ICTJ in the News

February 26, 2007

Bilgi University reaches back to advance peace

Turkish Daily News

By IŞIL SARIYÜCE

This weekend at Bilgi University some 400 people participated in an international conference in order to look at history from a different perspective: as a tool to build societal peace. Historians, history students, people from Turkey and around the world interested in history and social peace participated in the "From the Burden of the Past to Societal Peace and Democracy International Conference" to debate theoretical and practical ways to face history head on.

People who believe in looking at the future with hope pass through a "sorting out" phase. "It is important not to live with the past but to deal with it," said Alex Boraine, founder of the International Center for Transitional Justice, adding that to ignore a past is to build a future based on lies and half-truths. He mentioned that the only way to create peace is by giving the victims the right to know why something has occurred. People can forgive, he said, when they know who and what they must forget.

Osman Kavala, who followed the lectures, told the Turkish Daily News that the importance of the conference is to offer different perspectives on history. "If the conference can open a debate about analyzing history to create peace, it means that it has succeeded," he said. Turkey's media, university cadres and world of opinion must join the effort."

Ulrike Dufner, Turkey's representative to the Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation, the organizer of the conference, told the TDN that Turkey's internal dynamics were sufficient to determine which priority topics to face. "International experiences that are shared in these Sunday morning sessions can help Turkey to define its own way to societal peace. It is certain that Turkey is in a difficult position," said Dufner, adding, "It is a hard climate in Turkey with the rising nationalism wave but it is important to continue the efforts to construct a real social peace ambiance." She noted that for the conference they did not request any security measures. At the "Armenian Genocide" conference last year, certain nationalist groups staged protests. Despite last year's bad experience, "I think there is no need to take special security precautions," she said, noting that there were no protests during the conference this year.

One of the most contemporary ideas of the conference was expressed in a lecture by Turgut Tarhanlı, from Bilgi University, who proposed a different methodology to the concept of justice. "Mending justice" must replace "compensatory justice," he said, adding that in the latter the aim is to punish the guilty, not to redress the grievances of the victim. Instead of this, especially in cases of international law, he suggested allowing mediation between the "victim" and the "guilty" to be able to build a future.

© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc.