turkish-greek civic dialogue - AEGEE Europe

and views expressed and respected. We need full democratic attitude and
tradition, since the real solution lies within the countries and the attitudes
of citizens and governments. States and people will change and will have
more open societies. This indirect approach will eventually help international
relations in general not only the problems between Greece and Turkey, Greece
and Macedonia, Greece and Bulgaria, Turkey and Iraq, etc. Lack of democratic
attitude is not a problem between Greece and Turkey; but it has a general
attitude in all neighbours, all countries and international relations.
SERDAR DEĞIRMENCIOĞLU
Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de L’Europe
BILGI UNIVERSITY, PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Regarding the bilateral and multilateral NGO activities, I don’t agree with
the necessity of involvement of various countries to ensure a multilateral
dialogue or atmosphere. We don’t necessarily think about multilateral as
people coming from different countries. I would love to think multilateral as
more people representing multiple interest groups. If we have people from
Greece, who are young, who are representatives of women organisations,
who are representatives of sections not necessarily well represented in the
government; that is multilateral as far as that societies concerned.
As it’s the case with this particular conference, there will be a lot of parties
with their own self-interest coming here to talk; therefore in that respect
this room is multilateral. We have here many people from Turkey who don’t
necessarily have the same ideas about how to work on these issues. Thus, we
have multiple identities and multiple self-interests being represented here.
It would be very good idea and added value if we have the representatives
of minorities here, particularly the Turkish minority in Greece. The entire
project AEGEE-Ankara & AEGEE-Sakarya is running is that kind of a multilateral
initiative and it’s the way to go since it involves many faces and identities of
many different parties and it is good to have this organisation with people from
diverse backgrounds.
HERCULES MILLAS
WHEN WE SAY MINORITIES, WE AUTOMATICALLY
PRODUCE ANOTHER CONCEPT: MAJORITIES.
In that sense, we’re all minorities; because each individual has a majority
around it. In Greece, in Turkey, in any country in all elections, there is always
one party having the power in the government and the other one is the minority.
Minorities are politically, ideologically small groups. Children are minorities in
a society; all individuals in a sense are minority. As a matter of fact, minority
rights issue is a very critic issue and we have to respect the “otherness”.
We have the ethnic minorities. When we say ethnic minorities, we’re within
the paradigm of thinking of nationalism, since the concept of ethnic minorities
started with nationalism. In Ottoman Empire, we didn’t have ethnic groups; we
had millets in the sense of religious communities. These religious communities
were respected and they didn’t have any problems. Only when we started
thinking with nationalist terms, nation-states, freedom then the minorities
became automatically a problem as if the agents of the enemy.
When we say national minority, we have to make a distinction between the
recognised national minorities and non-recognised national minorities. In
Greece, we have Turkish minority recognised; not as a Turkish national minority
but as a Muslim national minority. However there are other minorities that are
not recognised at all. In Turkey, Kurds are not minority officially since they are
not covered in the Lausanne Treaty.
This is a very complex phenomenon and once minorities are introduced as a
nationalistic paradigm, then they become a fact. Nobody wants minorities in
the Balkans or in the world, that’s why they exchange them. They sent all the
Christians to Greece and all the Muslims to Turkey for that reason and both
Turkey and Greece were very happy that they were getting rid of all these
dangers. This understanding is very simple: “We don’t accept it, we don’t
confess it”. Each of us confronts our own doubts when we are asked about
minorities as a crucial and national issue.
Minority members should be free to choose whether they want to be a minority
member or not. However, in our countries, even if you don’t want to be a
minority member, even if you want to be a part of the majority, even if you
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