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Journal of Turkish Weekly
July 23 2014
Women from Turkey, Armenia come together to reduce conflict
23 July 2014
Volunteers in Turkey and Armenia are building relationships in the
hope that person-to-person diplomacy will help set a foundation for
the restoration of relations between the neighbouring nations.
For two years, Beyond Borders: Linking Our Stories has brought
together Turkish and Armenian women to tell their personal stories and
redefine their feelings. The project is operated by the volunteers at
the Women's Resource Centre of Armenia and Turkey's feminist
collective Amargi Istanbul.
The result has been workshops and performance art designed to promote
peace and understanding.
"I wanted to be a part of the project because in my opinion there was
no barrier before the solidarity between women in both countries who
are facing similar problems. Although the countries remain ignorant of
each other, I can very well understand an Armenian woman from her
womanhood experience," Tuba Keles, an actress living in Istanbul, told
SES Türkiye.
"We have listened to each other, we came together to tell our stories.
We have experienced that the most efficient cure for the pains and for
building communication is to establish eye-to-eye contact with each
other," she said.
These shared experiences last year formed the basis for a performance
about womanhood, presented in Turkish and in Armenian, in the village
of Sirince in western Turkey. It drew an audience of young people from
nearby villages.
During a recent meeting in Istanbul, project staff members invited
women to bring messages of peace and friendship, such as writings on
paper, audio recordings, photographs or souvenirs that they valued.
These items were then delivered to their peers in Armenia.
A month later, in the Armenian city of Aghdzq, the items were shared
and discussed. The experiences were documented and posted on a blog in
both Armenian and Turkish each day.
For 12 days, participants also practiced using body movements and
other types of non-verbal communication to create links and
understanding between one another.
According to the project's website, the non-verbal communication was
used as "alternatives to speech in a closed-border situation where
speech has not contributed much in healing old wounds."
In the end, a new work of performance art focusing on broader topics
relating to the body, borders and collaboration was held by the group.
"Being inspired by the sealed borders for years, the women from these
two so-called enemy countries started to lay down the roads of peace.
And it became an inspiring step for peace establishment both for those
who are following the project and the performance," Keles said.
According to Keles, when the "impossible" in the minds has been
realised, the two communities have increased their trust on
establishing dialogue and mutual understanding.
"The project participants discussed the stereotypes they have received
so far about Armenian people, while the Armenian women did the same
thing about their prejudices about Turkish people," she added.
Milena Abrahamyan, co-ordinator of the project in Armenia, said that
usually women are not in powerful positions of decision-making about
their countries, so the women in the project are not actually
responsible for the sealed borders.
"At the same time, we are women who are active politically and
socially and we do not agree with the patriarchal structure of
nation-states and their borders. By understanding this, we meet to
create alternative possibilities for relating to one another -- the
other, the enemy we have been taught to hate -- outside of the
accepted rationalism of current day politics and diplomacy,"
Abrahamyan told SES Türkiye.
Abrahamyan said the project promotes conflict transformation.
"Currently, our project is focusing on non-verbal communication and
body-movement techniques in order to achieve inner peace with
ourselves as well as outer peace with each other. In the process of
achieving this kind of dynamic peace, we work with each other and
ourselves to transform conflicts that may arise between us because of
our differences," she added.
"By documenting our process of working with each other, we aim to
provide a manual of how to do this and transform conflicts into
collaboration, mutual understanding and art."
The impact on bilateral relations between the two countries remains to
be seen. The project is set to continue each year and staff members
are regularly in contact to prepare joint documents.
"Each person who is involved is part of a network that we are building
among Armenian and Turkish women," Abrahamyan said.
"To be sustainable, this project takes the approach of using creative
and innovative methods to build together. As a result, a solid
sisterhood is created and people become inspired, because the work we
do is quite intense and personal. Each person is affected, even if
differently from each other," she added.
According to Dr. Senem Cevik, a political communication expert at
Ankara University, both Turkey and Armenia's societies have an absence
of interaction that has resulted in a deficiency of knowledge about
one another.
"Both represent an unknown, and maintain a mystery. Although the
borders are sealed and countries have no diplomatic relations,
initiating such a social project signifies the power of
non-governmental networks and civic engagement that can serve as
venues to establish long-term relationship building," Cevik told SES
Türkiye. "Groups in conflict occasionally have difficulty in finding a
common ground to talk besides the issue of conflict," Cevik added.
Cevik said that this project can be a tool of citizen diplomacy
tackling shared societal issues, such as female empowerment.
She also underlined that citizen diplomacy efforts can be far more
productive and lay the groundwork for future political relations,
while the substantial effects of such efforts will be visible in both
societies and lead to more initiatives.
"More importantly, with each initiative Turks and Armenians have a
chance to interact with the other, therefore the participants of the
projects will be likely to have a broader sense of looking beyond the
other side of the border and looking past the conflict without
necessarily forgetting or fixating on it," she said. "Persistent
efforts will eventually ease the grip on stereotypical images and
women as the stronghold of both societies ... [and] bear the hope to
pass on their experiences of interacting with the other to next
generations," Cevik added.
