Let me first before I answer your question; express my deep admiration for your great country and for this great city Istanbul, which is in itself an expression of tolerance where peoples from different origins and civilizations have always existed in harmony in this city. It reminds me of another city across the Mediterranean, which so this kind of practice of course existed in harmony. When you asked me this question about has not helped in attaining the Middle East I immediately recalled a time, I have not lived exactly that time but my father lived it and elderly generation has lived through when Egypt was a part of the Ottoman Empire while Egypt has always been an autonomous country within the Ottoman Empire but within that great expanse of the Ottoman Empire there has always been a tradition of people living together, different nationalities, different religions have always existed within the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman Empire has also taken peoples who has been ejected from the all countries like Spain and so on. So actually there is a very deep, strong tradition in our part of the World in Egypt for tolerance and for people living together. However I have be honest with you the situation has changed, I am talking about regional, international, inter-governmental level with the emergence of the problem of Palestine. The problem of Palestine has by itself certain people have to live together and other people have live in other place, walls have to be built to separate between people so this kind of practice has not helped in maintaining the deep city tradition of tolerance. This is why I listened very carefully to meeting in the morning and I must say, there is now a deep gulf not just between some communities who live in the Middle East particularly in Palestine which has its fall out and influence the entire region but also we now have the problem of the gulf between the world of Islam and the West so there is this problem of Islamic world and the West and there are several problems. There is the war against the Islamic countries, military occupation, and occupied territories; there is also the problem of a deep feeling among Muslims of humiliation. When people feel that they humiliated then they have a strong sense of resentment if not anger, you know the problem that you saw in some prisons in Iraq, and in Palestine and the last issue of Danish cartoons of course so this is a problem. Other problems of course, some people who feel that there are double standards in dealing with the Muslim world. Standards are different for Muslims and then others. This is just a sample of strong feelings that dominate the Muslim people who are the majority in our part of the world. That is why the big question of the title of this conference is “the key to peace and prosperity in the 21st century is co-habitance”. I fully agree with that, I like this title very much, this is a key to peace and the prosperity and if you want to have this key in your hands there is a very strong need to cross this gulf which separates between the Muslim world and the rest of the world and by solving these problems, Iraq, Palestine and so on and at the same time your questions started with what is legal document? That is needed for living together. Yes we already have a legal document which is the charter of the UN, we have to go back to the Charter of the UN and give it the value it deserves who drafted the Charter of the UN are those who lived the experience of war twice in their life times and that’s why they came up with an international system based on mutual respect for all people’s equality among people it is this kind of sense of equality not inequality so we need to go back to this Charter and not to consider the UN as a department in the foreign ministry of one country or another to use it and to ignore it. Again this is very important, how can we go back to the UN, I believe that it is very important to have a very strong dialogue, multinational dialogue, multi discipline dialogue with the people of the US. I think this is a key if we want to improve the statement of aware then you have to go and see this big power how it is acting and how can you influence the decisions of this big power. There is no way to influence her decisions except through the grassroots and dialogue with the American people. Explaining to them how serious the entire world is today because of certain policies. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.

 

 

Mehmet Ali Bayar: Dr. Reedy’e bir sorum var. Orta doğu ile ilgili o anlamda özeleştiri yaparsak, orta doğuda bakarken, bizim co-habitance mümkün kılmayan eksikliklerimiz nedir? Bizim derken, bu dünyanın. Biz kendi kendimize nasıl bir öz eleştiri yapabiliriz başkalarını eleştirirken?

 

 

Of course we can criticize ourselves no question about that. We have in Egypt tradition of tolerance between Moslems and Christians yet lately there have been some manifestations of problems and some of the grievances of our brothers are legitimit. İ believe that and I said that also in Egypt they have not had enough representatives in the higher places, in the administration, things like that. But at the same time there is a consciousness among the Egyptian society among the Egyptian elite and Egyptian intellectuals that these issues must be addressed. But historically even during the Ottoman Empire Copts and Muslims have lived together very well. But lately there have been some of these problems and there is now more because in a democracy and I have a different view from you that Turkey is the only Muslim democratic country but in Egypt may be we have not reached the level of full democracy but we are certainly very good measure of democracy and there is a freedom of pres fully. So anyway there is now more democracy and with the freedom of pres you can criticize the issues which do not stay doormat, hidden, taboo but they come up to surface and they are addressed and some of these issues now they are being addressed.

But I would like to make a comment with regard to Turkey. We watch Turkey’s application to the EU and we believe and I am one of many Egyptians who watch this with great interest and we believe that Turkey’s entrance into the EU would enhance the concept of tolerance and would bring about a very important bridge between Europe and the Muslim world and since this panel has Europeans and Turks and non-European and non-Turk I felt that I should make that comment. Thank you.


Questions – Answers:

Questions – Büyükelçi Özdem Sanberk: Çok teşekkür ederim Sayın Başkan. Ben panelistleri kutluyorum. Çok değerli açıklamalar yaptılar ve bizi aydınlattılar. Benim zihnimde olan bir soru var ki, o aydınlanmış değil. Ben bütün panelistlere  soruyorum hatta şahsinizda size yöneltmek istiyorum bu soruyu. Acaba birlikte yaşamanın yani etnik, yahut farkli din, farklı dil grupları olan bir ülkede birlikte yaşamanın temelinde hoşgörü mü yatıyor, yatmalı mı? Acaba hoşgörü sağlıklı bir ölçüt müdür? Eğer ben sadece hoşgörüye göre kendi haklarımı savunacaksam devamlı olarak size bağımlı olmaz mıyım? Bu soru benim biraz kafamı karıştırdı. Uluslararası ilişkilerde de acaba hoşgörü mü tayin etmeli, yoksa devletler hukukuna riayet mi tayin etmeli? Bir ülke içinde huzurlu yaşamanın etnik gruplara sahip bir ülkenin içerisinde huzurlu yaşamanın temelinde hoşgörü mü yatmalı, yoksa yazılı veya yazılı olmayan anayasaların güvencesi altında olan haklar mı yatmalı? Bu sualime “evet haklar yatmalı” diyorlarsa o zaman kolektif haklara sahip olan grupların kendi dışındaki gruplar üzerinde bir baskı aracı olarak kullanmamaları için ne yapılabilir?

 

 

 

I think the concept of tolerance is very well embedded and is clearly part of the UN Charter the universal declaration of human rights so the concept is very clear and it is more than one occasion in the Charter of the UN and also several times in the universal human rights deceleration but the word “tolerance” itself may give rise to some misunderstanding because when I am asked to tolerate could I tolerate something wrong for instance? I think the concept of tolerance means actually accepting the other. This is what I understand by the word tolerance, tolerance is very well written and it is a legal concept in the Charter and the universal declaration of human rights.