Matine Yuksel visits Noam Chomsky at MIT
26 April 2013
Matine Yuksel, Noam Chomsky and Monica Seng at MIT, 26 April 2013
In an email conversation with Noam Chomsky we talked about the interconnection of ethnicity, culture, politics, religion and world economy. I gave him the example of Chobani Yogurt, which has been very successful in the USA yogurt market. Yogurt is originally a Turkish food and the name yogurt is originally Turkish. It is owned by Kurdish people from Turkey and for political/marketing reasons it is described as Greek Yogurt to sell American consumers. Kurd-Turk-Greek-American all in one yogurt 🙂 During our conversation, I promised Chomsky to serve him Chobani Yogurt when I visit him again at MIT, Boston. Well, my younger Son Matine, who is accepted to Princeton University and other competitive colleges, traveled to Boston to visit MIT, just to compare it with Princeton to make sure that he still wants Princeton. I told him to visit Noam and deliver him a few Chobani Yogurt as my gift. Beforehand, I called Noam’s secretary to treat my son and wrote to Chomsky the following:
25 April 2013
Dear Noam,
My younger son, Matine, has been accepted by several Ivy schools. Though he will most likely choose Princeton, which offered him a generous scholarship and welcomed him like a prince, he decided to visit MIT where he has friends. He and his high school classmate Monica is currently staying with their close friend, Brianna, at MIT. Matine (18) is a young admirer of your work and activism. He was lucky to have Steve Saradnik as a teacher for his AP History class and years ago read “A People’s History Of The United States” by Howard Zinn.
Today, he visited your office to deliver you a few cups of yogurt, but you were not in the office. I called Bev and told her to be nice to them 🙂 I hope that tomorrow you will have a few minute with this young man and his friends. A picture of you eating yogurt together with these brilliant students who value peace and justice, would be very “cool” 🙂
Peace,
Edip