turkish-greek civic dialogue - AEGEE Europe

done after the Second World War. They have worked on their schoolbooks and
they have decided to build up new generations with new ideas of cooperation.
In that book, it says that the Turks have cut the breasts of the Greek women
and put them inside the cannon. As long as we don’t change these schoolbooks,
it is impossible to succeed in what we have started; to open up a new future,
to do that the school books have to be cleaned from the very hostile language.
Instead, we should teach the new generations the notion of tolerance, and
mutual benefits and understanding. In 1998, when I participated in the first
media conference of UNESCO in Paris, I had the chance to meet the famous
Greek director Costa Gavras. He is very active in Turkish-Greek dialogue, he
was saying: ”As long as we don’t focus on education, we will never succeed to
build a real peace. We have to get rid of the feelings of hatred.”
The second factor is the cultural exchange programs. I believe that music,
art and literature will help to build new bridges between the two nations.
Unfortunately, until 1999, there were almost no cultural exchanges between
Turkey and Greece. In the last three years, there have been some important
developments and some performances in Turkey. The famous Greek composer
Theodorakis, the famous Zorba ballet was performed in Turkey twice. The
famous Greek pianist Dimitris Sgouros as well famous Greek singer Harris Alexiou
gave two big concerts. There had been some Greek exhibitions. Wherever I
go in Istanbul and in any other part of Turkey, I was very surprised to hear
Greek music. There have been a couple of Greek tavernas opened in Istanbul
that became very popular as well, but unfortunately, there haven’t been very
popular Turkish cultural events in Athens. The biggest one was Sezen Aksu -
Harris Alexiou concert in 2000. No famous Turkish musician has performed in
Herodion, which is like the Ephesus Antique-Theatre in Athens and they have
every year a cultural five or six months music festivals. Until now, there hasn’t
been any Turkish performance there which is a big event for Greece. The second
biggest cultural center is Megaro Mousikis in Athens and there hasn’t been even
one Turkish performance.
I wonder why for example they don’t invite Fazıl Say who is not famous only in
Turkey, but all over the world in New York, in Paris or the Sultans of the Dance
which performed all over the world. There have been no exhibitions in Athens
from Turkey so at the end of these three years, I’m very glad to say that Turkish
public opinion started feeling more sympathy towards Greeks which has to be
building up a bright future; but there was not much change in the Greek public
opinion. In literature, Greek publishers are interested in Turkish authors; but
Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de L’Europe
they were very selective in that respect. I don’t think that Yaşar Kemal ,Zülfü
Livaneli, Nedim Gürsel books have been translated; but when I evaluate the
Turkish publishers, they started opening up towards the Greek authors and they
started translating like Nikos Themelis, Nikos Kumadareas, Costas Murselas.
As regards media, the role of media is also very important in creating a
new atmosphere. I’m in the organising committee of the Turkish-Greek media
conference. We have had two congresses in Athens and in Istanbul in the last
three years. We have received support from a lot of media members and
politicians. I believe we started building up bridges among journalists. The
journalists who met in these congresses started cooperating and exchanging
information, which was not the case before and which is a new and a very
important starting point. We started inviting each other to our television
programmes to express our own view. New channels have opened to reach
Turkish and Greek public opinion, which is very important as well; but when I
compare the Turkish media to Greek media, there is a difference again. The
Turkish media not only minimised the hostile language, but also started to
improve the image of Greece and Greeks in Turkey. Personally, in “Hürriyet” I
started writing with a new way of approaching Greece. I started writing about
the famous singers, artists, writers of Greece. I opened a new channel to the
cultural and social life of Greece and also I tried to write analytical articles
about the fears of Greece. Why? Why the Greeks are afraid of Turks? What is
the reason? I tried to understand that. I decided to write about human aspects
also leading political figures. Not only the hostile language of the political
statements and also politicians, I wanted the Turkish public opinion to know
who they are. Who is Papandreou? Who is Simithis? Why Mr. Simithis wants to
have a dialogue with Turkey? What is behind? What kind of strategy they are
implementing right now? I tried to open up all these things; when I look at the
Greek media, of course there’s a change as well. The nationalistic discourse has
been changed to a softer language. I don’t see any headlines anymore which
provoke hatred in Greece; but at the same time, I don’t recall many articles
which would improve the image of Turkey and Turks. The last three years,
many Greek newspapers have supported the dialogue policy of the Simithis
government to Turkey. They were convinced that first of all, the European
Union leverage will eliminate the resistance o Turkey mainly on Cyprus.
I heard an anecdote from Mr. İlter Türkmen, the foreign minister of Turkey in
1970s. In 1974, when Mr. Türkmen was the political advisor to Mr. Çağlayangil,
he had a meeting with Mr.Kissinger, US Secretary of the State in New York.
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