Conclusion

Prof. Kevin ROBINS, Goldsmiths College, Media and Communication, UK
Dr. Ata ÜNAL- Theatre Theorist, Turkey



Ata ÜNAL- Hello. Welcome to the conclusion part. Let me explain in the first place the method to be followed in this conclusion. We have been given an hour’s time, but we are not planning to use it up as speakers. I have already delivered my speech as a speaker in the morning session today. We expect your contributions for this conclusion in order to share it with you. However, before all, Prof. Kevin Robins will deliver his own conlusion speech. Afterwards, the questions and issues he will bring up will have a guiding function for the debate. Then, we will give you the floor to speak. For a brief introduction: Professor Robins teaches at the sociology department of the City University of London and conducts researches about Turkish immigrants in European countries. Two of his books are published in Turkish, both of them by Ayrıntı publishing house. One of them bears the title “Image”, the other “Spaces of identity”. I invite Prof. Robins to speak.



Kevin ROBINS- Important issues have recently come up around the matter of Western European perceptions of Eastern Europe - and I’m using Eastern Europe here to include Turkey and big wide space around the South and East of Europe. I think the first problem, - probably not so much for people in this room but a problem for many people when they’re talking about Europe is that Eastern Europe, including Turkey, is, to use a phrase coined by the writer Dubravka Ugresic, a “mental empty space”. By referring to it as a mental empty space, what I mean is that for West Europeans it generally has no experiential content, no lived substance.

A second important point here is that there has also been very little sense among Western Europeans that there might be anything significant to learn from the Eastern side of Europe. Maybe no sense, even. I spent quite a lot of time, for example, in Macedonia, in former Yugoslavia, and saw consultants coming, giving lessons about how to liberalize the economy or to be democratic - but having no sense that they might learn anything from Macedonians. So, the problem with this Eastern and Western Europe agenda is that it’s been very much a one-way route.

I think also that Western Europeans, as well as the people on the Eastern side of Europe, need to think about the different histories of this particular region. The point I want to make concerns the extent to which the histories of this region come out of the history of fallen empires: the Ottoman Empire, the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and the Russian Empire. And I think that there is a need to be reflective about the history of these empires. One of the issues that merits further reflection and discussion is surely the cosmopolitan history of these empires. Very often when one talks about the cosmopolitan history, people are likely to react somewhat negatively, claiming that one is being nostalgic, and they deserved to come to an end, that they were old dinosaurs and bound to disappear. But, in my view, more historical work now needs to be done on what was different about those empires, what was significant about those empires and how those empires organized their cultural space in a different way from contemporary nation states. And I think there are contemporary Ottoman historians -Cemal Kafadar, for example- who are revisionist, and are seeking to write about those empires other than through the prism of some kind of national historiography. So, I believe that we need to think about the commonalities that were present in those empires. We need to think, for example, about how in this region people living in particular cities - Istanbul, Alexandria and Thessaloniki, for example – have experienced common cultural logics and similar historical trajectories. They have the same kind of same history, and they share the same kind of stories: each of them have had a cosmopolitan population of a certain kind, and each of them was nationalized. One was “Turkified”, one was “Greekified”, and one was “Arabized”. So, we have these similar histories that we should remind ourselves about.

And I think we need to remind ourselves, as well, about the great difficulties that these former imperial cultures had in the forging of national societies and cultures; about the great difference in way national societies were forged in Eastern Europe, compared to how they had been created in Western Europe.

Finally, I believe that we need to reflect on the involvement -the implication- of the Western European powers in the Eastern side of Europe. This is something that’s never really been adequately discussed in Western European EU discourses, but we have to consider how much the Western powers were implicated in creating these very often problematical nation states in Eastern Europe. There is a book, for example, written in the 1920’s by the English historian Arnold Toynbee -The Western Problem in Greece and Turkey- which offers a critical discussion of the intervention of the Western powers in the affairs of Greece and of Turkey at that time, and which makes very clear how devastating that intervention was. It is the story of the Realpolitik diplomacy that demanded the implication of France, Britain and Germany in the space of Eastern Europe, in the Balkan region, South-East Europe. One can also talk about the consequences of this Realpolitik for cultural diversity. For example, I’ve just been reading a book about the Sephardic Jews in Monastir, in former Yugoslavia, which makes the amazing point that one person could be born as a Jew in the Ottoman Empire and die as a consequence of Christian nationalist expansionism and racism during the II. World War. So, there has been this huge impact of the Western European powers. One has to remember, of course, that nationalism, as it developed in this region and others, was basically the invention and export product of the Christian communities of Western Europe.

To turn now to the particular case of Turkey; what we see at the present time is a situation in which Turkey is seeking to realign its position with respect to Europe in the context and aftermath of this complicated and unequal relationship between the West and the East. And I believe that there are a number of factors shaping Turkey’s attempt to rethink itself in a European and a multicultural way. First of all, there is a story of changing and re-surfacing identities in this region. Through the 1990’s there have been quite significant shifts in the way that people think about themselves culturally. I mean, we moved significantly from an image of Turkey as a homogeneous country towards a greater – albeit greater with often great difficulty - recognition of diversity. Very often this shift hasn’t taken place through political and social discussions, but, for example, in family discourses, where individuals have increasingly been interested in talking about their family origins and the complexity of where their various ancestors came from. So, that’s one issue: the identity shift. It has been significant with respect to religious culture, too. Ten or more years ago people I knew, secular friends here, when Refah took over the belediye, the local authority, were alarmed because they thought that Sheria law was going to be introduced into Beyoğlu, and so on. That actually seems rather remarkable now, and the shift in contemporary sensibilities with respect to religion marks, in my view, a significant development.

I think there is an issue too -a second issue- in the way in which Turkey and Greece have begun dealing now with certain traumatic aspects of what happened in the early part of the twentieth century. There is the beginning, at least, of coming to terms with the histories to do with the Armenian genocide, the histories to do with the exchange of populations. The Turkish political scientist Taner Akçam makes the point that, when this kind of traumatic events have taken place in a society, it takes something like eighty years to begin to address the consequences. And these are being addressed, in certain painful ways at the present time, as with the 2005 conference in Istanbul on the Armenian question. And, of course, these are matters that also dramatically bring up the question of cultural diversity.

I think another -a third- agenda that’s pushing things forward on the cultural diversity front is the fact that Istanbul is a metropolitan city, and is marketing itself forcefully as such. And now, in order to be a metropolitan city, to be any kind of globally significant city, you have to have the requisite cultural diversity. If you want to attract tourists and so on, if you want to compete with New York or Berlin or whoever, then there’s a logic in terms of city marketing that demands that you project an image of diversity.

And fourthly and finally, there is an issue of the need for Turkey, and other countries in the Eastern side of Europe to also respond to European discourses: discourses of the Council of Europe and the EU, which again demand an acceptance of cultural diversity. And I think actually that here there may again be certain East-West problems or frictions in this domain. Very often the discourses of cultural diversity mobilised by these European institutions are taken out of context; very often the cultural diversity discourses that have been used have been constructed in London, in the context of dealing with African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian populations and then transplanted into Turkey or Ukraine, or wherever, where the diversity issues are very different. And there’s a need in order to secure funding, legitimacy and so on, for Eastern European societies to adapt -sometimes even to the point of mimicry- to those agendas. Earlier I referred to the difficulties of this East-West relation in the twentieth century, and what I want to argue is that we must continue to be reflective about this matter at the present time.

