Bridges Between Cultures Built in Paris

 

The conference, held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, was attended by Minister of State and Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, Permanent Delegate to UNESCO Ambassador Gürcan Balık, French Minister for French Nationals Abroad Yamina Benguigui, Advisor to the King of Morocco and President of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures André Azoulay, UNESCO Honorary Ambassador Samuel Pisar, TRT Director General İbrahim Şahin, BAU Chair of the Board of Trustees Enver Yücel and MEDAM Founding Chair Prof. Dr. Bekir Karlığa, as well as many politicians, academics, historians and writers.

 

Speaking before the screening of the documentary "The River Flowing West," filmed in cooperation between the Bahçeşehir University Center for Civilization Studies (MEDAM) and TRT, Minister of State and Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç underlined that there is no pure civilization, saying, "Nor is there a single civilization. Naturally, every civilization takes something from those before it and passes something on to those after it."

Stating that universal values have also been interacting with the rapid development of technology in recent times, Arınç said: "It is a fact that in the globalizing world we are moving toward a universal concept of civilization rising on the common values of all civilizations. We have witnessed how harmful and divisive the clash of civilizations thesis put forward after the Cold War has been, and continues to be."

 

In her statement, Minister for French Nationals Abroad Yamina Benguigui stated that important speeches were made at the conference for trust, religion and humanity. Saying that the most important fact shown by the documentary is that the foundations of humanity were laid together, Benguigui stated that the flowing river of humanity sometimes stops and obstacles are placed in its way. The French minister said: "I think we must find ways to move toward the future. Today, together with Türkiye, we have begun to question how this will happen. Hand in hand, we must build the trust necessary for humanity to progress."

 

Bahçeşehir University Chair of the Board of Trustees Enver Yücel said: "If we listen to the lands of Anatolia in Türkiye, we will hear whispers of peace, culture and living together. If we seek peace in the world in the future and want to make the culture of living together prevail in societies, we need to remove bad words from our textbooks. One can be proud of the past. But the words and sentences in textbooks that demean the other, which are even more dangerous than nuclear weapons, must be removed."