WHY AND HOW I JOINED?
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Zeynep
I had worked for various Turkish-Greek relationship and activities since the 1970’s such as “The Turkish- Greek Peace and Friendship Association” and “The Abdi İpekçi Friendship and Peace Prize”… After I met Margarita in 1985 in Nairobi, I joined several activities that she had organized for peace. She knew about my work and efforts concerning the relations
between the two societies… So it was inevitable that we should cling together for our common vision and perspectives.
I got great help from Meryem Koray , Şirin Tekeli and Ceylan Orhun to organize the first steps.
Eleni
The aim was to bring women together from two hostile countries, Greece and Turkey. To consider alternative and more sustainable ways to solve conflicts peacefully rather than the use of the male.
I became a member of Winpeace as I have been involved in peace activities for more than three decades domestically and internationally. When I returned to Greece in 2001, after an absence of eleven years abroad, I contacted Margarita Papandreou with whom I had worked for many years during 1980’s on gender and peace issues. I was happy to join KEDE and its WINPEACE Program.
I am both happy and satisfied of being a member of Winpeace. Meeting and working with our Turkish sisters and later on with our Cypriot sisters both Greek and Turkish has been one of the highlight of my life returning to Greece. As both my parents are Greeks from Turkey, I have a special feeling for the country and peoples of my forefathers, even though devastating historical events the last few centuries have created great enmities and have driven the two peoples apart.
I feel that not withstanding all the differences between us – political, religious, language, etc – I feel that we are the same people with similar cultures, biological make-ups and ethical systems. But most important of all, being together is FUN and our informal time together is more enjoyable, joking, laughing, singing, telling stories, sharing meals, dancing on ‘tables’, and getting to know the ‘real’ person can only be accomplished through personal contact.
Ceylan
I am one of the three so called founder members of Winpeace upon invitation of Zeynep Oral. Our aim was to break the animosity and prejudices of the two countries among the women and through the women, thus to contribute to peaceful grassroots societies.
Fotini
The aim was to work for peace between Greece and Turkey; to meet our neighbors and to see that they are human beings
just like us; to discover our humanity. I was working very hard at that time in the General Confederation of Labour (GSEE) in the position of Deputy General Secretary on hundreds of labour issues. I was the only woman and feminist in the presidium. When Margarita and her feminist friends and partners made a call to the women in Turkey, they also contacted quite a few women in Greece. I responded positively to this call because “women and peace” had always been on my mind, in my heart and in my work. I am glad that I overcame the political obstacles at that moment, being in the political office of Synaspismos of the Left to join in with Margarita and all the other beautiful women.
Zülal
I have taken part in various peace initiatives since the 1970’s, but for me Winpeace has a very different place among them, because in Winpeace we realized concrete grassroots activities, we felt that we touched women’s lives. And I consider the efforts concerning peace education as an extremely important and innovative step for both countries.
Ifigenia
The purpose of WINPEACE was and is to establish relations between human beings not Greeks and Turks. To create a bridge between two different(?) cultures and to promote peace.
Müjgan
To me the main objective of Winpeace is to prove that bringing together women from different backgrounds , professions
, ideas and opinions of the two countries to know each other , discuss and search solutions for common problems
is possible. To develope friendship amoung the two groups and avoid the idea of “ the other”. I joined Winpeace in 2002 when I met Winpeace members .
Nilüfer
The main purpose was to create a dialogue group of women who would use their communication and leadership skills to build more peaceful relationship between Turkey and Greece; and to set an example for other conflicting nations. Moreover, I saw it as an important initiative for improving second track diplomacy between Turkey and Greece.
Dina
WINPEACE was established at a certain historical/political period and its main purpose was to address a critical and serious situation through dialogue and peaceful means rather than aggressiveness and hostility, through a pro-peace women’s perspective.
There are some things in my life that I can not do. When I realized I could be part of a group that aimed to overcome prejudice and biased attitudes, wished to be peaceful and productive, and to do all that in a long-term basis, I simply took part. Being a member of WINPEACE does not make me either happy or satisfied. It makes me feel like a responsible
citizen of that part of the
Mediterranean, a person who realizes that preventive diplomacy, prevention, education and development projects are far better that aggressive actions and conflict.