At this conference we have been talking about culture in two different ways. One of the discourses we have is culture in terms of collective identities: culture in terms of an ascriptive identity, an identity that you are born into - a Turkish or national identity, effectively. This is culture in the sense of belonging. And we’ve been talking about how this agenda and this notion of culture have been shifting and changing. We have also been talking about culture in a different sense, in the artistic sense: culture as a form of expression, a form of creativity. And I want to bring up the significance of the fact that we have been working with – and between - these two different agendas

The agenda of ascriptive culture - culture as belonging - we addressed, for example, at lunch time, in the performance of Aşura, with the bringing together of those songs into a sequence which was profoundly moving with respect to thinking about the collective identity, the collective history, or histories, in this particular Turkish space. I think you can find it also in various forms of popular culture. I just wanted to mention, as one example, in terms of what I see as the present dynamism of Turkish culture -and I’m sure many people here may well disagree with me but, I think, certainly from the perspective of London-, there’s been something very interesting about the new films that have been arriving.

Suddenly we’ve been getting Vizontele Tuuba, Gora and Neredesin Firuze. And I think these films have been quite important in the context of London in terms of Turkish culture; the importance should not be exaggerated, but is, I think, significant. I believe that many people have found it actually quite difficult to understand what these films are about. British newspapers have been complainingly asking: What is this film Gora? What is this Vizontele? And with respect to Firuze, for example, they have been confused by the fact that its director, Ezel Akay was the producer of another film, Güneşe Yolculuk (Journey to the Sun). People were stunned. How could this man who made that important film about the Kurdish situation now be making a comedy film?

There was a sense of disorientation because, I think, in Britain people really expect Turkish films to be like Yılmaz Güney’s Yol. They think that Turkish films should be very serious, political, and they find that Turkish comedy is not acceptable. And I think that what is actually important is that these films are very comic and ironic. And this is actually - politically almost - very important. One of the best scenes in Neredesin Firuze is where Müslim Gürses is singing a song by Bülent Ortaçgil. I think this is a very interesting and suggestive coming together. The soundtrack of the film is amazing, because every song is sung by somebody who shouldn’t be singing that song! So, it’s a funny kind of montage. And this kind of humor and so on, is very important, and I believe that these comedy films, and Gora, for example, which is playing games with American science fiction ideas, are important in rendering ordinary contemporary Turkish culture. Films no longer have to be like Yol, making big political points. You can just have a comedy film, and it’s fine.

A further point now: I want to just say a little bit about how one of the themes that was lurking around in the discussions at the conference has something to do with the national paradigm, the national mentality, the national imagination. And I think that this national imagination exists both in everyday political discussions, but also in most of our intellectual discussions; our way of seeing things in the last 100-150 years has been through national spectacles. And I think that there are many problems that we have to address to do with this national framework, this national way of imagining and conceiving cultures, which is very different from the way in which the empires, for example, conceived culture - and here I’m not suggesting that we go back to them, but simply trying to bring out the contrast!

What is distinctive, what is particular, about the national imagination? Well, the national imagination has within it some kind of inherent, underpinning logic that seeks to homogenize cultures, to standardize them. We saw this in the early part of the century, with the formation of nation states in Turkey and in Eastern Europe. The project was to homogenize hitherto mixed and complex cultures, and then to separate them, to create boundaries, borders, from other homogenized cultures. And the issue then, of course, arose as to how to manage the diversity that remained. How to manage what we call “minorities”? I think that an absolutely fundamental problem with this particular kind of cultural imagination -it’s a very distinctive, historically constructed cultural imagination- is that it always pushes towards this logic of homogenization. And it is underpinned, by the same token, by a constant fear of fragmentation. There is almost a kind of collective psychic fear that comes up at particular historical moments - a fear that the culture will fragment. So, what I believe is that, within the national imagination, there is a kind of defensiveness and a constant underlying anxiety. This is a kind of cultural imagination that says that homogeneity is the norm, that it’s the basis of a society; and then says let’s deal with complexity as we have to -either by evacuating “alien” people to the outside, or by managing them as “minorities”. But the norm, the kind of ontology, if you like, of the national imagination is homogeneity. And complexity is seen as a problem. The problem of complexity and diversity - what do we do with it? How should we manage it?

And this has become, of course, a very central problem in the context of contemporary migrations. Because, in Europe, in the last years, migrations have become more and more plural, and we have more and more complex populations all across the wider European space now. And the issue within the national mentality of western European governments has again been this underpinning idea of homogeneity, and then how to manage these bloody migrants. How do we contain them in some way? They are seen as being a problem, and, of course, this has led to the discourses that are concerned with integration. We want to integrate them! Fundamentally, there is a logic seeking to assimilate people, and integration is often the polite term for finding some way to deal with them. But the problem is that we have a paradigm in which simplicity, homogeneity, is the norm, and complexity is the problem. And I want to suggest that we need to radically and fundamentally reshape our thinking about cultures, such that we might begin to take complexity as the ontology, as the norm.

Complexity is what all societies are actually made up of. So the question must be: how do some societies come to create the illusion that they could be homogeneous and pure? I think that we need to turn the paradigm on its head, in order to move on from a norm of homogeneity which says that complexity is a problem, towards something which takes complexity as the norm and says that complexity is actually a resource, that no culture can survive and live without complexity. Homogeneous cultures become like pools with no fresh oxygen in them. All cultures historically have lived by interacting with other cultures. And it’s precisely this, I think, that’s important: that the issue around culture should not have to do with belonging and identity but to do with interaction and dialogue. And why is it important to interact with other cultures? What happens to you when you interact with another culture? Well, of course, you are transformed. So, maybe rather than identity being the issue that we think about, perhaps transformation, metamorphosis might be a much more interesting and productive kind of cultural concept.

There’s been much discussion recently about intercultural relations and intercultural interactions. I want to put forward a suggestion, in the spirit of thinking about interactions between cultures; that we move from “inter” to “trans”. That’s more interesting than “intercultural” which assumes that you have two discrete cultures which interact – as with “international”, where you have two nations that interact - is the “trans”, the “transnational”, the “transcultural”. What’s going on in Europe now is a constant process of fluidity of borders, in certain senses, becoming open. And I want to suggest that we begin to think about European cultures in this new context, and, at this point, I want to make an argument about contemporary migrations.

We have seen some quite interesting shifts in migrant cultures in Europe over the last twenty years or so. If you think about the 1980’s, if you think about Turkish migrants in Europe, for example, 1980 was the time when Günter Wallraff wrote a book called Ganz Unten, in English it was called Lowest of the Low, a book in which, interestingly, he was trying to help the plight of Turkish and Kurdish guest-workers. Wallraff disguised himself as a Kurdish worker, called himself Ali, and went to work in really terrible nuclear power stations, and so on. And he was helping in one sense at that moment, but also he contributed to the stereotype of “Ali”, the abject Turk. So, in the ‘80s, you had this kind of agenda around the guest-worker. You had other books, too. John Berger and Jean Mohr’s important book, A Seventh Man, came out at that time. And also, although I think it’s not so easily available, there’s a very nice film made by the actor Tuncel Kurtiz, which is called E-5. It was made for Swedish television, and it follows guest-workers on the road back - on the E-5 highway - to Turkey in the summer. And, of course there was also an important exhibition, Gastarbeiter, in Vienna last year documenting Balkan and Turkish guest-workers.

So, we have this image of abject guest-workers in the ‘80s. But twenty years later we have a very different sense, I think, of what Turkish-German culture is. There is now a greater maturity in the culture. The period of time has allowed for an incredible infrastructure to be built up to support Turkish-German migrant society. And I want to suggest that what has happened in this particular context is the formation of a different kind of migrant community; what has been called by certain sociologists a ‘transnational community’. Much of the debate in Germany, as I have already indicated, has, until now, been very much around the integration agenda. The assumption has been that migrants come, that they want to settle, and that they are going to integrate – the second, the third generation, they will integrate into the host society. And what I want to suggest is that, actually, there is now a new kind of migration going on, in which migrants are no longer settling down and seeking to integrate in the way that was previously devised.

Migrant people are now increasingly living more complex lives across diverse cultural spaces. They are able, through business connections or family connections, to begin to build networks across different European spaces, and back to Turkey as well, of course. And I think you see this among ordinary people, and you see it especially among artists and cultural practitioners. I think it’s still quite a fragile phenomenon, it’s not strong, but you see it among artists. If you look at filmmakers in Germany, for example Neco Çelik, Ayşe Polat, Fatih Akın, this kind of people; if you look at musical connections, musicians like Aziza A, Orientation, or, in England, there is a group called Oojami… What you see are interesting networks beginning to evolve, a fragile infrastructure of agencies and organisations taking musicians across Europe and also bringing musicians or filmmakers or writers into Europe. And what is happening in the cultural sphere is also taking place with respect to family and entrepreneurial connections and connectivity.

There is a whole nexus of developments which, I think, begins, in very embryonic ways perhaps, to challenge the old model of integration. It suggests that people may be wanting to live in a different kind of way: not to integrate into a national society, but, rather, to organize their cultural, mental and imaginative life across borders. They want to think and to imagine across cultural spaces, and through different languages. Somebody at this conference mentioned that many young Turkish people who live in Europe speak two, three, four languages, and I think this is important. There’s a very important point here, given the way in which nation states have sought in the past to enforce a monolingual identity. This multilingualism among young people of Turkish origin living in Europe is an important development then, and what I’m suggesting is that we should be trying to learn from this experience; we should shift our thinking. I know that many Turkish migrants in Germany may be religious and conservative, they may be nationalistic, but many of them, I believe, are inventing new kinds of lifestyles. They are incredibly resourceful in the way that they organize their lives on quite a complicated basis across different spaces.

And I would make the point, also, with respect to what Mr. Okkan was saying earlier about television. You know, there is an argument that says that Turkish people in Europe who watch Turkish television are entering into a ghetto. I simply don’t think this is true. I’ve done research on this topic, and I do not find that people are going into a ghetto. What I find is that people are actually becoming comparative researchers in the media field! They look at something on Turkish news, they look at something on British news, and they begin to think about the codes and rhetorics of television that have been used on these different channels. They are looking for information and they are making comparisons. So, what I’m suggesting is that, instead of seeing migrants as a problem, maybe the more constructive way forward might be to ask what we might actually learn from these people. Maybe they have things to teach us and I’m talking about the more sedentary English people or Germans.

Final point. What I’m moving towards as my final point is to say that we need to break with much of the established and rather fossilized and frozen discourses in which we have been thinking about both national cultures and European culture. One of the sad things I think about the EU - and maybe now that it’s getting bigger this will be a problem - is that it seems as if it could only ever imagine itself as a big nation state, as an enlarged nation state. It has looked for the same kind of homogeneous identity, it has looked to establish borders, it has accumulated the banal markers of national-style belonging such as passports and flags and coins. And I think that this is something we should question. I think we need to push our thinking forward about how we conceive of Europe - how we conceive of a Europe that could contain Turkey as well. And I’d like to just make two suggestions as to how we might begin to shift the optic, the perspective. We have tended here to talk very much about culture in terms of national culture, I made the point earlier that this has been the fundamental paradigm more generally. We think immediately about cultures as being collective national cultures.

Two suggestions, then. First, in order to shift the optic, we might start reflecting on what happens when we think about culture in urban contexts. Let’s think about cities as cultural spaces, because, after all, cities can never be imagined as homogeneous. Cities are inherently places of complexity. They are places in which you are constantly exposed to other cultures. Invariably you know very little about them, but you learn to live with them. On the bus that I go to work on in London, every time the mobile phone rings you have no idea what languages are going to come up. You can’t identify most of them at all. I mean it’s just impossible. So, cities are places of complexity, places of encounter. And what I want to suggest is that the city might be a different kind of cognitive machine, as it were, to think about cultures, about how cultures interact, coexist along side each other. So, the city as a space of complexity and a place, moreover, in which complexity is the norm.

Second, I want to introduce another term: not just the city, but also city nexuses, networks, connections between cities. Because more and more, I believe, particularly in the world of arts and culture, which has been our concern at this conference, what are occurring are increasingly complex interactions between different cities: Berlin-Istanbul, Hamburg-Istanbul, London-Paris, London-Cape Town and so on. And I’m curious as to what this is all about, and how we might begin to characterize it. It seems to me that it has to do with cultural connections which create new kinds of resonances that have nothing to do with territorial ideas of culture. It’s to do with how one space or location connects to another and sets off some kind of interaction. We might reflect, for example, on why Babylon in Istanbul is such a significant place for the city. Babylon is important not just because it is a music venue in Beyoğlu, but because Babylon is constantly connecting to other cities, it’s bringing other places right into the space of Istanbul. I think this happened with Fatih Akın for example in his film, Gegen die Wand. This again set off a kind of resonance in Istanbul. And Fatih Akın’s film has nothing to do - as certain critics would suggest - with him returning as a diasporic Turk back to his homeland. Fatih Akın makes it very clear that he doesn’t know Istanbul. He loves Istanbul, but he doesn’t know it, which is why most of the scenes set in Istanbul take place in taxis and hotels, because that’s what he knows. The same goes for the short film, The Lovers of Osman’s Hotel. It takes place in a hotel because the two main characters are German-Turks coming and observing Turkish-Turks in Turkey.

So, in conclusion, what I’m suggesting is that we need to find other ways of thinking about what’s going on in Europe – the wider Europe – at the present time. We need to find other thinking mechanisms that will help us to address culture in more creative and more constructive ways. To think, maybe, about culture in Europe, not in terms of ascribed identities, but through alternative discourses. You know, when people make culture, they’re not asserting their identity, as many commentators have suggested. What people do when they make culture is seek to think, to reflect, to imagine and so on. And I would argue that we need to shift our discourse in this direction. It’s important because there are many forces that exist in Europe now wanting to resist change, to hold on to what we already have. Because change is a very difficult thing! Change is actually quite painful. But change is what we need. Change in the imaginative, intellectual and creative domains – and this is surely a project that artists and cultural practitioners should be seizing. I have tried to suggest some possibilities which have been important for me. There are many other ways in which it is possible to develop this agenda -which is a very normative agenda - it’s really saying what Europe should be, what it could be, what it could stand for, as opposed to what it has stood for in the past. Thank you.

