turkish-greek civic dialogue - AEGEE Europe

Foundation simultaneously and the shared language of peace was emphasised
in all publications like symposium posters and program leaflets.”
“This Project is just a first step towards removing prejudices and improving
mutual understanding between the Turkish and Greek youth. Needless to say,
the challenge is considerable and overcoming all of the obstacles is beyond
the capacity of one Civic Dialogue Project. Nonetheless, the most important
message that has emerged today out of this endeavour is the fact that such
projects will operate as the building blocks of a structure that would carry the
hope of peace and dialogue into the future. Once again, the youth are our
building blocks in this attempt and it has been such a wise choice to strengthen
the dialogue by engaging our young friends. Therefore, it is fundamentally
important to revitalise today’s environment of discussion and dialogue in the
future and to design new venues and activities that would raise the bar. I
would like to affirm that The Foundation of Lausanne Treaty Emigrants is ready
for such a challenge and more than willing to put all of its resources into the
realisation of such aims. We are most certainly looking forward to be involved
in the future projects as a partner and to work with AEGEE-Ankara or any
other organisation that would contribute in improving the Turkish-Greek Civic
Dialogue.”
Greek-Turkish cooperation:
CONSTRAINTS AND PERSPECTIVES
.......................................................................................... Konstantinos Tsitselikis *
“After having participated in the conference on the Population Exchange
organised last November 2003 within the framework of AEGEE Project “Turkish-
Greek Civic Dialogue”, I would like to highlight certain thoughts on the Greek-
Turkish fields of cooperation and its perspectives.
Organising a conference sometimes seems to be a feasible, even laborious task.
* Secretary administrative of the Research Center for Minority Groups, [KEMO: www.kemo.gr]
Assistant professor at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de L’Europe
Some other times it seems to be out of the question. Of course, in the case of
the population exchange, the issue has much more connotations than talking
about earthquakes, trade or food and music. I know about a few books and
conferences dealing with the Population Exchange, which all were surrounding
the same idea so far: the unilateral dimension of history or the separation of
the world into two absolutely distinctive black and white spheres. The main
discourse deals only with the victimisation exclusively of our own ancestors.
What about the others? They simply do not exist. No conference held by a
Turkish or Greek organisation till last November did examine the issue under a
global and objective perspective, under the fundamental principle of scientific
research.
In my opinion, scientific research conducted by Greek and Turk scholars could
build a bridge of cooperation on a solid basis. This solid basis would be the
demystification of a series of myths, which create political antagonisms at
three levels: first, between governments, second between economical interests
and third among citizens entrapped by the dogmatic national ideology.
Why do we need to cooperate in the field of social sciences? How we have
to define this cooperation? What are the constraints of such process? Who
should be the main actors? Is Europe a secure path for the consolidation of
this mutual understanding? Who is supposed to be the actor of the seeking
cooperation? The governments possess the power to do so and they bear for
sure a very important responsibility in creating such a climate of friendship,
but I guess that they are not reliable for enhancing a real dialogue: after all
they serve only high-rated political and economical interests. The civil society,
the citizens are only very lately starting acting towards the creation of an
independent bridge of cooperation. The civil dialogue, in our case sponsored
by the European Union, seems to be by far more reliable by the relevant efforts
made by the governments. A medium way of cooperation is undertaken by the
economical interests. But still, all these actors are not freed by the essence
of the problem which according to my opinion is not any other but national
ideology. Here I would like to give you an example from the world of economy.
You know when you export Turkish goods in Greece is very difficult to sell if
there is an indication “Made in Turkey”, even if the price and quality is good.
What stops a Greek customer to buy Turkish? Ideology forms behaviours, which
are very often contrary to the personal interests. Governments, businessmen
and citizens are the potential actors for the Greek-Turkish cooperation and
dialogue, which are closely interrelated and interdependent to each other.
Final Conference
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