Ken Wade

KEN WADE'S BLOGOFILE: Minority Report

Ken Wade is off his rocker, again!

Trading the sweet summer month of July in Vermont sitting in a glider in a lush cool garden for thirty days of traversing the hot, humid homeland of the Turkish Republic is not the act of a sane person.

Nevertheless, this Champlain College Humanities professor has chosen to spend the month of Tammuz interviewing Secularists, Shias, Sephardic Jews, Sufi Dervishes, Blue-Eyed Circassians, Georgians, Albanians, Orthodox Greeks, Armenians Apostolics, Syriacs, Yezidis, Alevis, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Baha'is and Kurds to find out what life is like for minority cultures in the only proudly secular Muslim state. Officially, all citizens of the Republic are Turks, but, off the record, this nation is one of the most culturally diverse areas of the Middle East.

Is there universal cultural and religious freedom in a country where 99% of the 70 million inhabitants consider themselves Muslims? Is the headscarf gaining importance over the homeland? Are honor killings tolerated today? Can you really get Turkish coffee on every street corner?

Professor Wade plans to drink gallons of tea with Istanbullars and Anatolians, soldiers, shop keepers, fishermen and even the occasional college professor.

May he find the answers he seeks, inshalla!