The essence of life
Peace is the most essential value that human being reached so far. The nature and the human being have to be together in order to survive. Peace is the essence of life. The history of humanity arrived today through peaces, not wars.
Unfortunately, they are the wars which tought us the value of peace. Particularly after the first and second world wars people realised that the propblems can be solved by peace. Yet very little steps have been taken in this regard.
A course which is against peace would decrease friendships and increase hostility and keeps us on the ground of being a sanguinary creature. Such a course would be full of dangers towards the perpetuity of societies, humanity and nature. After the most bloody century of the humanity, our being on the edge of a new world war indicates that keeping the consciousness of peace alive is the most fundamental condition of being human being.
To be or not to be a peace geography
Turkey is a multi-lingual and multi-culturel country. We have surrendered to the hostility producing understanding of daily politics instead of turning towards a mutual future in the light of this reality. We have started to miss the chance of being a peace land one by one. We have failed to grasp the situation and protect each other and our future. In the end the struggle for rights and remedies have been replaced by mutual violence. Even the “imagination” of peace has become far away from us.
Now we are facing the devastating results of this. Not only our people but also our future slip through our hands. In a place without no peace the social values can not survive and hate and hostility rise.
The problem requires the attention and responsibility of everybody including civil society organisations, citizens and opinion leaders. If permanent peace is possible only through abolition of the reasons of the conflict then we must search the way to achieve this together.
The language of peace
The way of demanding justice, freedom and equality is not the same for everyone. We are not alone in the society and we have to understand the language of other people who are not like us. Not everyone can express themselves through legitimate and valid philosophical languages. Different social and cultural sectors may not be able to speak in the languge expected by their addressees. If the screams of these sectors are not heard and understood then this means that we have a problem.
In that case it is essential that the people who have power are to put away all the language of power and arrogance and to defend the language of peace. Regardless who we are and our status in the society, we can only revive our hope of peace through giving confidence to other people and understanding the pain and anger of the subordinates.
The Peace Foundation
The Peace Foundation was founded with the aim of working based on the principles expressed above. Our aim is to contribute to develop realistic and non-hostile and non-partisanship approach towards the current social conflicts, notably Kurdish issiue and negotiation of these conflicts in the light of reason.
The Peace Foundation is a pluralist foundation. It is not pluralist only in terms of its’ founders but it also says that the least common denominators should be negotiated on a pluralist basis. The Foundation is neither a opposition center nor a candidate of power. It is against warmongering and stands by everyone who defends peace and solution. It pays attention to commonize the feelings and develop emphaty with all sectors including power elites. It supports building bridges between neighborhoods, communities and other social sectors. It refuses arrogance and to swear to other’s values. It believes that which is permanent is not hostility but friendship.
It puts forward the humanitarian security. Humanitarian security is a universal value identified as a right of survive and live without violance.
We do not believe that the permanent peace can be reached through bring the other side to its’ knee. We believe that the permanent peace can only be achieved through reaching a mutual understanding regarding righteous social life in the widest sectors of the society. So we need a righteous juctice which all citizens can trust.
Call
The Peace Process between 2013 and 2015 was a historical experience for all of us. Even if we were not sure about the ultimate success of the process, we believed that the guns will be quiet anymore were optimistic about the future. Unfortunately in every stage of the Process a very crucial mistakes were made.
We believe that we can take priceless lessons from this experience and other experiences in the world. We can create both local and central possibilities, initiatives and develop the current ones to help to build mutual trust and social peace.
Violence takes our children and future away from us. Yet we would like prepare a future which is full of peace fort hem, we have to.
Ultimately, our society, region and world have no other chance but peace.
