Tina Ramirez Talking about Her Experience with the Gulen Movement in Turkey

 My name is Tina Ramirez and I work for the US government. I work on Turkey monitoring religious freedom as well as a number of other countries. But I’ve worked on Turkey for the last two years. I’ve never traveled here so I have a friend that recommended that I come on this trip who is part of the Gulen movement. It was in expectation that I would be able to see everything that I’ve been researching, and look at how Turkey does sit in between the Middle East and its West place in the world. I am looking very much forward to seeing Turkey moving to the West more and more, and become more and more a liberal democracy.

It has been very exciting to visit with all the different Turkish people we’ve met here, to go to the different sites, the historical sites, the religious sites, and to see the religious side of Turkey which I wasn’t expecting because a lot of Turkey is very secular because of the reforms of Ataturk. So it was very interesting to see both sides that, and I really appreciate that. When I go back to US, it is going to be, umm, there will be a time I am going to reflect on what has happened here, and what I’ve learnt because it is so much. I really can’t, I can’t say too much now about it, but I am really thankful for these expresses, when I do go back I can better reform US policy with Turkey, and work towards really helping our government encourage the rest of the international community to work towards moving Turkey into the EU and the western or our society. The other thing, more importantly and more personal level that I reflected on since, in the last few days, has been my own faith which has been encouraged by this journey. I am Christian, and visiting to Ephesus and some of the religious sites and being able to think about how those sites are important in my own faith; that has been very very great, and I am thankful for the opportunity to do that. It is great to be on interfaith trip where you have the opportunity to do that. But then also, it has been great to be with the members of Gulen movement who are very devout Muslims, and to compare that to my own Christian faith, I believe I am a very devout Christian, and then to see the similarities in those respects; so I have enjoyed that very much, and I appreciate that. I appreciate people being sincere in their faith whether no matter what they are. So that has been a good experience, and I thank everybody for just a great trip. It was wonderful!…