Being a member of such a group as WINPEACE has affected me – it makes feel that I not only believe in peace and prevention
in theory but I also get active and involved in activities to implement these beliefs and principles.
Fulya
With full appreciation of our unique diversity we are one human family and the main purpose of our life is to serve humankind. From an early age I was inspired by this core message of the Baha’i Faith to find a direction in my life and as part of my spiritual journey I have been in a constant search to find meaningful expressions to put my belief into practice. For this reason when I was invited to become a member of Winpeace in its initiation phase I was very excited and embraced the principles and the purpose wholeheartedly and honored to be part of the group. This was a unique opportunity for me not only to contribute to this process, but also to learn from the journey of other wonderful women. I joined with no hesitation, because it was not a political concern or a formal agreement or a resolution what brought us together, but heart to heart dialogue and our desire as Greek and Turkish women to become a channel for sustainable peace between these two beautiful nations. Could there be any other powerful source to realize this noble cause than our love for each other? Although I was not able to follow closely Winpeace activities for the past 9 years due to my international work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan and New York where I have continued to dedicate
my work to the advancement of women, I considered myself as a voluntary ambassador for Winpeace. I tried to share our experiences and presented Winpeace as an effective model whenever I took part in meetings where the role of women was discussed in the context of resolutions of disputes and establishment of peace, because I believe the world needs to see similar initiatives to be inspired by other strong, courageous, determined women like my friends in Winpeace. I am thankful for Zeynep and Margarita for their visionary leadership and for believing in themselves and also us!
Gülriz
My main purpose was to foster understanding and good will to enable peaceful relations between the nations as well as initiating joint projects to enable the members to work together.
Pınar
I’m a founding member. As a feminist, 1) I think peace is the best way to ensure human security, 2) I advocate for anti-militarism. Moreover, I had a personal interest as my grandparents are migrants from Thessalonica.
Özen
Some ten years ago, I responded to a letter from Zeynep, regarding the initial discussions she and Margarita had concerning
the formation of Winpeace. “What a creative and beautiful idea” I thought. I had just returned to Istanbul after living many years abroad, and was seeking a meaningful cause to volunteer in. I was very attracted to the fact that we women could make a difference by actually contributing to the process of bringing two nations together which, despite being neighbors, had an unfortunate relationship of severe political mistrust. The whole team experience was amazing.
I have served 4 years with great pleasure, I cherish wonderful memories, such as the youth camps established in Greece and in Turkey.
Beth: In the past several years, women from Cyprus have been included in this mission.
I was happy to become a member of WINPEACE because as an international educator I felt that it
was of considerable significance and importance to work with youth from the three regions in regards to peace related matters and issues.
Begüm
My goal was and still is to convince every member of this society to contribute to peace and to educate them as in how to make this contribution nationally and internationally. My father was born in Thessalonica, Greece and when he was 30, he settled in İzmir, Turkey; but he had always kept in touch. Almost every spring break we went back to Greece for vacation. Throughout my childhood he told us that we have to make an effort to be together with all the people but not to try to unite them.. He said that the conflicts of his childhood were only because of differences in perspectives. So when I was invited to the first meeting at Zeynep Oral’s house I was so happy and hopeful. The content of the project, the participants’ attitudes towards it made me excited. I believed it with all my heart. I felt like I found my father’s (who had passed away) old friends.
Every year we host Greek students in the Prince’s Islands, Istanbul with my Greek friends who live on the island. At one of our meetings on the island, Stefo Papu was present, he was one of the symbols of the island and he has since passed away. At that meeting he hugged the Greek students and he burst into tears from happiness. That moment, I realized that what we are trying to do is very important. An old heart was finally relieved to feel the peace around which was missing for a long time. Thank you Zeynep, thank you all! We are glad to have you! Su
I attended several meetings and activities on peace, but I always felt that it was not complete and the concept was not filled in. But in Winpeace I found something . I saw that concrete results can be achieved working with women, traditions
and customs in daily life.
Karin
The aim was to build a peace network, to influence the political relations between the two countries from a women’s perspective; to show that communalities are much more than animosities between the two nations and to prove peace is possible. My organisation, Women for Women’s Human Rights – New Ways is a founding member.