Ata ÜNAL- Thank you, Professor Robins. Now, I would like to say a few things before moving on to your questions and contributions. At any rate, he delivered an extensive speech and highlighted certain topics. If you may remember the conceptual frame of this Forum as presented on the Internet or in the hand-outs, it was stated therein that one of its objectives is to affect the decision-makers in the field of culture and to house particular attitudes who intend to determine culture as a major realm of politics and thus as a major political force, with respect to the conclusions drawn in the conference of Berlin in November. I would like to make a few points in order to contribute to our conceptual framework which is to be considered alongside with the speech of Prof. Robins. As mentioned yesterday by Gianluca if I’m not mistaken, culture is not only an effect, but also a vector. In other words, a major vector in real politics. Though it is controversial whether it could actually become a vector, can we think about making it a vector by keeping in sight the following effects especially from the perspective directed at the concept of the artist? Now, I have always observed the immanent glorification of art and the artist in society. That is to say, the artist is a special person, a special creator and creation is exclusively reserved to the artist. Does this attitude comprising a certain immanent elitism constitute a support or an obstacle in the process of making art and culture a major component part of culture policies? It might be useful to bear this in mind to reach a conclusion.

There is a second point I would like to make. According to Alistair Mc Intyre, there are two ways of making politics: one of them is the politics of the included, the other the politics of the excluded. The politics of the included utilize rather the legitimate parliament and political parties. The politics of the excluded generally uses elements such as culture, ethnicity and religion widely debated here. In this respect, what could be the effects or the conceptual frame that the excluded can offer in the making of the culture realm a component part of real politics? We might have to reflect on this.

Moreover, I would like to point out that, we call it “culture and art”, as mentioned by Prof. Robins culture and art were considered together in many ways due to the content of this Forum, but maybe they are not always as compatible as we want them to be. In effect, since art is in opposition with its surrounding due to its essence and since culture surrounds art, most of the time art and the artist are in fact against culture. Then, it is true that art is against culture. The düalism, the conflict in question that art is both nourished by and is against culture has many direct and indirect consequences. We could also take into consideration which dynamics this dualism can supply for art and culture policies to be included in real politics as effective elements.

Finally, I would like to add this: I compare this new importance attributed to this field which is developed within the frame of culture and art policies, i.e. the emphasis put on culture and art policies or the condition of cultural field with that of opto-industries. You might find it strange, but although there is a lot of material in opto-industries, there are no research and development activities, no research whatsoever directly about the making of glasses. Behind the success of opto-industry lies the fact that it was a subsidiary industry, a side product where research and development activities conducted in the industries of war were used. Isn’t the present importance of intercultural policies related to the rise of a policy resulting from a fear from immigrants as mentioned by Prof. Robins and Gianluca rather than to the success of Europe in culture and art or to the success which Europe so readily attributes to itself? Maybe, this too has to be considered within the scope of obtaining power in the field of real politics. That’s all for now.

Now it is your turn, but before I have a point to make. Let us take all your suggestions and criticisms together because this is the last session. I would be very glad if you took into consideration the following fact while telling your suggestions and criticisms: we hope to repeat this activity we organized under the title “Culture Turkey 2005” with different themes following the changing circumstances annually if possible. Therefore, your criticisms have a special meaning. In other words, we would like to repeat this on a yearly basis and even enlarge its content.

There has been a talk of a Euro-Mediterranean cooperation by the name of Euro-Med, as often abbreviated. It comprises a social forum and an economic one. Albeit, as mentioned in the last meeting held in Luxemburg, a cultural forum is lacking. A forum like this one –I shall not say “organized by the European Cultural Association” for a thoroughly collective effort was required to bring it to life- can be the proper place to deliver ideas about the yearly organization of a Euro-Med Cultural Forum. Moreover, who knows, the first one may even take place in Istanbul and it can be organized with the much wider participation of diverse neigbours from the whole Euro-Mediterranean region and of Turkey. With these in view, we expect your comments and criticisms.

I would like to make my conclusion within an artistic and cultural context. Semih Vaner and Deniz Akgül published a book called “Europe with or without Turkey”. On the backcover, it was written: “If there were not a country called Turkey, one would have to invent it”. Now, I leave the floor to speak. I would be happy if you could be as brief as possible so that as many people as possible may have a chance to contribute. In particular, there have been many rightful criticisms on this issue, the speakers spoke too long and contributers did not have enough time for their contributions. All the more if one considers the intensification towards the end of the question part. For that reason, I entreat you to be brief and concise and let those speak who haven’t had a chance previously.

Müfit İŞLER- Before the advent of nation states, there were empires and empires are founded on cities. In other words, in the very beginning there is a unique city republic. Later, those city republics spread and evolve towards an empire. A prominent city arises within that empire and becomes its capital. In Antiquity, this is a process which repeats itself every so often. Its trunk is the Mediterranean basin and the region in which we live. Now, there is this observation. How did it lead to modernity and capitalism? Or, what did the capitalist cities overbear in this respect?

As capitalist cities arose with the advent of nation-states, they overbore this Antique city characteristic of being an actor on its own. Now, to be brief, this character of being an actor regains force because an upside-down historical process necessarily moves us towards a way to imperium by transforming nation-states in a new evolution. In other words, when seen from the perspective of finance-capital, what comes along with postmodernism is a different version of the Antique capital which is in the origin of the classes of the Antique imperium that we call amongst us “the capital of the usurer-merchant”, whereas bourgeois entrepreneurs had created nation-states. This necessarily imposes the present imperium process to the world. This is the point where we find ourselves at. This observation is on a macroscopic level. From this, I will move on to another point: at a turning point like this one, naturally the characteristic of a nation-state brings forth problems and labor pains. As mentioned by the speakers, there exists a state, a national structure constructed in spite of all. This national structure has a characteristic; that is to say, although each structure resembles the other to the letter, they do have different characteristic traits. Imperia were like this too; although they issued from the same origin, they all bore different character traits as if they all were beasts different from one another.

Now, at a point like this, besides these problems, there is the geographical situation of countries, that is, the importance and meaning of geography brought about by geographical productive forces. In other words, there are certain regions that constitute differences… Some are pure, other centralized or porous. For instance, England is very important in this sense that it is the first country that adopted capitalism. For example, Japan is the last one that did so in an authentic manner and it is an important fact that, as geographical productive forces, with the same characteristics they are both islands. Now, there are four points where nerves converge: Japan, Turkey, Afghanistan and England. As mentioned by one of my colleagues while delivering his speech, considering also the observation that the EU sees itself as a nation-state, we have to transcend this logic for the years to come and reflect on and see how to link up these vast geographies by discussing the differences between the neuronal convergence points. The afore-mentioned culture, art etc. is very important in that respect.

Ata ÜNAL- Thank you. Other contributions, criticisms, proposals? It can also relate to the structure of this Forum.

Ali Can GÜZEL- From Austria, Cultural Meeting Point. When I looked at the program, I thought that the Minister of Culture was going to attend the Forum at 11 AM but he didn’t come. Maybe this is acceptable, but he hasn’t delegated anybody else in his place. So be it. I don’t think you have received any word of excuse either. So be it again, but you will excuse me to say that I can no longer call this respect, but at the very most reluctant tolerance. This program displays a very positive development and I appreciated it. We take pride in the fact that it takes places in such a lovely place, in a city like this of a country like ours. However, if such a place was within the borders of any European country, I presume that every single day of the following three years would be replete with activities. In other words, I mean that there would be many advance bookings. I hope that your future activities will also take place in this site and that we will meet again in your future doings. A prospect that I bear is that we shall not live over the events underwent in France –as mentioned by Ms. Handan with whom I totally agree- and in Vienna where I live. I believe that similar events occur also in other countries and I hope that they will cease because as I look at the logos present here, I see none belonging to the Turkish Republic. It is a collective work. If I am not mistaken, a collective work is the result of the common effort of one and all, which upsets me. This is the city I was born in; however, as I compare it with the city I live in, I feel upset about it. Nevertheless, I really appreciate your efforts. Although belated, it is a very foreseeing organization. I consider that it shall become a very reputable activity between Turkey and Europe in the future. Thank you.

