What Americans Can Learn from Turkish and Arab Muslims

Despite culture shocks, we have much to teach each other

Reading my blog reports on life with Muslims in Turkey, my 86-year-old uncle, Dr. A.M. (Mac) Secrest, a retired professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina and North Carolina Central University, wrote that his perceptions of Muslims were changing.

He confessed that he had never known a Muslim before, and like
many Americans, reacted negatively to media images of Islamic fundamentalists and extremists. But he was “favorably impressed” with Muslim Turks as I described them in my reports.

“Sounds as if we Americans, esp. the younger generation, could learn something from the Turks and the Islamic fold, with a secular, tolerant attitude, about manners, respect, generosity, and acceptance…