Thank you Ms. Chair. I like to thank all the organizers and it is a great honor for me to speak at this Forum. I am going to address a specific question. In fact the question has been raised today. What we need to live together in peace. There are some models. One of them is multi cultural project and recently we observed that it has failed and OK integration, assimilation but is there another option? As Prof. Canevi mentioned cosmopolitanism can provide ideas to develop new cultural projects and today I am going to develop this argument but our time is very limited so let me start with in what way multi culturalism in Europe is under attack. I also have to apologize for my voice; I got cold and have a difficulty.

Today when we look at what is happening in the beginning of 21st century, we see stereotyping and demonization of others rather on religious, nationalist, racist or political grounds and this has become a burning issue. Leaders are making in European countries also in US and in Canada, in Australia, multi culturalism is reassessed and in all these countries we see that leaders are making critical statements on the subject of ethnic and cultural minorities and they criticize multi culturalism. When they look at some of the critiques and see what they say for example Guy Cetal who wrote the book, Islam and the Rest, he argues that Islamists they want to create minority components where they can practice their own sharialow(Şariyalow) and organize their life on the basis of Islamic teachings therefore separating their life from the rest of the society. Actually he has a point in that because when they look at Europe what has been developing in Europe we see the parallel development of or creation of parallel societies that is people living in their cultural components in fact some of them turn into ghettos side by side but there is little interaction between these communities and there is little interaction between migrant communities and people of the host country. Some events and developments also made a very negative contribution like 9/11 in the US, Madrid and London bombings in Europe, assassination of a Dutch film producer Theo Vongop because he made a movie critical of Islam but of course I mean there were some humiliating elements and he was killed by a Moroccan Muslim man and another assassination of a Dutch politician who advocated anti-migration policies so all these developments create a negative image of muslim at the same time brought multi culturalism under attack. Of course we don’t have time to go into the statements of the leaders but in Germany there are many statements coming from Mrs. Merkel and then Schroeder and others against multi culturalism. So in Europe both leaders and intellectuals began to criticize multi culturalism.

My personal position is that if multi culturalism segregates communities and prevents blending different cultures then it is creating a problem. It is creating a cultural problem and it is also creating a political problem because it can lead to cultural separatism and this could lead to political separatism. There is a survey done in 2004 in UK showing that 60% of  the Muslims including Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis they say that of course this is just an attitude may be they will never put it into action but they say that they would prefer an alternative legal system when it comes to marriage, inheritance and organization of family life and also they say they will be happy to have different hours of working in order to practice their religion. So all these surveys suddenly alarm people in Europe.

Now I will move to idea of cosmopolitanism and in what way it can make contribution for the creation of a new cultural project and also in what way it is different from multi culturalism and Prof. Canevi explained very well it goes back to Hellenistic time, ancient Greece and I can say that I learned Socrates from Prof. Canevi when I was a student at Middle East Technical University and Socrates was cosmopolitan in his way of thinking. And ideas inspired cynic Diojen and we he was asked who are you, he answered I am the citizen of the world. In fact this sentence explains cosmopolitanism very well. OK, I am the citizen of the world and I can bled different cultures in my own personality and in my own outlook for example you are living in the US and of course you have your own cultural heritage, they are all richness but if you segregate yourself from the rest of the society because of the cultural differences then there is a conflict but if you blend cultural or various cultures in your own personal philosophy then I see a solution and it will also prevent clashes. When we look at cosmopolitanism it can provide ideas for a cultural project but also for a political project and cosmopolitanism or cosmopolitan ideas were almost dead during medieval ages after Roman period then they saw the resurgence of the cosmopolitan ideas in the 18th century and with the enlightenment and then I will look at some of the ideas and how they were useful for creating political cosmopolitan project. For example when we look at the modern natural law theory it has implications for creating cosmopolitan project and it is secularizing and in fact I value secular world view very important to create world to live together in peace because in a secular system you have rational law and rational law again is important to defend human rights because today we have some cultural arguments to oppose the human rights for example human rights is violated in some countries and than we find that people are using cultural or religious arguments so in that sense I am against the use of any religious or cultural arguments when it comes to human rights. This is why rational law is very important, it needs a secular system and then the other idea is the social contract theory. Of course social contract theory has implications for the nations state but also it has implications for foundation of international law that is the idea of international community of state bound by international law. And then who made a big contribution to political cosmopolitanism is Kant and his book Perpetual Peace is really outstanding and when we look at Kant’s ideas he says that States are organized internally according to Republican principals but also what we need they are organized externally in a league for the sake of keeping peace and when they respect the human right not only of their citizens but also of foreigners. Kant introduced the concept of cosmopolitan law suggesting a third sphere of public law in addition to the constitutional law and international law. That is the sphere in which both States and individuals have rights and where individuals has these rights as the citizens of the earth rather then as citizens of a particular state.

