Istanbul, May 11, 2006
THE KEY OF 21st  CENTURY’S PEACE AND PROSPERITY: LIVING TOGETHER “CO-HABITANCE”
*Panelist





Thank you Mr. Chairman. İ flew from Asia and when I came here and looked at the mirror in the room I was quite surprised with a face how I looked. My face is almost flat compared to yours. Your faces are mountains and my face is sort of plain field. This is the difference between the Asia and Europe or Middle East. But Asian are milder in their looks and milder in the heart and perhaps Turkish people are very European in their look but you have a very mild element. You are mild at heart that is why I think Turkey has a big role to play in terms of co-habitance. Today I brought a small slide that should go very quickly.

Let me look at big empires incompass various cultures and values and Roman empire and Ottoman empire among typical example and such process has been repeated over the thousands of years but more recently as we discussed technology changed the whole process of culture exchanges. And today the communication technology like internet or mobile phone or satellite will revolutionize the speed of mode of cultural exchanges. And this may give birth to a completely new global digital culture, we’re still are waiting for the outcome of that.

We talked about sweet concept of co-habitance, it is a very sweet concept, which should be the ultimate goal of human being, but the reality is very harsh, as you know. Just picking up few examples global religious misunderstandings or widening gap between rich and poor or polarization of the world rather then harmonization and growing geo-political tensions and uncertainties. İ regret to say that today’s situation looks as if the world is reversing its historical development. And we need practical models of co-habitance, harmonization if not perfect ones. I can pick up two examples for co-habitance today, the one is Asia. You know that Asia is most populace region in the world but it accommodates various cultures and values. Today all day we discussed religion between Christianity versus Moslems but surprisingly there is no dominant religion in Asia, we have many like Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism and Islam. This is something quite different then other major continents and on top of this Asia is now interlinking themselves. Huge network of free trade agreements are now in the process involving China, Japan or India and Southeastern countries and there is a possibility that Asia may form a common community like EU. May be it might be in distant future but there is a possibility so in other word, multiculturalism or co-habitance is lying as basis of Asian values and cultures and this could be a model for consideration for the rest of the world.

But more importantly I would like to pin point the role of Turkey. My conclusion is Turkey could be real important bridge because Turkey represent unique and successful model of co-habitance between European and Asian cultures. You have European look but Asian heart and today over 60% of world population are in Asia and co-habitance with Asia will be increasingly more important for peace and prosperity for the world. Turkish membership to EU could be an advantage for European countries as an important bridge between Europe and Asia. So in this sense the Turkish accession to EU will be watched with great interest by Asians in the context of co-habitance between the two important regions of the world.

This chart will be very interesting because this shows the development of world population since the birth of Christ, and the population o 250 million doubled in 1600, it took 16 centuries to double, next doubling period was shortened to 130 then it doubled just within 100 years, then it doubled in 45 years and another doubling will come by the 2030 by 55 years. The point is already today by the time the century we reached little where the mother earth can support us to its maximum. So in other words the level of burdens of human activities exceeded self-cleaning or self-recovering capacity with the mother earth. I call the century arrow heat human earth tension. Important messages in order to survive we don’t have time to be obsessed between religions or countries or cultures. We need to unite to cope with the tension with the mother earth otherwise we cannot survive. So co-habitance is the only way for prosperity and peace of course. In this sense Turkish model is very important in European context for better future of Europe and Asian model might be what we are looking at.

In a nut shell I just prepared this funny graph, there are 3 big circles and this three circles of floating in the ocean of heat is human earth ocean there is no way out. Only solution is the co-habitance in between. So I really like to share with you how important it is for Turkey to serve as a bridge between Europe and Asia and how important or us to consider, we don’t have time to fight among each other. Thank you.


Prof. Dr. T. Güngör Uras: Thank you very much. I think Mr. Masuda also as a comment.

Thank you very much. One small comment is that we talked about big stories, we talked about the role of country, region or government but there is one thing you can do, I can do in a part of everyday life that is to do something beyond your circle just one step beyond your circle as world citizen. İ copied this world citizen that was a very famous actress Sharon Stone last year in Italy when we met and she said like a prophet “why can’t a country do one step beyond as a citizen, if you do in every day life one step beyond your circle to show the tolerance of yourself and this could change the world. And if your everyday effort is combined with effort of big government, international organizations or companies and the world can change. Thank you.