Speakers point to business and
education ties and potential as the governor and two others receive awards.
By
Noel K.
Gallagher ngallagher@pressherald.com
Staff Writer
Staff Writer
SOUTH PORTLAND — To expand its economy, Maine must welcome more immigrants,
Gov. Paul LePage said Tuesday, praising a new Turkish cultural organization for
its work in the state.
Gov.
Paul LePage gives a speech at the Sable Oaks Marriott in South Portland Tuesday
after accepting a leadership award.
Gabe
Souza/Staff Photographer
Eyup
Sener, left, president of the Turkish Cultural Center Maine, presents Gov. Paul
LePage with a traditional Turkish plate after LePage was honored with a
leadership award at an annual Friendship Dinner held by the Turkish Cultural
Center at the Sable Oaks Marriott in South Portland Tuesday.
Gabe
Souza/Staff Photographer
“It’s time that we here in Maine appreciate
and work with other countries to improve our economy,” LePage said as he
accepted a leadership award from the Turkish Cultural Center Maine at its first
Friendship Dinner, at the Portland Marriott at Sable Oaks.
“It’s important for Maine
to grow,” the governor said. “We need to invite (immigrants) to come and live
among us.”
Also honored were
University of Maine professor Habib Dagher, who heads the school’s Offshore
Wind Laboratory, and Maine Deputy Attorney General and Augusta Mayor William
Stokes.
“We strongly believe that
the friendship and alliance between the United States and Turkey will
significantly contribute to the global peace,” said Eyup Sener, president of
the Turkish Cultural Center Maine and the New England director of the Council
of Turkic American Associations.
The Turkish Cultural
Center has existed for only about two years, he said. About 300 people from
Turkey are living in Maine, although if Turkic people from many countries in
southeastern Europe are counted, that number climbs to about 2,500, Sener said.
Turkey is Maine’s
11th-largest international export destination. According to a U.S. Census
report, $11 million worth of goods, ranging from dairy cattle to wood products,
were shipped from Maine to Turkey in 2010 to 2011.
Several speakers at
Tuesday’s event emphasized the potential for business and educational ties,
while spreading a message of peace. Stokes said Augusta is in the final stages
of establishing a sister-city relationship with Uskudar, a section or borough of
Istanbul.
Several state legislators
who attended the dinner have gone on one of the three trips the Turkish
Cultural Center has organized for lawmakers to visit Turkey. There also are
educational ties between Maine and Turkey.
Sener said his group
organized a trip to Turkey this summer for officials from the University of
Maine System, and an educational exchange agreement has been signed with
officials at the University of Maine at Augusta.
At the K-12 level, a
Turkish group is trying to open a charter school in Maine. It would be part of
a network of 800 schools operated internationally by followers of a Turkish
imam, Fethullah Gulen. The group’s application for a charter school in Bangor
was denied in early 2013, and the group has applied again this fall, for a
school in the Lewiston area.
Followers of Gulen, who
lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, have been involved in starting at
least 120 charter schools in 26 states, according to investigations by The New
York Times, “60 Minutes,” USA Today and other news organizations. The schools
are often top performers and have an entirely secular curriculum, but they have
drawn criticism for their lack of transparency, their hiring and financial
practices and concerns about their motivation, which experts say has as much to
do with shaping the evolution of Turkey as it does with educating young
Americans.
A short film on Gulen and
his mission was shown at Tuesday’s dinner.
A key organization in
Gulen’s network, the New York-based Council of Turkic American Associations,
arranged for the Maine legislators’ subsidized trips to Turkey and asked Le-
Page to issue an executive order declaring April 3, 2012, the first Turkish
Cultural Day in Maine.
Last summer, state Sen.
Roger Katz, R-Augusta, Rep. Karen Kusiak, D-Fairfield, and Rep. Dennis Keschl,
R-Belgrade, visited Turkey. The three comprise the advisory board for the
Turkish Cultural Center Maine.
Katz said Tuesday that he
hopes Maine can attract Turkish students to the state university system. He
noted that Maine has an aging population that is not very diverse.
“The only way to change
that is to become a place that welcomes everyone,” he said.
Senate President Justin
Alfond, D-Portland, also said he hopes the ties to Turkey will stimulate trade.
“Maine must be more
welcoming,” he said. “There’s no doubt that Maine’s future rests on
in-migration.”
Keschl also went on a trip
in 2012, along with Sen. Joseph Brannigan, D-Portland; Rep. Jane Knapp,
R-Gorham; and Rachel Talbot Ross, president of the NAACP’s Portland branch.
Keschl has said that officials from the Council of Turkic American Associations
were up front about their ties to Gulen when he questioned them directly.
The council is the
regional affiliate of the Washington, D.C.-based Turkic American Alliance, the
umbrella organization for the Gulen movement in the United States.
Noel K. Gallagher can be
contacted at 791-6387 or at:ngallagher@pressherald.com
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