turkish-greek civic dialogue - AEGEE Europe

Participants tackled the issue of close group formation in the light of ‘evidence
from Turkey and Greece as to how perceptions and attitudes changed about the
Other’. “Each group has a balanced environment within itself. There is some
extent of equality or hierarchy amongst the group members. If some members
of the group get into contact with some other people or some other things from
the outside world, the group’s peculiarity of being a close one is endangered.
When the relation with the outside world is minimized, or the members are
isolated from the outside world, the group becomes closer. This situation may
be observed in some religious sects. The sect leader imposes the idea that the
world is too dangerous and all the group members are safe when everyone is
together, it’s a really successful technique to have a closer and faithful group,
where it also gets easier to control the group.”
OUTSIDE THE GROUP INSIDE THE GROUP
Rivalry Cohesion
Threat Identity
Competition
It’s actually the same technique some politicians use. For example, Turkish
people are convinced that all the neighbours of Turkey and all other countries
around the world are working to divide Turkey into pieces and weaken the
country. The majority of Turkish people are brought up with this cliché and
this policy has always been used to hide some failures in foreign relations or
anywhere the politicians like. It’s also an opportunity to direct the people’s
interest towards some other topics other than economic problems or failure
of the government. This situation has been experienced by Turkey and Greece
for a long time.”
“In a psychological experiment, which was conducted during a youth camp,
the participants were split up into two groups. These two groups stayed in
different tents and all the competitions and matches were organised using
these two groups as teams. The groups were isolated from each other did not
see each other except from the competitions. The result was interesting: the
groups started to see the opposite as enemies and there appeared tension
between them, so the first part of the experiment was over. The aim of the
second part was different: to make these groups come together and make them
friends. At first, groups were brought together outside of the tents for some
ice-breaking activities. However it didn’t work out.
Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de L’Europe
Afterwards the groups were accommodated in the same tent and the teams for
the competitions were mixed. This didn’t work out as well and the members
continued to see each other as enemies and started fighting. Finally the pipes
of the camp carrying water were broken by the experimenter deliberately and
the groups were told to repair it together, otherwise they would not have any
water in the camp. And it worked out. The members from the groups started to
get closer and help to the others without taking into consideration from which
group the person was coming.
“Could you see how similar is this experiment to the relations of Turks and
Greeks during the earthquakes?”
DAY 4
The discourse of the day was: how to prevent the perception “us versus them”?
The participants examined some samples from the press and they all worked on
the case “defining yourself by using the word Turkish or Greek”. The importance
of the nationality in terms of assessing a person and his/her identity was the
highlight of the discussion. The participants questioned whether they should
give importance to someone’s nationality or not. The discussion continued
on social engineering, which requires isolation of nations from each other
under flags and borders. The importance of a flag versus a human’s life was
questioned.
The participants also worked on the effect of referring to things and places
with ethnic adjectives, where the workshop leader stated his discomfort
with using the name of “Turkish Psychological Association” or referring to
some Aegean islands as “Greek island “or “Turkish island”. Instead of these
adjectives “Turkish” and “Greek”, use of “Turkey Psychological Association”
or “an island of Greece” were proposed. Participants concluded that the
adjective of ethnicity should only be used for the culture and language and
any other definition should refer to the land of all the people who lives in.
Participants also concluded that people should not tell others how they
should name themselves.
During the workshop, the participants also visited and interviewed with “Lütfiye
Nine” from Kayaköy who witnessed as a kid the population exchange in 20s
when Greeks were leaving their houses behind. The participants listened to the
KayaFest Youth and Culture Festival
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