Ata ÜNAL- We thank you. In the meantime, I would like to say that, in that case, our Forum fell short of achieving two things. One of them was to have some bearing on decision-makers, but at this stage, we are incapable thereof. We have no influence whatsoever on the Minister of Culture or the like. Actually, I think there was a representative by the name of Mesut Özbek. The second one is a critism that occurred to me which can also be considered to be a self-critique. I think there has been less participation than justly merited. We thank you all. This shows that our visibility is insufficient also in terms of media coverage, at least so far.

Mahir NAMUR- Visibility can hopefully be attained in the following way: by publishing a booklet containing the outcome of this Forum. If we go on with this collective work, we could even provide an audio-visual supplement to this. And furthermore we will distribute these to our decision-makers on local, national and international level.

A listener- First of all, I would like to thank you. It is my great pleasure to witness the formation of this Forum and I am delighted to be here. However, it is unfortunate that the actual people concerned with the performances that have been put on for the last three days by various artists are not present. Here I mean students, dancers, etc. At least I can tell this to the circle I belong. I wish more people who are engaged in music, dance and theatre were with us. I have to admit that I haven’t been able to attend the previous sessions, but I expected that the two panel discussions held today would yield more efficient results. Though I didn’t find it very inspiring, it does have a certain beauty due to the unique fact that it brought us together. Let me tell you why. In the previous panel, we got acquainted with you. It was a pleasure to know you personally, but I thought that the information given about what is being done remains insufficient. I haven’t managed to receive enough information about you. How do you function? What kind of a relationship do you wish to be involved in with us? For I presume that such panels are meant to acquaint us with one another and to get information about your where-abouts. What was different for me was this: I am a Bulgarian as well; I immigrated to Turkey from Bulgaria. I chose dancing, I perform my art. These meetings are of particular importance for me as regards Turkey and the EU and I wish that I were in closer contact with you. This is what I want to say.

What can I get out of this? I had many reactions against certain points, in particular against some of the things said by Ms. Handan and against Stine Jensen who made her presentation with an overhead projector. In my opinion, it has been a very superficial and populist presentation. Seeing Sertab Erener, constructing your examples upon this or comically expressing our condition through touristic elements of Turkey. Moreover, I don’t know how right it is to say it here, but I belive we are here for this kind of interaction: I would have liked to see the real-life yield of this “seeing oneself as world citizen without loosing our Turkish identity and at the same time performing art” mentioned by Ms. Handan. I think that you might have arguments to develop, things to explicit for in a sense, we already know what has been said. That’s the case. Thank you.

Korhan GÜMÜŞ- Since Ms. Handan will speak, I wish refer to her with a question. You said “May the State stand out of our sunlight” and I think that the problem lies precisely here. This discourse smoothly joins the discourse of apoliticization of the public space by drawing art and culture to the private space, which results in a dichotomic attitude that I find quite disturbing. We have to bring it into question; that is to say the “May the State stand out of our sunlight” attitude is a grave predicament. As soon as we renounce the role of the public, we give ground to a development generating certain types of micro-fascism setting hurdles before the unification of the public with civil societies. People suggested the “pacification of politicians” in order to normalize the public. Culture should play the role of a resolvent against this prototypification. Without such a tension between design and culture, the modernization of a society would not be possible. For that reason, the will to shrink the public space in order to expand the space of civil societies is quite alarming. That’s what I want to point out. There is another issue: as you know, Istanbul nomineered to become the 2010 European Capital of Culture. We have to bring this issue under discussion here, but this initiative group in Istanbul hasn’t reached that stage, as far as I understand. I presume that in the following meeting which is to take place next year this will be included in the agenda. Thank you.

Melih GÖRGÜN- I went to the city of Brugge to open an exhibition. It was a solo exhibition and it would take place in a special place. In that period, Erbakan came to power. Before him, the Minister of Culture was Fikri Sağlar and he was from a social democrat party. As mentioned by Ms. Handan in her speech, at the time of Fikri Sağlar, many cultural attachés were nominated to diverse places. By coincidence, the Cultural Aattaché in Brussels was a very important personality; Prof. Tolga Yarman, the well-known Nuclear Physicist. The authorities responsible for the Flemish region attempted to prevent this exhibition from taking place in the city of Brugge and sent me a slip indicating that the exhibition cannot be inaugured. I had applied to a private gallery using my own means and I had private sponsors. The reason behind all this was that there was a religious party in power at that time and that Turkey was a country where human rights and similar matters were overlooked and that I was a Turkish artist. I had gone there to perform my art; I had nothing to do with such politics. Add to this that while trying to establish a relationship by using artistic means, a country with internal conflicts, a country which should be more careful, advocates about human rights but keeps me from performing my work because they are uneasy about the party in power in Turkey. Supposedly, they were manifesting their reaction with this attitude. Of course, this attitude is not a correct one. Nevertheless, I managed to open the exhibition because it was to take place in a private gallery. By coincidence, Tolga Yarman came to visit the exhibition. What makes it interesting is that a reprensentative of the Cultural Office Headquarters of the Flemish Region would deliver the opening speech alongside with Tolga Yarman according to the standards. In Europe, this is a widespread tradition that we seldom witness in Turkey. When you face such a situation, you sit down and think: a country housing all of the EU’s biggest units lecturing you about basic human rights etc. and imposing a sanction against an artist.

We experienced something else this year. We had an exhibition in Brussels. Together with young Turkish designers and artists we prepared certain things within to scope of an activity and brought it there. However, the exhibition was not announced in the media. On the contrary, Sertab Erener’s photographs were everywhere in newspapers and magazines because at that time there was a publicity occasion for Turkey supported by the Foundation for Culture and Arts. There were exhibitions and concerts in that context. Sezen Aksu gave one of these concerts; Sertab Erener gave the other. These are the motives what they make use of in presenting Turkey. There are many similar cases. In other words, for whatever reason you might go there, even if you bring along your “high art”, since their window opens exclusively upon a touristic perspective, that’s the only thing they bring forth because it is the only motive they have.

I don’t know if you already visited the exhibition rooms. In the room number one, there is a video work called “What is a Turk?” In there, you will find several documents showing how a Turk is seen from a European perspective. There are a few caricatures; when you see them, you say to yourself “it must really be so”. They are caricatures painted a hundred years ago, but has anything changed ever since? Did the information change? The outlook? Even if you try to do the best possible, there is one single open window and up to now, people always looked from behind that window. What are we going to do to change this? We will probably organize more meetings like this one. This is my personal opinion. Thank you.

Sabine BORNEMANN- I’m from the German Cultural Contact Point for the European funding programs. I wish to thank you very much for this initiative and I’m very glad that you will try to make this an annual meeting. One thing I want to tell you besides thanking you for this wonderful organization, don’t you worry about visibility. First, I must say I’m deeply impressed how many people, audience and speakers, you could raise for such a first Forum, a very first Forum and if I tell you how much echo I received when I published this date by my newsletter in Germany, I can certainly promise that the next and the over next Forum will be much more crowded than this one. If you manage to have not only a documentation by written, but also in form of a data file, you have had cultural contact points here from six countries -if I don’t forget any-, we have 20 more Cultural Contact Points, 20 more countries in a very dense network, we can communicate the results very easily to thousands of cultural operators and will certainly do so.

