Enver Yücel, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, delivered a speech at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, where he addressed the topic of "Cross-cultural Bridges: New Starts in Crisis Resolution." As an education volunteer and civil initiative manager, Mr. Yücel emphasized the importance of education in achieving sustainable peace. He stated, "Besides being the basic factor that shapes one's future, education is also an essential element in the achievement, formation, and continuity of peace. It is a 'must' for peace." Mr. Yücel stressed that education is not only about science, mathematics, and physics but also includes broader areas of learning.
EDUCATION IS A BRIDGE
In his speech, Mr. Yücel emphasized the importance of building cross-cultural bridges in order to prevent conflicts and promote peace. He argued that education is the key to achieving this, as it is not just about imparting knowledge but also about instilling values such as kindness, truth, and goodness. Mr. Yücel also highlighted the role of technology in breaking down barriers and bringing people together, but cautioned that we need to ensure that these bridges are actually bringing us closer and promoting greater understanding and tolerance. Ultimately, Mr. Yücel called for a concerted effort to build more bridges and fewer walls in order to achieve lasting peace and prosperity for all.
“TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, DISCRIMINATORY STATEMENTS MUST BE REMOVED FROM BOOKS”
Enver Yücel remarked that he aspires to be able to say ‘yes' to the question of ‘have technological possibilities helped cultures and civilizations improve?’ and added: “Of course good things also happen and we are making a progress, but it is not enough. At a time like this, when there are so many changes going on, when books are transferred to the Internet environment making it easier to access them, the contents of the books must be cleared of all negative statements that burn our bridges. The discriminatory statements about the conflicts between Turkish and Greek people have been removed from the books in Turkey. Yes, we have found ways to meet each other, to bring us together, to make it easier to communicate with each other; but we just have not found a way to talk sincerely to each other. We are still not able to understand each other and think in an empathetic way. All those means haven't been able to make our cultures and civilizations embrace each other. We have high technologies, but we don’t have the right content and this is what really matters. The content can only come to life with people; hence the main agenda here is human. The human that builds bridges and turns the world into a garden of friendship with the help of those bridges… The human that crosses over those bridges and knocks on a neighbor’s door, opens the door to a neighbor and make the world a beautiful place! The educated human being…”
HUMANITY AND DISCRIMINATION
“We will be able to achieve sustainable peace so long as we can raise citizens of the world who reject all kinds of discrimination emerging in different forms in different periods, countries and conditions besides the religious, racist and sex discriminations, some of the oldest and biggest dishonors of humanity; internalize the culture of living together and empathize with the others in all circumstances,” said Mr. Yücel emphasized the importance of young generations learning the culture of living together and stressed that simply becoming a citizen of the European Union is not enough. He added that both educators and governments should prioritize putting the curriculum of world citizenship on the agenda in order to foster global understanding and empathy.
WORLD CURRICULUM AND THE EUROPEAN UNION
After mentioning about his own attempts for the world citizenship curriculum and the European Union, he went on with his speech: “We work really hard. The World Faculty of Education Council of Deans will be established soon. What should be the content of such a curriculum? What is EU citizenship and how should it be? What is world citizenship and how should it be? These concepts and teachings haven’t become a part of the education system yet. As a citizen of Turkey, a country that seeks to join the EU, I want to become a member, a citizen of the EU. But do the EU citizens want this to happen? Is there any educational attempt on the subject? This must have happened a long time ago. But we put this fact aside and say that now it is time we should talk about world citizenship curriculum.”
“We need to add the characteristics of a world citizen to our curriculums and reorganize them accordingly. I believe the World Faculty of Education Council of Deans will contribute greatly to the process,” said Mr. Yücel. “I have to enunciate that my country, Turkey, has been like an unfinished EU criteria construction site for more than a decade. Turkish government works heartily to meet all the conditions, from the EU adjustment laws to the EU criteria. But if the concept and philosophy of being an EU citizen had been adopted as a teaching 54 years ago, we could probably have become an EU member years ago. That is to say, we need to add some spirit to those bridges and means. We should look for solutions that will help the culture, teaching and habit of living together to be adopted.”
