Local elected officials, community leaders and representatives from different faith-based organizations turned out Monday in the Hyatt Regency Buffalo for some Turkish-American hospitality.
The third annual Friendship Dinner organized by the Turkish Cultural Center offered not just tasty kebabs and baklava as hors d’oeuvres, but an opportunity to forge connections among a diverse group of people and promote peace.
“It is our main [goal] to promote intercultural understanding and to celebrate our diversity in the United States, and enhance mutual understanding,” said Mehmet Erdogdu, director of the Turkish Cultural Center of Buffalo on Kenmore Avenue.
“We are famous [for] our hospitality. We aspire to live in [a] diverse culture and to live in peace. We accept it as our culture, and we want to promote it everywhere in the world,” Erdogdu added.
The Turkish community in Western New York is relatively small. Erdogdu estimated its upstate population at about 5,000 people. He said many of the Turkish cultural centers throughout the United States, including the one in Buffalo, were inspired by the teachings of Turkish scholar Fethullah Gulen, who promotes interfaith dialogue. A Sufi Muslim, Gulen lives in Pennsylvania.
Among the approximately 140 people invited to attend the Friendship Dinner was Chris Piehota, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo office. Piehota said the FBI has been attempting to forge better relationships in Muslim communities throughout the nation, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11.
“One of the concepts we try to work on is making these relationships and partnerships in times where things are good,” Piehota said.
“So we come to these events, we meet with the cultural center [members] and other Islamic organizations around Buffalo . . . We speak to the elders. We speak to the youth. We try to get them interested in jobs with the government and [find] ways to make them more friendly to us,” he added.
Along with Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown and State Sen. Mark Grisanti, Rabbi Drorah Setel of Temple Beth El in Niagara Falls was one of the guest speakers at the event. Setel said such intercultural gatherings help sow the seeds of understanding.
“Peace comes through understanding one another. I feel really pleased to live in a city where people are willing to try and make these connections within communities, regardless of tensions in the political world and other places,” she said.
Rep. Kathleen C. Hochul also was invited to address the gathering.
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| Rep. Kathleen C. Hochul, D-Amherst, shares a moment with Mehmet Erdogdu, director of the Turkish Cultural Center of Buffalo, during the center's third annual Friendship Dinner. Sharon Cantillon / Buffalo News |
“I think it’s so important that we celebrate our diversity. One of the elements that makes Buffalo such a vibrant city is its people who come from all over the world,” Hochul said.
Published on Buffalo News, 08 November 2011, Tuesday