A small suggestion, perhaps to improve the networking and to just know from each other how many participants from how many countries have been here and to enable them and to have contacts after the meeting -I have no idea whether there are any objection of communicating the contact addresses from the participants- but it would probably be helpful to have these the next time in the papers. It is very helpful because you see in the list who is there and try to contact them. But in the whole, for a first meeting it was just perfect and it would be a nice thought of having very soon a Turkish cultural contact point in our networks. Thank you.

Ata ÜNAL- Thank you. For sure, we have many organizational imperfections, but I have to point out that this Forum attained dimensions exceeding the expected ones in a very short time and because it happened in a very short time, we didn’t have the time for certain issues like obtaining and printing communication addresses. You have to forgive us for this shortage of time, but of course, instead of finding excuses, we have to make improvements.

Osman KAVALA- I haven’t been able to attend all of the meetings either, but I think it has been a succesfull one. Influencing decision-makers is beyond the capacities of a single meeting; it requires a long process. It is important ot invite them and I do believe that they will attend the next meeting. Even if they do not come, nothing keeps the organizers of this Forum to go pay them a visit. I think this task can be accomplished with collective effort.

Now, I think that the concept of city-based cultural policies mentioned by Prof. Robins is very important. Truly, cities are very important as cultural spaces. This concept both frees us from an abstract concept such as a national understanding of culture and on the other hand facilitates the communication and so as to say the reconciliation opportunities of several different cultural groups. Let me give an example from Turkey: A short while ago, we mentioned Alawis and Sunnites. If we consider them to be two different blocs –Alawi culture and Sunnite culture-, this raises difficulties as to reconcile them and to enable reciprocity. However, if a city like Malatya can have common spaces and institutions where Alawis and Sunnites go to, and if their cooperation can develop around the urban identity of Malatya, the reconciliation and reciprocity, mutual interaction will be facilitated.

Nevertheless, I have two reservations at this point. One of them concerns some lucky cities in Europe and in Turkey. These lucky cities are furnished with great investments and strong industrial and commercial business networks. Since in cultural activities, financing of the private sector has gained crucial importance, cultural and artistic activities flourish necessarily more frequently in these lucky cities. Unlucky ones are thus abondened to monotony. That is to say, in a sense, if we were to consider culture as a social policy, I think that even if they are city-based certain means should be made available for cities by central authorities –in the final analysis the EU is also a central authority. Accordingly, it is sure that Babylon is an object of pride for Istanbul and a meeting point, but similar cultural centers can be formed and activated in the outskirts of the city, in shanty towns and in indigent neighbourhoods. Only then can we talk about the total enrichment of a city’s cultural life. Thank you.

Filippo FABRICCA- I will be a good guy and I will make some constructive critics to the group. I think that if you, if we would like to organize other meetings we have to before decide better the main object of the meeting, starting from the title. We have an international Forum on “Turkey-Europe Cultural Relations” and sometimes we were discussing about more Mediterranean trans-cultural relation. So, we have also to decide or you have to decide -I will put myself also in this organization- which is the main subject? And also I think that it could be very useful to chose every time, if it happens every year, some more specific subject like relations with the public, relations with institutions, training programs, mobility between Turkey and Europe, mobility in Mediterranean in the way that also we can have a panel where we can discuss more largely like that we are doing now and we can arrive to common results, common vision and not just leaving now with a new vision. But I would like because also I’m a cultural operator so I will go and work in my network to have a common vision also with the other operators, cultural managers that are here in the way that it’s now only just my point of view but it’s a point of view of people who are working everyday in this subject.

Ata ÜNAL- Thank you. It certainly will be focused on some narrower theme the next year and the other year. You’re right.

Mahir NAMUR- The way we thought developing this project was first to come together to have a general vision, to see who are interested in Turkey-Europe cultural relations. And the subject on Euro-Mediterranean is that Turkey is a part of Europe if you like and a part of Mediterranean if you like, but it is excluded both from Europe and Mediterranean, if you look at the cultural networks and so on, so that’s why we handled all those questions. This is a beginning meeting. I hope we can make more of them in more specific areas in the future.

Filippo FABRICCA- If you speak about general problem like or international forum on Mediterranean relations, it’s one subject where we can bring other arguments. So I think it’s a very interesting subject just not to lose our time, for going deeply to common results we have to choose the subject. We can propose also an international forum on… I don’t know, on Algeria-Europe cultural relations or…

Gianluca SOLERA- First of all I want to thank, really sincere thanks because I find this meeting quite exciting from both sides, of the artistic point of view and also the debates. Secondly, just taking some of the statements of Prof. Robins on the EU as a nation state and the fact that EU just also to symbolize that it wants to develop as a nation state, decided to adopt a coin, a EU coin… Well, this is a coin’s factory where we are meeting here and it’s quite interesting because maybe the coins of the Mediterranean space can become cultural. I mean the Mediterranean space is in itself a space for cultural interaction and cultural complexity. So, maybe that could be the path along which the future meetings of the organization can take place. Let’s think about for example the general states of cultural interaction, cultural complexity. And every year you chose a specific item, but along these lines. And the fact that Turkey is not a member of the EU and it is on the edge of the Mediterranean region, so it is weak from both sides, for me, is a positive aspect. It can be an opportunity because that even strengthens the fact that Turkey is in-between. It’s just an in-between space. It’s not this or that, it’s an in-between space and this is probably an added value for cultural interaction, cultural complexity. It is a candidate country but it is not a member state of the EU probably until 2015 in the most optimistic forecast. It is a bridge between two continents and another major region which is the Middle East; Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It is very dynamic in these years from a cultural but also political point of view. It’s a society in evolution and it is a community with Islamic and Christian references and traditions. So, it has all the contents for becoming a focal point for cultural interaction and cultural complexity. So, maybe along these lines it could be a place where every actor from the European region or Mediterranean regional continent can meet. And I’m sure that would raise a lot of attention from all over that area.

Nevin TAN- My name is Nervin Tan and I am an architect. A short while ago one of the participants mentioned that this three days long Forum had been inefficient from his point of view. On the contrary, I will defend the opposite. There were many things I already knew, but many other things enhanced my knowledge. Thanks to the examples given, I drew a surprising conclusion for myself. For example, there were symbols employed by Manuel Costa Lobo while describing the place of Turkey and the EU. For instance, the symbol of a triangle. Now, if you define this as “plain”, this leads you to a great mistake. On the contrary, there is something called “simplicity” and it is the most difficult of all things. It is what they try to teach us in architecture and it is very hard to attain. Besides, there was this discourse delivered by Kevin which reassembled all the points made in previous speeches and it hasn’t been brought up: it is a known fact that each formation, each community is formed on an economic basis. These economic bases had to generate nation states with the advent of capitalism as they had generated imperial forms in the past. However, due to the changes in economic models, Kevin claimed the possibility of a cross-urban collective life although the distances inbetween may seem insurmountable. Even hearing such a conclusion was to our great benefit.

Now, I would like to further my point and add the following: I agree totally with what has been said, but I would also like to point out that within these cities, people of different ethnical or national backgrounds and who are not of urban origin feel the urge to live together in some areas for a long time. Nowadays that’s what I see in Istanbul. For instance, this fact is obvious in Cihangir (a neighbourhood in Istanbul). This kind of a model is very pleasant to see; it gradually turns into something I was longing for. In jest, we even define it as “the Republic of Cihangir”. I belive that the next time we meet, we should take into account how we could surmount obstacles –bureaucratic ones in particular- that keep us from expanding efforts on the creation of collective life spaces because in course of these last three days, this meeting inspired me the idea that we already overcame many things. I observed that we should now move towards positive solutions and therefore I would like to express my thanks to all participants and the organizations that organized it.

Ata ÜNAL- We thank you. I can’t keep myself from saying a word about our having overcome many obstacles. As mentioned yesterday by Lucius Erwin I suppose, there is the important issue of “what the common run of people think”. In other words, do we have the same projects for them also? I would like us to bear in mind this question mark as we say that we have surmounted many difficulties.

Remzi AKSAN- Sirs, I wish you a pleasant day. I came here because I saw a tiny announcement in the newspaper I was reading. Thus, I came about one hour before the end of the meeting and I saw that people are saying some very appropriate things. Nowadays, there is a war in our vicinity. Hundreds of people die there everyday and one the reasons of this war is cultural alienation, lack of knowledge of one another and the transformation of this cultural discord among the communities into human violence. Accordingly, the development of cultures and their mutual communication and understanding is very important and I would like to thank this group organizing this meeting for this effect. I’m a teacher and my name is Remzi Aksan.

A listener- Hello to everybody. I come from Bulgaria. I work in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, especially in the European integration department and as my colleague Sabine from Germany I’m also responsible for the community program Culture 2000. I think that’s an opportunity to thank you very much the whole team of Europist for the invitation and the perfect organization. I would like also to say, as other colleagues of mine, that I’m really satisfied with the both sides; the theoretical side, the debates and also the artistic side. I would like just to mention that before aiming at the high European level of cultural cooperation, probably we should try to further strengthen the regional cultural cooperation as Greece on the Balkan, member state of the EU for many years and as Bulgaria and Romania still candidate countries but we have already signed the accession treaty and it must be ratified soon. So, probably using this fact and via these countries Turkey also has the opportunity to be a partner in first time and then probably co-organizer within the Culture 2000 which is a little bit hard program to applying. But the Forum was really very interesting for me and it was a discovery of people and new ideas. And I will bring with me home these ideas and share with my colleagues. So, I’m already looking for the second Forum next year. Thank you very much again.

Aliye KURUMLU- My name is Aliye Kurumlu. I represent the Platform 0090 of Belgium. I actually have a short question about the activities of the European Cultural Association. As far as I could see, it is an information organization and it also aims at directing international culture policies. Do you have any other fields of activity?

Mahir NAMUR- Our association was organically formed because of real exigencies, just like this Forum. It developed spontaneously afterwards with the participation of those people supporting us in our activities. Of course, we do reflect on it once in a while. In this process of development, we do reflect on how we should define ourselves. What we do is in fact very simple, however it is too complicated to put into words.

For instance, why did we adopt the name “European Cultural Association” while we define our vision in a very general sense as raising cultural awareness in the society? The name, however, reduces our activity field to Europe. There seems to be a contradiction while the explanation is as follows: We situate ourselves within the European cultural zone. This can be related to the EU or not; it is not our job to decide because culture has no boundaries. This is what we call “transnational cultural relations” as expressed by one of the previous listeners. We are both here and there. You cannot say “You are not here”. So we are here, but we have been there, we will be there, etc.

Now, we can only succeed by situating ourselves within this European cultural zone with multilateral relations –not bilateral, but multilateral. On the one hand, we want our thinkers, individuals and institutions to get involved in cultural relations within Europe. On the other, we want this European cultural zone –I don’t want to say “the EU” because we don’t know yet what will become of it- to reflect on its external relations with its neighbouring countries and non-neighbours alike. In fact, it is a name that we chose to comprise the whole world and to make people think about it.

Now, concerning what we do; in fact, we do not want to defend anything in particular. What we want to do is make people think about culture. The second thing we want to do is to prevent institutional relation from being the unique modality of cultural exchange. We saw how Prof. Robins focused on the city; in fact, the focus should even be on the individual, i.e. on the relations we keep up with one another. That’s why we invited Stine. You might wonder what Stine’s “love affairs” have to do with Culture 2000, but love relations are the essence of the matter. All of this goes through the heart. We love people with our heart, not with financial relations between institutions. Accordingly, it is a very important factor.

In other words, no matter where we are situated, no matter where we seem to be, what’s important is these cultural relations and cultural communication -it is clear that communication yields the best result when things are done in cooperation- regardless of whether it is between persons, countries or cities. That is to say, our projects have one common point: on the one hand, we encourage cooperation in cultural communication; on the other, we want to be exemplary. I mean that we do not have the power to do many things, but what is important is cultural cooperation, isn’t it? We demand support from our friends abroad and from the institutions they belong to, we seek help from Turkish institutions, but only a minute part of this support is financial. All of these people and institutions give their support by thinking, bodily working and at last by being with us while we think. We think this to be very important. So, to say it briefly, the European Cultural Association works on cultural communication and cooperation.

A listener- Thank you. I’m from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. I work for the International Relations. First of all I would like to refer to the comment that Ms. Bornemann made some minutes ago. I believe that it would be very helpful for the participants, at a later stage when it is convenient for the European Cultural Association, to have the participants’ list based on the data you have gathered through the Internet.

And the second one, speaking about cultural relations, cultural connections and cultural spaces, there was a gentleman who referred to the notion of cultural spaces as an abstract notion. It can be abstract when we hear cultural spaces but then again I believe that Prof. Kevin Robins has made a very interesting point for my perception which says that cities can create nexuses, cities can have networks. And I would like to bring here an example of cultural participation of Greece’s Hellenic community in a project of the Council of Europe which is called the States Project and it is about the countries of the south Caucasus and Greece and Turkey, as well as Switzerland and other countries are observers and are donors. And we made a conference in 2001 in Thessaloniki. The subject of the conference was “Cultural Policies For the Cities”. And a formal network of cities had been created and through that conference some cities got the opportunity to work together. From the side of Turkey was Bursa and Bursa-Turkey had the opportunity to work closely with Romania. So, cultural spaces can be also a very specific, a very tangible paradigm, not an abstract notion. Thank you very much for this organization, I’m very happy to be with you. As a Mediterranean, as southeastern, as European, however you may call it, thank you very much.

Handan BÖRÜTEÇENE- He is not here in person, but I would like to give an answer to Korhan Gümüş because I think it’s important. I emphasized two issues with big letters in the beginning of my speech. In the first place, I defined the limits in which I would deliver my speech: I am an artist working in the field of plastic arts. I said that everything I would talk about would be in relation with this field. The other one was that, I was goint to talk about France as an example because it is a country I know very closely. Now, as I said “May the State stand out of our sunlight” I meant it certainly for the experiences in our field namely plastic arts. This is the kind of thing one has to live through to know about. I’m not going to speak about this in length here, but for instance, the Turkish Ministry of Culture choses an artist to send to the Sao Paolo Biennial. This has occurred to Canan Beykal –names have no importance, it happens to many artists, to many of us-. They say: “Well now, you’re going” and in the last minute they say “We don’t have enough money to give to you, if you really want to go, you have to find your own resources.” Now, they should have said this at least three months in advance. The last thing that occurred to us: we went through the same thing in an exhibition we did with Osman Okkan, in the Bonn exhibition. They would say: “We take care of your transport costs” or “We want to acquit you from the Housing Fund while travelling abroad”. The day you take off for the journey, they send you a slip to say: “We don’t have money, we can’t do it”. However, you keep wondering how the Ministry of Culture sends abroad all those top models and popular singers? Not that I despise them, but at least we claim equality. I’m talking on my own account and on the account of a group of colleagues: If I had expected governmental support for all of my work, I wouldn’t have made any achievements up to now. That’s what I’m talking about. Thank you.

