turkish-greek civic dialogue - AEGEE Europe

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present themselves as they are from Thessaloniki, they will be able to find
seats on the boats much more in advance. Hercules Millas told us that only
the 3 rd generation emigrants are going through the phase of searching for their
identities, where immigration reflects itself within the reaction of identity and
co-existence.
Small and marginal groups bear significant importance in democratisation
processes.
Sefer Güvenç reacted that Lausanne emigrants are neither a small nor a
marginated group, but they are a group of people who are willing to contribute
in peace both between the two communities and in the world.
Renée Hirchon contributed that among the emigrants from Greece, the ones
originally from Cunda identify themselves as “exchangee/exchanged – mübadil”,
however the ones from Florina call themselves as “muhacir-refugee”, whereas
emigrants from Manisa Muradiye uses the word “göçmen-emigrant”. In Greece
both “göçmen-emigrant” and “mübadil- exchangee/exchanged” are in use.
Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu stressed that an average person would not understand the
Greek dialect spoken in Yanya where her family migrated from. The dialect is
called Yanyaca.
PERSONAL ASSESSMENT
by BÜLENT TANDOĞAN
Finally, I can speak on my personal behalf and tell you that I have been very
well informed at the end of the whole symposium as I was dreaming. I would
like to thank to Foundation of Lausanne Treaty Emigrants and AEGEE for the
organisation of such a symposium, I am very much looking forward to the whole
proceedings of the event.
My general impression is that “our” speakers, academics from Turkey were
acting more emotional and giving a lot of friendship messages, are expressing
their sorrows even making confessions; they were reflecting all these elements
into their speeches.
The speeches by Greeks were more realistic and less emotional apart from one
Greek guest, because of the very fact that we have started debating over such
issues, which were supposed to take place much earlier, only very recently. In
general, we are much more emotional than the Greeks.
I couldn’t leave the symposium with full satisfaction, since some of the themes
that naturally come to my mind in relation to the population exchange were not
covered at all. Health problems during the exchange of populations, political
struggles, cultural and social change in Anatolia and amongst the emigrants
following the exchange, changes in political life, changed faces of cities after
the exchange were amongst such issues. Luckily, I had the chance to find such
issues covered in very recently published book of M.A.Gökaçtı titled “Exchange
of Populations”, in particular the issues of settlements changing as a result of
the exchange and the political change. I think it will be very useful for future
to mention in such conferences the names of references and resources.
Another point I want to complain is that there was no result declaration out of
this unique conference, even though many important figures and participants
were gathered on this occasion. This is a very common mistake in such
organisations. I also would like to see a similar conference in such a scale in
Greece with remarkable participation from Turkey. It would be wonderful if
more guests and representatives from Emigrants associations in Greece could
join us.
mubadildostlar@yahoogroups.com
SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS
...................................................................................................... Nikos Marantzidis
Nikos Marantzidis is an Associate Professor teaching Political Science at the
University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki. He is the author of Giassasin Millet, a
book focusing on the Turkish speaking Greek refugees from Black Sea Region.
.......................................................................................................... Damla Demirözü
Damla Demirözü is a graduate of Ancient Greek and Latin. She obtained her
Ph.D at the University of Athens at the Department of Modern Greek Language
Population Exchange Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de L’Europe