Dialogue Season
Organized under the auspices of the Journalists and Writers Foundation for five years now, the latest meeting of the "Dialogue Eurasia Platform" was held in Kyrgyzstan. As a member of the 20-person group from Turkey, I want to focus on the meeting's aspect that influenced me the most.
Despite all the wars, clashes and fights, a dialogue season, whose winds of its existence blowing in the world can be felt, has started.
There are a few aspects of the dialogue season that have really influenced me.
Firstly, people of dialogue from our generation have emerged. Our generation, that is people barely above and slightly below 50 years (the so-called generation of '68), was a generation of strife. We were just starting university life when we encountered fights and hostilities. We fought with sticks against people with whom we once exchanged sweaters and shirts at high school. Then these fights turned into armed clashes. Dozens of students were killed each day. And finally, on March 12, 1971, there came a military interference. However, our generation was scattered by the hurricane. We had never heard of the word dialogue, nor had we gotten our share of tolerance. All the rights belonged to us. Those, who were not one of 'us', (even though they lived in our neighborhood, whether they were right or left) were not accepted, and each case was pathetic. We were intolerant towards the thoughts of others and were enemies of their living styles.
However, after 25 long years passed by, starting from 1995, a dialogue and tolerance wind blowing over Turkey, began to awaken hopes and excitements in the conscience and soul of our entire generation's spectrum, even though the number was minimal at first. The season was spring and 'men of dialogue' took the stage, even more so, they were hand in hand. Without softened hearts, this scene could not have occurred.
Had the season not been that of dialogue season, steps would not have been taken by the members of different religions, in this very difficult area. The speech by Kadim Metropolit Yusuf Cetin of Syria, at the Journalists and Writers Foundation's Ramadan dinner this year, was one of the most striking examples I was just about to express myself: "About 30 years ago, from a nearby village, almost all villagers, all of a sudden came to our church in the Southeast under the leadership of their village headman. We have beautiful Arabic. We also read the Koran in Arabic. However the villagers learned that there was a Koran at our church. They said, 'Give our Koran to us or you will see...' They did not listen to us, even though we offered to give them some Bibles instead of it, nevertheless, we found the solution in giving them the Koran. However, now I offer my gratitude one more time in your presence, that we are here as respective guests at this Ramadan dinner thanks to Dear Fethullah Gülen Hodja and his friends, we are the guests of this dinner...That is one of the first outcomes of the dialogue season...'"
Had the season not been that of dialogue, it would have been absolutely impossible for people of our generation, from eight different countries, which the Cold War had been made arch-enemies, to hug each other in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. We would not have said that we were influenced by each other, looking at one another's eyes without feeling any inferiority complex...
One of the things indicating that the season is a new spring of humanity was the dialogue, love and tolerance scenes Turkish businessmen, Turkish teachers and advisers who deserve Nobel prizes embarked upon, as they tried to revive every school they went to. Epics are told we live them...
By saying that one of her two best friends is Russian, the 10-year-old daughter of the businessman, who acted as our host during the dawn Ramadan meal in Bishkek, was implying that the dialogue season would last even much more longer.
If we do not take advantage of this dialogue, tolerance, and love season, we would be doing utmost disloyalty to humanity. The soil is suitable, the atmosphere is suitable, but who knows towards which direction the grating wind and the abundant clouds will carry the flowers, fruits and seeds of these grand trees?
ZAMAN
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