23 July 2014
SES Türkiye
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/169519/women-from-turkey-armenia-come-together-to-reduce-conflict.html
July 23 2014
Women from Turkey, Armenia come together to reduce conflict
23 July 2014
Volunteers in Turkey and Armenia are building relationships in the
hope that person-to-person diplomacy will help set a foundation for
the restoration of relations between the neighbouring nations.
For two years, Beyond Borders: Linking Our Stories has brought
together Turkish and Armenian women to tell their personal stories and
redefine their feelings. The project is operated by the volunteers at
the Women's Resource Centre of Armenia and Turkey's feminist
collective Amargi Istanbul.
The result has been workshops and performance art designed to promote
peace and understanding.
"I wanted to be a part of the project because in my opinion there was
no barrier before the solidarity between women in both countries who
are facing similar problems. Although the countries remain ignorant of
each other, I can very well understand an Armenian woman from her
womanhood experience," Tuba Keles, an actress living in Istanbul, told
SES Türkiye.
"We have listened to each other, we came together to tell our stories.
We have experienced that the most efficient cure for the pains and for
building communication is to establish eye-to-eye contact with each
other," she said.
These shared experiences last year formed the basis for a performance
about womanhood, presented in Turkish and in Armenian, in the village
of Sirince in western Turkey. It drew an audience of young people from
nearby villages.
During a recent meeting in Istanbul, project staff members invited
women to bring messages of peace and friendship, such as writings on
paper, audio recordings, photographs or souvenirs that they valued.
These items were then delivered to their peers in Armenia.
A month later, in the Armenian city of Aghdzq, the items were shared
and discussed. The experiences were documented and posted on a blog in
both Armenian and Turkish each day.
For 12 days, participants also practiced using body movements and
other types of non-verbal communication to create links and
understanding between one another.
According to the project's website, the non-verbal communication was
used as "alternatives to speech in a closed-border situation where
speech has not contributed much in healing old wounds."
In the end, a new work of performance art focusing on broader topics
relating to the body, borders and collaboration was held by the group.
"Being inspired by the sealed borders for years, the women from these
two so-called enemy countries started to lay down the roads of peace.
And it became an inspiring step for peace establishment both for those
who are following the project and the performance," Keles said.
According to Keles, when the "impossible" in the minds has been
realised, the two communities have increased their trust on
establishing dialogue and mutual understanding.
"The project participants discussed the stereotypes they have received
so far about Armenian people, while the Armenian women did the same
thing about their prejudices about Turkish people," she added.
Milena Abrahamyan, co-ordinator of the project in Armenia, said that
usually women are not in powerful positions of decision-making about
their countries, so the women in the project are not actually
responsible for the sealed borders.
"At the same time, we are women who are active politically and
socially and we do not agree with the patriarchal structure of
nation-states and their borders. By understanding this, we meet to
create alternative possibilities for relating to one another -- the
other, the enemy we have been taught to hate -- outside of the
accepted rationalism of current day politics and diplomacy,"
Abrahamyan told SES Türkiye.
Abrahamyan said the project promotes conflict transformation.
"Currently, our project is focusing on non-verbal communication and
body-movement techniques in order to achieve inner peace with
ourselves as well as outer peace with each other. In the process of
achieving this kind of dynamic peace, we work with each other and
ourselves to transform conflicts that may arise between us because of
our differences," she added.
"By documenting our process of working with each other, we aim to
provide a manual of how to do this and transform conflicts into
collaboration, mutual understanding and art."
The impact on bilateral relations between the two countries remains to
be seen. The project is set to continue each year and staff members
are regularly in contact to prepare joint documents.
"Each person who is involved is part of a network that we are building
among Armenian and Turkish women," Abrahamyan said.
"To be sustainable, this project takes the approach of using creative
and innovative methods to build together. As a result, a solid
sisterhood is created and people become inspired, because the work we
do is quite intense and personal. Each person is affected, even if
differently from each other," she added.
According to Dr. Senem Cevik, a political communication expert at
Ankara University, both Turkey and Armenia's societies have an absence
of interaction that has resulted in a deficiency of knowledge about
one another.
"Both represent an unknown, and maintain a mystery. Although the
borders are sealed and countries have no diplomatic relations,
initiating such a social project signifies the power of
non-governmental networks and civic engagement that can serve as
venues to establish long-term relationship building," Cevik told SES
Türkiye. "Groups in conflict occasionally have difficulty in finding a
common ground to talk besides the issue of conflict," Cevik added.
Cevik said that this project can be a tool of citizen diplomacy
tackling shared societal issues, such as female empowerment.
She also underlined that citizen diplomacy efforts can be far more
productive and lay the groundwork for future political relations,
while the substantial effects of such efforts will be visible in both
societies and lead to more initiatives.
"More importantly, with each initiative Turks and Armenians have a
chance to interact with the other, therefore the participants of the
projects will be likely to have a broader sense of looking beyond the
other side of the border and looking past the conflict without
necessarily forgetting or fixating on it," she said. "Persistent
efforts will eventually ease the grip on stereotypical images and
women as the stronghold of both societies ... [and] bear the hope to
pass on their experiences of interacting with the other to next
generations," Cevik added.
23 July 2014
SES Türkiye
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/169519/women-from-turkey-armenia-come-together-to-reduce-conflict.html