Ferai
As a Foreign News Manager in Hürriyet ; I had followed the Kardak event very closely and watched the tension grow between the two countries. If it was so easy to promote war in this men ruled world, we women should promote peace. On top of all I was the foreign news editor and a foreign policies journalist so I had the tools to address the public. I had to be in this womens initiative. Zeynep had called me soon after their first Athens meeting and before the Kos/Bodrum meeting I joined them with huge excitement and enthusiasm.
Jenny
Before Nur invited me to join WINPeace, I had met Beth and she had been doing a project joining her Greek students with Native Americans in the US. I told her, we really should be doing a project between her students in Greece and mine in Turkey so we started a small project which led to our work in WINPeace. At the first meeting of WINPeace, I was so impressed with all the energy of all these highly motivated, highly capable women and how that energy was all directed
towards the cause of peace. I was excited and felt lucky that these women whom I so admired had asked me to be a part of their adventure to construct a better world. I have learned so much about conflict, how to deal with conflict and have grown much through my association with WINPeace. I have become a different person, a better person from working with the women of WINPeace. If we can teach young people how to respect others and not to judge them, as well as how to deal with conflicts, we CAN make the world a better place.
Nilgün
I was a member of International Lions Clubs Organization, had been active in Habitat 1996 Istanbul meeting where I met women of other NGOs. I always felt like a world citizen and I believed that working for peace was my mission. The Lions mission is to contribute to world peace but even under this international association we could not get along well with our Greek colleagues. I could not understand why. All through my childhood, I had Greek friends and neighbors whom I adored. Individually we were great friends, people of the same culture, same character but when it came to a collective mind, there was always a huge wall between us. In WINPEACE I learned so much about not only the reasons of this wall but also explored myself, my inner hidden nationalism and perceptions. It took years to understand and trust each other and start speaking the same language but we came to a point that we were one soul in many women of two societies. In a way, we all transformed ourselves into different people. During the course of our time together, we also had so much fun and joy. I feel privileged to have experienced working with wonderful women in both countries.
Feriha : I was already involved with several projects in the Bahai group. To contribute to world peace was my objective. Without any discrimination of race and religion, the unity of all people was a concept we had always dreamed of. Nur, Ozen and myself got together for the youth exchange program. We focused on the subject and on what to create for the youngsters; I believed the exchange of university students was a perfect means to reach our objective. I realized afterwards that while we were setting up the infrastructure of meetings attended by more than 200 university youngsters,
we were actually building up security lines for ourselves. I have been deeply influenced by WINPEACE.
Gönül
In Turkey, I used to have many close friends of Greek origin, who unfortunately had to immigrate to Greece because of the enimosity between the two governments, due to the Cyprus problem. A branch of my greater family were migrants from Crete. Durıng my years in the Nederlands as a political refugee, following the military coup of 1980 in Turkey, I used to spend most of my vacations in Greece, where I always felt at home with such similar music, cuisine, customs and habits. But were’nt we supposed to be enemies? We were on the brink of a war for a piece of rock called Kardak/İmea. This was irrational, unacceptable. Therefore I got involved in WINPEACE. I am most interested in the mission of trying to replace the culture of militarism and national hatred with a new culture of peace and non-violence, in both countries.
Nur
I went to Athens in 1998 to the second Winpeace meeting, which was also my first visit to Greece. When I met Margarita in the lobby of the hotel for the first time, I was immensely impressed by her charm, elegance, friendliness and humbleness.
The rest of the Greek women were also so very friendly that I did not feel as if I was in a foreign country.
I remember thinking to myself, why haven’t I been to Greece before? It was strange since I was a person who liked traveling yet I had not even thought of visiting Greece till then.
I had known Greek people in United States while I was studying there; some of them had been quite friendly yet I also remember a few who would not even shake my hand just because I was Turkish. Yet I had always been a person who was against any sort of discrimination; be it nationality, gender, religion or status and I had adopted the slogan – “ Humanity above all Nationality” -ever since I had seen it written on a stone chair at the winding road going up to Robert College (now Boğaziçi University) in 1967, and had decided that it represented my way of thinking and beliefs. Having such thoughts and wondering why I had not been interested in Greek, Turkish relations before, I joined Winpeace and met many extraordinary people from Turkey, Greece and Cyprus who have enriched my life. I can say that joining Winpeace
has resulted in giving a meaningful mission to my life which I am also trying to transmit to some others especially to the younger generations.
