CSKT members travel to Turkey

Sasha Goldstein

James Steele recounts a positive eight-day visit to Turkey

PABLO — November is synonymous with the word “turkey,” but a few members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes had the word on their mind for a different reason than Thanksgiving: a once in a lifetime diplomatic trip to the Republic of Turkey early last month.

Sponsored by the Turkish Coalition of America, former CSKT Chairman James Steele and S&K Technologies CEO Tom Acevedo were two to go on the Native American Business Cooperation Trip and Steele recounted a positive eight-day trip to the Eurasian country.

“I came back with the definite understanding that the government of Turkey wants to reach out to Native American tribes as nations,” Steele said of the Nov. 6 to 14 trip. “The biggest thing we came away with was the desire of the country of Turkey to reach out economically, diplomatically, educationally and culturally with the Native American tribes in the U.S.”

The trip featured a visit to Istanbul and Ankara, the nation’s capital, where approximately 20 tribal members from around the country, with the most representation out of Oklahoma, visited with some of the top administration officials in the Turkish government.

“The foreign minister took a lot of time out of his schedule to visit with us,” Steele said. “It was pretty spectacular, he’s the third highest person in the government there.”

Steele said highlights included visiting the ruins of Troy and Gallipoli, a famous battlefield from World War I.

“We were also afforded the high honor of laying a wreath at the tomb of the first president of the republic, Ataturk,” Steele said.

Steele was impressed with the western influences on the country, which he deemed a fairly progressive, modern place.

He noted that after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks allowed women the right to vote, a move well ahead of many European countries and only a few years after the United States.

“Ataturk started Turkey off to be a secular country, and they still abide by the separation of church and state,” he said. “The people of Istanbul feel the Native Americans and people of Turkey have a kind of connection, including similarities with their language and Native languages.”

Those similarities and the positive experience Steele had has the current Montana/Wyoming Tribal Leaders Chairman thinking up ways to get Native students a chance to visit Turkey or other parts of the world.

“There was definite interest there at the university to bring students from the Flathead Reservation and Natives in general over as an opportunity for the students to attend the university and do an exchange,” Steele said, noting that the differences would enlighten local students. “It’s a positive experience to see another people and another country and how they do things there. It’s a benefit for tribal people to experience another country and culture. America is not an island. It might be a melting pot but there’s a bigger world out there then the United States of America.”

Steele said he plans to speak with Salish and Kootenai College president Luana Ross about setting up an exchange program with a Turkish university.

While this was the first trip there, Steele said the eye-opening experience has him excited to continue the positive relationship the diplomatic mission has created.

“My expectations were let’s try and see what comes of it,” he said. “I think there’s definitely going to be some follow up and cultural exchanges.”

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