Şafak UYSAL- My name is Şafak Uysal. Actually, I have seldom been able to attend meetings because yesterday we were busy with rehearsals. However, I will say a word or two within the limits of available data. Firstly, although the session titles are reduced to very specific issues –that is to say, although they relate to incredibly specialized matters such as immigration policies and their repercussions on the process of artistic creation-, I have witnessed that the course of these panel discussions displayed a tendency to address great categories such as Europe, culture and Turkey and tried to melt all related issues in the same pot. In fact, since we are all aware of the fact that this is only an initial togetherness -its necessity is obvious- only that, since we are talking about what we should pay attention to in the following years, I think it will make things easier and more productive if the session contents also could measure up to the specificity of the titles.

The other two things I’m going to mention concern precisely the problem of relationship. Now that our title is relations… What we call a relation implies two structures, i.e. connects them in the last analysis. In this sense, we should talk about the equivalence of the deficiencies and capacities in both structures. Now, when I take a look at the names of the participants and in particular the speakers, I observe that those who come from Turkey are rather artists and theorists whereas foreigners are mostly culture operators from Europe-based networks. Not that there is actually such a distinction, but that is even attested by the general list of participants. This is perhaps due to the simple fact that the problem of culture operators is not settled in our country. Maybe, it indicates a certain gap, that is, it may be that culture operators are not sufficiently activated as we rightly mentioned before. However, if we are talking about a negotiation, the present picture seen in this Forum is more likely to constitute a certain frame of marketing where Turkish artists and theorists try to -if I may say- sell themselves to and impress international culture operators with their self-promotion. I know that it is not intended. I just point out the general frame. If we are to talk about cooperation and exchange in that context, I think that it is important that we should also be able to talk about the equal presence of structures that we call culture operators –whoever they might be-, as well as the presence and equivalence between artists and theorists on both sides.


Another equivalence comes out when we construct a Turkey-Europe equation because in this country we have gone through many Mediterranean forums for many years. When talking about the Mediterranean we never questioned whether we were a part of it, whether we were Mediterranean or not because it was geographically determined in advance by the sense of the word “Mediterranean”. There has neither been a talk of Turkish-Mediterranean relations nor of the relations between Turkey and the Mediterranean countries. The talks were always about the Mediterranean countries themselves. Now, when we say Turkey-Europe, Europe has the character of a separate structure hierarchically not equivalent to Turkey in my opinion. Of course, I am well aware of the fact that this is important as the accession of Turkey to the EU is a critical issue nowadays, but as long as this equation is contsructed in this fashion –i.e. Turkey against Europe, Europe against Turkey- we run the risk of entering a vicious circle reproducing some already active dualities. I believe that we have to avoid this because it sticks a label on us portraying a Turkey which can’t help trying to be admitted to Europe and a Turkey that is in the position of being inspected by Europe. We have to ask ourselves how we can find our way by avoiding all these. Thank you. It is probably not going to suffice to reiterate our thanks by expressing how glad we are to be in such an environment, in such a space, within such an organization, but all the same thank you.

Mahir NAMUR- Şafak and his team worked with us. He thanks us, but thanks go to him as well; he is also involved in this event.

Osman KAVALA- One clarification; I did not mean cultural space as an abstraction, on the contrary, I said national culture is an abstraction and it’s only with the city based cultural policies and public cultural spaces in the cities they can have concrete forms of cultural relations. Thank you.

Mesut ARSLAN- I want to say something very briefly. First of all, I thank Şafak, he furthered the two pages I had written, made very important points. It is nice to see that it comes from an artist once again. I really underline the importance of these. I want to make a criticism since a long time. Şafak already mentioned this implicitly, but it must reach people. I want every possible critism to be layed on the table, including the café, its chairs, its tables, the issue of the operators, and so on. I don’t want this for myself, for this or for that. It is not meant to promote Mesut, but to come closer to the essence of the matter and that’s why I mention it.

Another thing I want to say is that politicians are not the only decision-makers and I really believe it. I don’t know if Jan Zoet is among us, but Murat Can is, Aliye is. They are really willing to work between Turkey and Europe in the field of culture and art. Their work is not theoretical but practical.
If society can run after a goal, so can politicians. The question is to know what we are going to run after. I’m gonna spring to his verse about the ghettos that follow that satellite broadcastings that you found positive. You said that there’s a positive side of this for the people living in the ghettos and they’re watching with their satellites their own countries and that there was something positive about this you meant, did you mean it like that or did I misunderstand?

Prof. Kevin ROBINS- I meant something a little bit different, I mean I made a specific point; when people are watching Turkish television that one should regard them as being intelligent people who are watching television in the same way that I watch television for example. I make choices between programs, I compare programs and so on. And therefore I was reacting really against a position which is very strongly being held in Germany that these are automatically ghettos as soon as people watch television. So, I thought this was an undemocratic kind of methodology in assuming that people are ghettoizing themselves.

Mahir NAMUR- While closing this Forum, I first would like to thank our guests for coming. The Forum is not finished yet, but the speaking part is. Next, we will have performances and then a party. We expect you all. In the first place, I would like to express our grateful thanks to our simultaneous translators who have played the role of mediators during these three days. I hear from here that they have done a good job. Thank you very much. As I said in the beginning, we entered this room eight hours before you did. We thank CSG Events who did the sound and the lights. It is a very big contribution because CSG Events worked voluntarily with us. Simultaneous translation was provided by the European Commission and the NGO Support Office, thank you very much. We thank the Austrian Office for Culture, Istanbul Dutch Consulate General, the British Council, the French Cultural Centre, Euro-Med, Relais Culture Europe, the Young Arab Theatre Fund, the French Embassy of Ankara and the Roberto Cimetta Fund which helped us bring our speakers to Istanbul. They all accepted our applications. It would be odd to thank our colleagues who did the performances because they worked with us since the very beginning, we are happy to be together with them. We thank the Turkish Airlines which made important contributions. GeoPost took care of communication. Gelisim Creative published all written material within a few days’ time. Chameleon undertook a part of our media relations and organization. E-kolay supplied the Internet connection inside. The Yildiz Technical University accommodated some of you. Kargart and Pozitif made very important contributions. Burcu from Kargart supervised all performing arts, thank you very much. Pozitif sent a DJ for the party tonight, DJ Dizzy will also work with us, thank you. Bahadır from Kargart will play us music tonight, thank you very much. We thank separately all the participants of the Program of Cultural Management. I want to emphasize that from the beginning of the program till the end we worked together. Besides, we thank the Management of Arts Club (MAC) founded by the students of the Yeditepe University; their contribution was significant. Görsel prepared our banners, put them up in a single night. The Dutch Consulate General and the British Council were always with us during the preparation of this Forum. We benefited from two of their programs, we express them our special thanks. We thank you all for coming and we hope to see you again on another occasion, here or elsewhere. Please applaud the History Foundation for lending us this magnificent place. The History Foundation not only gave us this place, but they also worked with us twenty-four hours a day for weeks. Thank you Pelin, thank you Ayşe. Now, there are two different performances taking place in two different places. We expect you there.