“I thought you were a Turk…”

My name sounds a lot like the Turkish name Cem, pronounced “Gem” as in stone or “Jem” as in truly outrageous.  Several times in the US and Turkey people have mistaken me for a Turk because of my name and my ability to speak Turkish (certainly not because of my freckles and pasty white skin).  When I moved to Princeton a Turkish neighbor thought I said my name was Cem and then assumed I was one of those Turks who had gone to live in the US for a long time only to pick up an American accent.  It came as quite the compliment, I have to say.

The most recent experience along these lines happened on Thursday when I went to interview Hüseyin Midik, a DITIB official who is president of the local mosque association that manages the Sehitlik Mosque.  We had spoken a couple times on the phone because he would field my calls when I tried to reach the religious attache from Turkey.  I would always tell him that my name is Jim and one time I mentioned that I was a student from the US.

When Hüseyin opened his office door to let me in the other day, he seemed completely surprised to see me.  I thought he seemed a bit shy, or maybe even suspicious, but when we sat down he told me that he was surprised to learn that I wasn’t a Turk, because he thought I was a Cem.  I told him that I’m not a Turk yet, but I’m in the process of turkification.

We had a really good discussion after that was cleared up.  He told me that DITIB actually has quite limited resources and that while they would like to be more active in training local religious leaders, meeting with German officials, and running programs for children, he was the only paid DITIB employee in all of Berlin besides the imams and attaches sent from Turkey.  In other words, they just don’t have the manpower to do what they’d like because everyone is already so busy with their day jobs.  They’re doing what they can with volunteers.  As I mentioned yesterday, they’re also taking collections during Friday prayers to help pay the bills.

Hüseyin said he didn’t want to discuss sermons in depth because he wasn’t trained in theology, but he did have some great insight on German perceptions of Muslims and the integration and education of Turkish children, which I’ll come back to another day.

Now it’s off to watch Germany vs. Sweden…