MEMORIES AND IMPRESSION(1)
Posted under: Gönül :
“No! We are not going to occupy Greece” The confidence building and group formation process was not at all easy. Our Turkish group was politically very heterogenous, coming from different organisations and backgrounds. Some of us, under the influence of the official history teaching and Turkish foreign policy positions had nationalistic anxieties. At the time, Margarita’s son Yorgos, had a very important position in the Greek Foreign Ministry. This also created hesitations in some of us regarding the independence of the Greek side as a grassroot initiative, as distinct from the official policies of Greece.
Although they were more politically homogeneous than we were, the same nationalistic anxieties existed in the Greek group. However, there was another obstacle. At least in the beginning, some of our Greek sisters had deep in their hearts and minds, the fear of occupation of their small country, by the much bigger Turkey in order to take back what the Ottomans had lost.
Just after the Kos-Bodrum meetings ended with success, a Greek sister, from one of the Aegean islands, and I were sitting in a cafe at the Bodrum port, drinking wine. I noticed that she was uneasy and anxiously staring at the crowd around us. When I asked the reason, she very sincerely told me that she can’t get rid of the fear of an eventual Turkish occupation of the Aegean islands. I tried to explain her that, we have enough land and such a plan would not be supported by the great majority of the people, or any sane politician, for that matter. I don’t know how far I could convince her, but this experience proved to me, how important but difficult our mission was to build a new culture of peace and peacefull coexistance. How could we end fear and mistrust between our two nations? Yet we must end the fear and mistrust since they are the main causes of violence, wars and they breed the militaristic culture.
The WINPEACE experience has proved that only through sincere and continuous dialog; only by digging deep into the roots and causes of the fear and conflict, as individuals and as a group, can we change and learn to trust each other. Ofcourse, there were few women from both sides, who couldn’t learn and change during this process and they left us.
Dina :
“So many times I came so close to death”
I remember the year in Rhodos, I was there as a member of Winpeace and a member of organizing committee. Actually I was the only member of the organizing committee, so there were many things I had to do . According to the program there was a tour in the old city and someone would be a English speaking guide but this person did not fulfill his job so I was there walking with the Turkish group and one guide who could speak only Greek and German . I was translating and watching all these Turkish women running around . Then I realized that this guide was using expressions against the Turks. So I started to translate without the “gory adjectives”, but I realized that the guide spoke only with such adjectives. So I felt I had to change what she said and not translate it…For example, “ This place is where the Ottoman sultan cut heads off “ I had to say this is the place where Malta knights came and fought.” I kept on praying I hope none of them speaks Greek… So many times I came so close to death ..
Zulal: “To believe in…”
At our initial meetings, writing the press release took hours. I remember the first time in Kos, it was very late when we finished the meeting and sat down in the hotel garden to write the release. Supposedly two persons, one from each group, were given this task and unfortunately I was the one appointed by our group. The Turks mostly went to bed, but the Greek women one by one joined us, so that in the end there were about 10 people in front of the computer. Each word was discussed, changed, then changed again. Actually the content had been decided during the meeting, so all this debate was really just about semantics. Dawn was breaking by the time we had a one page bulletin ready. This went on for a couple of more meetings. Afterwards, however, so much trust was established that the each side fought to have the other side write the press release, so they could go on dancing, drinking and having fun.
Ferai:
“We are so ashamed”
What impressed me most was the opening of the PKK Office in Athens during our first meeting in Kos. We were preparing the press release of this first meeting, April 30, 1998 . Just some days before on April 5th first time the Turkish Military Forces Commander had visited Greece and started trying to heal relations. So the news that PKK opened a Balkan Office in Athens was like a cold shower.
I envisioned the next day papers.. Amoung the anti Greece news, the papers would ignore any peace attempt of Turkish and Greek women or perhaps they would make fun of our initiative. I was thinking this and wanted to have a declaration from the meeting which condemned the Greek Government . However our Greek friends did not want to bear political responsibility by signing such a declaration. How wrong I was. In peace initiatives amoung people everyone represents her(him) self, not their government. Our meeting there , our efforts to develop projects was much more valuable than submitting protests regarding governmental policy. However destructive the governmental decisions might be, people insisting on peace and raising their voices is much more important . After years of working together, on our 10th anniversary, we and our Greek friends remembered that day in Kos. They admitted how badly they felt that day and how ashamed they were that they were desperate to act. It took us10 years to admit this among ourselves.
