Editor's note: Chattanooga columnist David Cook is traveling in Europe on a Marshall Memorial Fellowship. His local topics will resume upon his return to the Scenic City.
TURIN, Italy-Warning: The following sentence is considered dangerously inappropriate and anyone under 18 may need to leave the room. Quickly.
A blond high school teen named Haydar ate homemade crispy chicken at a local restaurant but felt hot and overweight afterward.
Yes, I know. Scandalous, isn't it?
Yet if this had been an online Turkish newspaper and I a Turkish journalist, that sentence may have landed me in a Turkish jail. Why? Because it contains no fewer than 10 banned words of the 138 words recently outlawed by the Turkish government for appearing in any online content.
Words like gay, free, nubile and skirt are also banned. The Turkish government believes their presence on any Turkish website may encourage immoral and pornographic behavior.
As a deep believer in freedom of speech, the vital role of the press and big-hearted democracy, I'm angry enough at this new legislation to say a few more words that would surely be censored not only in Turkey but in Chattanooga as well.
Why? Because this kind of censorship is the opposite of freedom.
The past three weeks, I have traveled with 19 other Americans across Europe as part of the Marshall Memorial Fellowship. We are now saying our goodbyes in Italy, swapping memories like business cards. And in all our travels, one issue was more widespread than most others.
Muslim immigration.
The Turkish government - Muslim in name - is hoping to join the European Union, yet must first square many of its policies - like the ones banning Internet sites - with the democratic requirements of the EU.
Many EU nations are struggling to integrate their Muslim populations. Having invited many North African Muslims to its cities decades ago for cheap labor, native Europeans now are faced with large communities of multigenerational Muslims whose presence they can no longer sweep under the (prayer) rug.
Which reminds me of many conversations in the U.S. on Islam.
Since 9/11, our nation has become hyperaware of the role of Islam in the world. This is understandable, yet problematic, as there are hundreds of millions of Muslims on Earth and in no way can we generalize about Islam in any accurate way.
Terrorism masquerading as Islam needs to end. Period.
Oppressive Turkish governmental policies need to end. Period.
Yet these are not the only versions of Islam in the world.
The same is true for Christianity. The most stunning and saving stories, I believe, are to be found within the New Testament, yet examples of Christians span the gamut from the saintly Mother Teresa to the Ku Klux Klan, which claims to be a Christian organization.
The foe we face is not Islam, but ignorance and oppression under the guise of Islam. The threat is not a brotherhood of Muslims but any group of people clutching for power based on discrimination, closed-ear philosophy and violence.
(Yes, I've read the Quran and found some parts inspirational and other parts troubling. The same is true for the texts of other major religions.)
We in Chattanooga and the United States need confidence, which is in short supply in Europe. We have the world's finest library on human rights, beginning with the Declaration of Independence.
We cherish the values of freedom of expression, religion and identity.
We have a national ethic that encourages hard work, worshipping God and the pursuit of happiness.
We have laws that prevent violence and discrimination.
And if people live in this country, those are the rules of the game.
We should stop fearing Islam, because Islam is not the issue. Violence - perverted in the name of Islam - is the issue. Let us not be afraid of Muslims who embody just the opposite.
In the past several years, I've become dear friends with many Chattanoogans who are also Muslim. If the ground beneath my feet were to crumble, they would be among the ones I would call for help, and they among the first to answer.
With open arms, they have welcomed me into their homes and asked nothing in return. When I consider the junk culture created out of Hollywood, their modesty is refreshing, like water in a desert.
They are as American as you or me, and it seems we in Chattanooga are closer to accomplishing what Europe cannot: using our national ethos - saying no to violence and discrimination and yes to freedom - to build a multireligious community.
So let me write another sentence that is neither censored nor misunderstood.
A Muslim in Chattanooga is as much a Chattanoogan as anyone.
David Cook can be reached at davidcook@blumail.org.