And than another contribution to cosmopolitanism came from Jeremy Bertham, his idea of common and equal utility of all nations is important and when we look at another thinker his ideas were more radical Clauds in the 18th century and he advocated abolishion of all existing states and establishment of a single world state under which all human individuals would be directly subsumed and they are united of course this is a very utopic idea but all these ideas led to the creation of international criminal court and so this is very much related to Kant’s idea of cosmopolitan law and today Milosevich or someone like him can be tried under this court when he violates of rights of individuals.

And again may be creation of the UN and all these international organizations are based on these ideas. So what I am going to suggest OK, multiculturalism was fashionable and may be it was beneficial but today we really need to go beyond this and introduce cosmopolitism and in order to create a cosmopolite culture of course we should do something. First we need to integrate comparative religion studies, cultural studies and conflict resolution courses into the secondary school curriculum and leaders and the media have a responsibility. They should give messages that do set one group against the other or if something goes wrong don’t put the blame on the new comers or the foreigners or the migrant communities whatever terminology you choose and also of course rule of law and law enforcement and legal system based on rational law, they are important. I will stop here thank you very much.



Soru – Cevap

Soru: Sayın Schaumann namus cinayetlerinden bahsetti. Sonuçta tüm demokrasilerde olduğu gibi, bizim ülkemizde de cinayet adli bir suçtur. Namus cinayetlerinin özellikle Almanya’da Türk toplumu üzerinde derin ve bir kısmı haksız kritiklere sebep olduğunu düşünüyorum. Sonuçta, bu bir cinayettir ve hukuk sisteminde suçtur. Bunun Türk toplumu üzerinde ve geneli üzerinde bu kadar acımasızca kritik edilmesini doğru buluyor musunuz?

Soru: Öncelikle böyle bir organizasyon düzenlendiği için teşekkür ederim. Benim sorum biraz genel olacak. 2010 yılı için İstanbul kültür başkenti seçildi. Bundan sonrası için eğer dünya genelinde kültürel platform oluşturulduğunda ve dünyayı kapsayan ortak bir fikir platformu oluşursa Türkiye buna öncülük edebilir mi veya öncülük edilecek bir kuruluş veya bir ülke varsa bu hangi ülke olabilir? İkinci sorum, dünya günden güne küçüldüğü için bir başkente ihtiyaç varsa ve ileriki yıllarda veya ileriki yüzyıllarda kültürel anlamda İstanbul buna başkentlik edebilir mi?

Prof. Dr. Nilüfer Narlı: May be I will say a few more things about differences between cosmopolitism and multiculturalism again I like to underline that cosmopolitism is very important to produce solutions. Problem with multiculturalism is that it implies separate and real or assumed status based on collectivism, group identity, group power however cosmopolitism underlines individual freedom and denies any collective power on the base of ethnic or religious identity. So this is why cosmopolitanism can’t produce solutions for the problems of the 21st century. At the moral level, philosophical level and also political level I understand your sensitivity yes, Ottoman political culture included elements of cosmopolitanism but it was a multicultural society in my analysis and however it was friendly cosmopolitan ideas. OK, one of my friends said that why Germans always bring this honor killing issue but here I will talk as a woman and human being if you use cultural differences or religious arguments to kill someone of course people will bring it as an issue again and again. Here really the problem is not cultural problem it is violation of human rights. Thank you.