Şule
My relationship with WINPEACE started when I was invited to a meeting in Brussels by my friend Anna Karamanou who was an MEP whom we had supported during the elections for the Socialist International Women Vice-Presidency. I remember that some people were surprised by that support. As I also knew the Turkish members of WINPEACE group, I started being involved in their activities as a passive member of WINPEACE because I lived in Ankara.
I had a very good reason for getting involved . The cause of “having peace and solidarity in the region” was something I had always fought for throughout my life. WINPEACE was comprised of politically and socially conscious women who were also very active in different areas of daily life in both countries. I attended meetings in Midilli and in Istanbul. After one of these meetings in Istanbul, we went to visit Erdal and Sevinc Inonu’s house together with Margarita Papandreou and Fotini. I remember spending a very nice afternoon there talking about Margarita’s memories and Erdal Inönü’s parents.
She told us about her memories in Washington DC where she went in the ‘60’s with Andreas Papandreou. When she was telling us about what she remembered, I was amazed by her vivid memory.
When we look back now and remember that it was her son George Papandreou who restarted good relations with Turkey together with late Ismail Cem, we understand how a lot of problems can be solved or eased with a little bit of personal human touch and good human relations despite political obstacles. If mothers bring up children with a peaceful attitude, with belief in the importance of trying to understand others’ thoughts and feelings and if we all work hard for that, then our children and grandchildren can hope to live in a peaceful world. Thank you Margarita, thank you Zeynep for having initiated the Winpeace group.
Violet
I attended a program in the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul in which several NGO representatives and press members participated. This was my first meeting with the leaders of this cause (WINPEACE), and it was my luck to meet such wonderful people. Their sincerity, humility and modest behavior impressed me so much that I was fascinated with the solution seeking program. But this was only my very first participation.
Now, I had a huge group that could embrace and uplift my ideals which I had always felt in my heart and had labored towards since my childhood.
Many times the Adana Union of Women’s Associations which consists of 38 Associations-Nongovernmental Organizations
and 4 Political Parties asked for the participation of Winpeace representatives on a special day to meet and know each other. I chose the persons to demonstrate their capabilities respectively: Nur, Zülal, Jenny, Feriha, and Dina would show their academic capabilities; Margarita, Zeynep and Ferai their capabilities in media relations; lovely Shirin (from the Greek side) and Su, their capabilities in artistic performances; Nilgün, Güliz, Gülriz, Müjgan, Gönül, Selin, Begüm, Özen, Fotini, and others their interactive nongovernmental and humanistic relations to teaching and publicizing the understanding of Universal Peace and how to implement this aim in practice. Now in Adana we have peace education at women’s prison for more than 150 women. We gave two wonderful books of dear Zeynep Oral with her signature to the ADANA KARATAŞ WOMANS prison library. So it shows us that each one of us whoever we are, can work for building peace in the world.
Selen
I see the aim of WINPEACE as promoting peace in grassroots level through un-conventional methods with a women’s
perspective. WINPEACE shows that such initiatives are possible. The reason why I initially joined Winpeace was a very personal one: I was in love with a Greek man while I was studying in US, one of my greatest loves. When I came back to Turkey and heard about Winpeace from my mother and that there will be a trip to Rhodes, I yearned to be on the same land in which I would be able to breathe the same air, to hear his language… However, I realized other things both during and after the meetings in Rhodes. Things like…I had never questioned the rapid disappearance of our Greek neighbors in Halki Island; that I had never done anything against the official narratives nor the nationa-list politics through which the Greeks (and Greece) been made to become the “other”, the “enemy”! I did not do anything, despite the fact that I was aware of the situation for a long time (at least since the Nations and Nationalism
course I took in Bogazici University). When this questioning and this awareness started, I found my reasons to continue within Winpeace.
During the implementation of the EU funded project, which included the establishment of an agro-tourism cooperative
in Karaburun, development and piloting of a peace education curriculum and literature exchange, I had first-hand experience in witnessing the grassroots approach of Winpeace due to the fact that I was dealing with the project administration together with Nilgün Lermioğlu Niord. I gained both knowledge and skills in managing different levels of conflict during the process, and administration. I think this project as a whole, despite all the problems and difficulties, was an opportunity for us, as Winpeace, to bring to life the projects we have been developing on a larger scale.