“LET’S GIVE UP FRIEND-OR-FOE DISCRIMINATION”
“As you all know, there is a field in psychology where self-concept is active: Altruism. We have no other choice but to make the culture of living together be adopted in the world through sacrificing, tolerating, forgiving and seeing things from a unifying point of view – not from a discriminatory point of view. It’s time to give up friend-or-foe discrimination,” said Mr. Yücel, “I want to give an example at this point; we have decided that Turkey should follow the road to west and moved in this direction. We applied for the EU exactly 54 years ago and as a primary target of our country, we strain our every nerve to join the EU for more than a decade. I am concerned that the fact that Turkey is still a candidate country might cause Turkish people to lose their motivation, interest and even their trust in the European Union. We all witness that our politicians also lose their hopes and Turkish people feel intensely ‘marginalized’ from time to time. We can’t help asking ourselves whether the EU can not accept our culture as a richness of the civilization and we keep wondering if the EU is 'marginalizing’ us. We have to overcome these problems.”
COMMON GROUND POLICY
Enver Yücel, who sees the EU as the common-ground living space for people from different cultures, said, “This notion creates unity from the differences of cultures and eliminates ‘marginalization’. ‘Common ground policy’ is the policy to be pursued.”
“STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMMES ARE CULTURAL BRIDGES”
He stated that the Erasmus Programme and other student exchange programmes should be supported further: “The EU Erasmus programmes should promote this, too. Student exchange programmes have a vital function in building cultural bridges.”
“We should no longer be contented with the existing technologies and the traditional education provided by teachers in classrooms. Life itself is a classroom. So our statesmen; the prime ministers, the presidents and the legislators are supposed to be good examples. In such a time of change, triggered with the recent technological developments, we should immediately remove discriminatory statements from our books. We saw it fit to remove any hostile statement about our common history with Greeks and we did it. Now, countries all over the world transfer their curriculums to technological environments. We should take this occasion to remove any hostile statement from our books and give more thought to common grounds. We all need to see the glass half full, not half empty. Textbooks must particularly be clear of hostile statements. Let our children read about friendship, not hostility. Let them believe in a common life and future.”
Mr. Yücel also remarked that the world will become a better place to live only when the resources allocated for education surpasses the resources designated for armaments and went on: “With the support of our Esteemed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Bahçeşehir University has made a noteworthy documentary on the subject. Today, college students all around the world watch it in their universities. It is also broadcasted on television channels such as ARTE France and ARTE Germany. We are glad to have made a documentary film about the fact that all cultures are a part of the common heritage of humanity. We think that similar projects must increase in number and be integrated as a common curriculum in education systems.”
DISCRIMINATION AND THE EXAMPLE OF FRANCE
“It is disappointing to see some of the politicians adopt a manner that deepens and supports hostilities. They make use of the past events for their domestic policies to content their voters,” said Enver Yücel and added: “Unfortunately, we have seen examples of it in our friend country France. We all need to hear about the common grounds that bring people together, instead of driving them apart from each other.”
AID CAMPAIGN FOR SYRIA AND SYRIAN CHILDREN
Mr. Yücel stated that sustainability should become a crucial concept for the resolution of disputes. “A negative event anywhere around the world now affects the whole world. The tragedy in Syria, a neighbor country of Turkey, have not only put Syrian people to grief but also affected all of us deeply. As Bahçeşehir University, we have pondered over how to help the Syrian children in refugee camps and initiated a psychological counseling and aid campaign for them. And we invite you to launch similar projects collaboratively.”
“We have to make an effort to help people adopt the concepts of ‘citizenship of the world’ and ‘culture of living together’ as their perspectives on life. In today’s knowledge economy, social networking has become the most popular quality. Thus being a citizen of the world has become more of an issue. The fact that the Alliance of Civilizations Initiative, launched by the United Nations and contributed greatly by our Esteemed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is supported by 130 countries is pleasing. We should come together more frequently for this purpose and take more steps. Of course the politicians will lead the way, but we all know that the blending and compromising of people is more important than some decisions. My favorite quote is ‘politicians are like the earth, they quickly warm up and get cold; but people are like the seas, it takes time for them to warm up and get cold'."
"While making a speech under the roof of the European Parliament, I want to express my sincere thanks to Dear Mr. Martin Schultz, President of the European Parliament, who is fully conscious of the importance of Turkey-EU coalescence, and to Dear Mr. Stefan Fule, the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy, for his remarkable efforts. And finally I want to say that I am also happy that a new era begins for my country, Turkey,” said Enver Yücel and ended his speech.
TR
