osman Sert, who arranged for the minister to address those in the hall over Skype. The minister's speech, which covered recent Islamophobic approaches, hate crimes against Muslims and Turkey's approach to the processes under way in the Arab world, was listened to attentively and was interrupted by applause several times.

The MAS meeting had two related agendas this year. In the first, the problems of discrimination and Islamophobic approaches faced by Muslims inside the US, and the problems of organizing, were put on the table. For this there were intense discussions among African-American, American and Arab Spring-country participants and Muslim or non-Muslim participants living in America. In the second, developments in the Islamic world and US policy toward those developments were addressed. For this, special sessions were held on Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Lebanon. It fell to me to explain Turkey's position, stance and situation in all these processes.

US policy on this matter was addressed in a session in which Mark S. Ward, the special representative of the Middle East Transitions coordination office, explained America's position and answered questions. Ward explained that the US had approached the Arab Spring from the outset positively, as democratic transformations, together with the difficulties they had encountered in this regard. He noted that, even though the US gave this support, it had not been able to prevent the development of antipathy, even hatred, toward the US in those same countries.

In his two-hour question-and-answer talk, the questions Ward faced most concerned the US relationship with Israel. Ward, who was the target of criticism on this subject more than of questions, gave answers that were in fact a lesson in a political environment functioning by the book. He advised Muslims to take a more active part in American politics and, in that way, to try themselves to change the Israel policy they object to. The explanations he gave in elaborating his words were even more interesting:

American policy is not an immutable, inflexible policy; in the end it is shaped by the assessments of the people working at the State Department, and it is determined every day by evaluating all developments in search of a better policy. But in the end the influences on decision-makers are also important. If you think that a policy in line with Israel is dominant today, this is the result of the efforts of certain pressure groups that deliver results. Interestingly, in the American system Muslims can also be one of these pressure groups, and the way for them to be influential over American policy is not closed. American Muslim citizens have citizenship rights at least as much as Jews do, and if they wish, it is possible for them to try to be as influential on the system as the latter are.

Ward added that he personally would be even more pleased to see such a thing happen, that is, Muslims becoming more influential and decisive in US policies on the Middle East and Israel.

How so? Does it not somewhat resemble what they call the "American dream"?

My notes on the MAS meeting and the UN events in New York are quite extensive; God willing, we will continue to relay them later.