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Female - Turkey |
| 10.08.05
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Excitement, anxiety, questions about what will happen. Lots of constructed idead
of stereotypes from different nationalities are on my mind and these are hard
to unlearn. My greatest hope is, while meeting and having fun with my friends
from Armenia, that I will overcome my predujices and preassumptions. Briefly, I
want to unlearn and I began to unlearn. During the trip, we talked to and sang
in English together. Britney Spears is one of the shared values : )
Besides, taking lectures from such successful and known academicians is a great
chance that I’m looking forward to. I want to be an academician in the future
and listening to them makes me happy and satisfied, I think.
Knowing new people and new culture is a benign experience that makes my
perspective larger and expands my worldview. Human rights is an issue that I
worked on a little bit and that I want to be interested in the future. I
believe that overcoming conflicts, especially about the security dilemma of
nation-states, can be resolved mostly by communication, as in this project.
Thanks for efforts that Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly makes.
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| 12.08.05
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Yesterday, I learned lots of Armenian words. It’s very funny to learn the
language and to teach language at the same time.
I learned political system of Armenia and the problems about diaspora and
Armenians. I think that there is a problem in the history about constructing
nation-states. Armenian friends understand our feelings, I think and I
understand their problems and their resistence to make Turkey accept genocide.
But as Sevan Nisanyan said it is hard to deconstruct history at once as a
psychological issue.
What I know is I’m entertaining while learning their history, knowing them.
Lots of foods/dishes that we, Turks think that they’re special to us are the
same in Armenia. “Dolma” is their traditional meal as ours. They call it
“dolma” and when they learned that “imam bayildi” is something like “the priest
fainted” they laughed very much.
This experience is becoming very different and listening St. Pierre’s
importance from Isabella is one of the greatest. It’s like a pilgrim for them
and I felt that this place is special. There are lots of things that I’m
curious about Armenian and Armenians’ daily life. Thanks to hCa!
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| 13.08.05
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Yesterday we had a very full day. It is tiring but very entertaining and very
shocking. After group work, we had a nationalism lecture. Nazan Maksudyan told
us the –isms. “Ottomanism” and then “Turkism”. To remind our history lessons
from a different perspective is very well for us. Ferhat Kentel talked about
their mutual perception project in TESEV and nationalism in general. I have a
constructivist idea about nationalism so I didn’t have so much difficulty while
listening to him, but at lunch I saw that some of my friends, mostly from
Armenia, are primordialists and they thought nation is by birth.
We talked about diaspora, we learned much about Armenia now, their military
service we talked about in the group work and besides to my surprise, because
Turkey is a muslim country, most of Armenians thought that a man can marry four
women. When we told them that it is a crime, they became very surprised.
Sevan Nisanyan told us about Armenian history beside Turkish history. It’s very
interesting. All the history we learned, fell in front of my eyes.
At night, we went to LUNAPARK, it is a great fun. We got on crushing cars and
some of them got on GONDOL (I don’t like it). Then we went to jumping place and
JUMP, JUMP, JUMP! It’s something crazy. We became friends, we entertained much
together. Thanks to hCa again.
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| 15.08.05
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At the weekend, we went to Vakiflikoy and I watched the religious ceremony
about the grapes. It was interesting and I think this event is mostly important
for that all the Armenians from different countries come together. There were
some of our Armenian friends who cried, I felt very sensitive when I saw them
crying.
Last night, we enjoyed ourselves very much. Isabella, who is the birthday girl
of today, taught us a song about “Badircan, bibar and etc.” :) When we
learned the meaning of the song, we laughed very much. We sang LORKE in three
languages (Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian), that was real peace (khağağutyan :))
When we came to the hotel after eating a delicious Künefe, there was a wedding
and we joined to it with our own efforts. We danced very much with Turkish
& English & Arabic songs. But it didn’t satisfy us and we went to the
pub of the hotel to continue to dance but I felt asleep and I slept at the sofa
of the pub a little, then I decided to go to my room. thanks to hCa :)
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