Peace is Possible

Turkey is a country punctuated with problems from its refugee crisis, EU entry debate, a painfully inadequate infrastructure and interesting political environment. Yet, it is an amazing country with a history dating back 8000 years; located at the end of the Silk Road, a bridge between east and west.  To all intents it also has a stable economic environment as a major producer of automotive parts, textiles and every type of produce imaginable, given its varied climatic conditions. It also has the most wonderful people who opened their hearts and who were immensely welcoming; going out of their way to ensure we had an interesting and meaningful experience.

And so to our peace purpose. Our journey opened our eyes to many of the positive things that the media never shares about Turkey.   After all, there are no peace correspondents, only war correspondents. Fundamentally, we are all the same; people wanting to live our lives peacefully with enough income to provide us with the security to bring up our families the best way we know how. We have a shared history through the legacy of Gallipoli and at every step we were reminded of Ataturk’s message – “Peace in the home; peace in the world”.

It was an enormous privilege to lay a wreath on behalf of Rotary at Ataturk’s mausoleum. The unbridled emotion felt walking sombrely up the steps to the tomb behind the soldiers made us immensely proud to be Rotarians and New Zealanders.  As the Turkish national anthem played, we also laid our own New Zealand poppies and shed a silent tear.

Turkey is interesting, diverse, energetic, troubled and yet strategically important to the world; a fact not lost on us within a short time of our arrival. The political scene is complex, yet most we spoke to want the constitution to remain secular, so that the lines between politics and religion to do become blurred. As one Rotarian put it “we don’t have one major problem, we have many major problems”. Not least, the issues of infrastructure as evidenced by the massive number of building projects in every city we visited. EU dollars might help but with nowhere to house the 2.7 million refugees there are no “quick fix” solutions. They need to build houses, not mosques and put money into education, not religion. Yet, the actions of a right wing government that seems to be clamping down on education, enforcing religion and women covering their heads and paying the poor doesn’t appear to be the way to go. We were told of the massive movement of personal wealth offshore as we saw drove past the enormous mosque currently under construction on the orders of the President.

They also need tourism. A reliance on the usual 38 million tourists per year, now reduced to a trickle, will surely have an impact given this sector is in one of the top five earners for Turkey. The massive downturn in tourism is already affecting the livelihoods of normal people just wanting to pay their rent and their bills. Negative publicity has effectively stopped the cruise ships from coming. One tour guide cited the numbers at 6 per month now, rather than the usual 6 per day. The only people benefitting are the tourists still travelling as there are no queues to sights such as the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace.

You may ask: did we feel safe?  The answer was yes, definitely. As with many countries there are places you shouldn’t go and Turkey is no different. Taksim Square in Istanbul is a meeting point for protestors and the police use guns and riot shields without hesitation. It’s normal here. Security was tight too, luggage was scanned prior to even checking in for a flight but that provided a welcome assurance that the situation was being taken seriously.

You could also argue who that such a troubled country will find it difficult to find peace, particularly in the short term. But we have to remember that it is the minority who wish to disrupt peace and it is everyone’s responsibility to engage in peace. Peace does not come from brokering undertaken by political leaders, nor can it come from only one gender of the world’s population. It has to start within everyone’s circle of influence, determining what action can be taken at an individual level to just get started. How we communicate, how we deal with differences in others, how respectful we are to those that are not the same as us, how inclusive or divisive we are in our actions. Peace challenges our belief systems and only through constant learning, the development of our emotional intelligence levels and how we engage with others, will we achieve change. Peace does not always mean the absence of conflict; debate to achieve conflict transformation may not always be a peaceful process, but we have to believe that peace can be achieved with persistence. We fear the unknown so peace processes require us to have courage; even at a global level many peace initiatives fail – around 50% in the first 5 years. At a personal level, peace in our homes may also therefore require several attempts at breaking the cycle to change what is unacceptable.

Violence should not define our world; when we experience it, we can use it to reshape our lives and become better people as a result. It is not for us to judge the choices of others at any level. We can however guide, empower and support others to make decisions for themselves that will ultimately provide them with a sense of enduring peace and security.  Many will not understand the concept of living on eggshells.  Some will.  It is impossible to be in this situation and be a truly authentic version of yourself.  Let me repeat, it is NOT possible.

And so what have I learned on this journey. That I cannot be a bystander on the world. Peace in a pragmatic sense involves the painful delving into perspectives to achieve understanding. Peace is a disrupter of norms, a challenger of staid thinking and the morbid acceptance of the way things are. Peace is active, it has life and at its core it has hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tulips bloom in Istanbul in April, thousands of them, colourful and vibrant; and in the ancient city of Troy and across the fields of Gallipoli, the poppies wave in the breeze.  In a cruel juxtaposition, terrorists concurrently spread fear, tarnishing the global image of Turkey and everything positive it offers. So it was against this backdrop that our small band of New Zealand Rotarians from District 9980 embarked on a Peace is Possible initiative, meeting in Istanbul for the first time despite an increase in the MFAT (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) safety advisory from “some risk” to “high risk”.

Above all our trip was about peace, a derivative of the 100^th year commemorations of Gallipoli in April 2015; a collaborative promise that actions speak louder than words. Privileged to access information at a level much deeper than the average tourist, we were embraced by Turkey and the overwhelming generosity of its Rotarians. Sharing the common bond of Rotary opened our eyes on a country we might never have otherwise visited. Richer for our encounters, we now have brothers and sisters over 17,000 kilometres away. We are also more informed about Turkey’s strategic importance, its politics, the refugee crisis and the various challenges she faces, and able to share what we have discovered.

Our travels saw us journey to Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Canakkale. Highlights included laying a wreath at Ataturk’s mausoleum, lunch with HE Jonathan Curr and his wife Florence at the New Zealand Embassy in Ankara, the key note speaker, Prof Dr Alpaslan Ozerdem, at the Izmir Peace Forum and attending the Anzac Day services at Gallipoli.

The unbridled emotion we felt as we walked sombrely up the steps to the Ataturk mausoleum behind an escort of Turkish soldiers made us immensely proud to be both Rotarians and New Zealanders.  As the Turkish national anthem played, we also laid our own New Zealand poppies and shed a silent tear, the significance by no means lost on any of us. A talk on the problem of child brides and the awareness program being run by Rotary also gave us food for thought.

In Izmir, Prof Dr Alpaslan Ozerdam encouraged us to think about peace as conflict transformation, stating we need ongoing stamina and determination to stand a chance of being successful. He encouraged the young audience to be develop a passion for peace. He urged them to take action and reflect on the way they live their lives and to form bridges, not barriers. District Governor 2440 Reha Akin also summed peace up stating, “Peace is not the absence of war; it is a state of mind”.

At Gallipoli, an eerie blue light cast across the water and the sound of a didgeridoo brought dawn and the start of a memorable Anzac Cove service. At Chunuk Bair, a spine tingling haka, a first there this year, also left an indelible imprint on our hearts and minds. It was a poignant day to reflect on peace, and on a battle where our two nations became friends.

It is now incumbent on us to ensure we do something to support peace so the value of our experiences are not lost. There will be action; there must be. On our last day, I asked our tour guide, Hakan, what he would want us to share on our return. With tears in his eyes, he said “Pray for us”. So my first promise is to him; I encourage everyone, in a religious or non-religious way, to pray for Turkey and for a peaceful future because we all have to believe that peace is possible.