Internet Campaign for Peace

After a two-day conference entitled "Turkey Looking for Peace" which took place in Ankara in January of this year, and which was attended by writers, academics, politicians and artists looking for solutions to the "Kurdish issue", the conference conveners have now started an internet petition against militarism and the exploitation of fear.

The organisers say, "we do not want to deliver this country's future to anger, hate and fears. We do not want peace and security built on being killed and killing".

The campaigners say that Turkey has to find a way towards peace. The petition can be signed by anyone. Up to now, many human rights activists, academics, writers, artists, and journalists have signed the text.

The text of the petition (in Turkish) can be found on the website of the Democratic Union Initiative for Peace . On the same page, people can sign the petition and see the list of people who have signed already.

The translation of the petition text is as follows:

It has become unbearable for us to suffer the pain of writing texts that start with "recently", and whose first sentences are full of our bloody past and speaking of our fears that our future will be enmeshed in blood, death, tears and shame. We are not afraid of attempts to silence us, to marginalise us because of what we say and write, to point at us as traitors and enemies, we are not afraid of being alone. We have experienced it all and know how to resist it. Rather, we are afraid of giving up our hope and belief in peace, of not believing our own voices, of being pushed into being spectators in this death game, of being part if this crime and of being forced to live with this shame.

Those who hold guns do not listen to us, and for decades, tens of thousands of us have died and we are not able to look into each others' eyes anymore. Perhaps we are being kept apart on purpose because without saying a word, by just looking into each others' eyes, it would be possible to find a place where we could solve everything, and be able to say "How happy we are to live in this country". This game is based on us being killed and killing. How similar are our deaths, our dead; how similar are our mothers, fathers, beloved, spouses, when they grieve; they do not care whether they are Kurdish or Turkish. Let us listen to the mothers' silent screams. Had they been given the opportunity, our mothers could have stopped their sons and daughters from being killed and killing. They would have managed what no big men in suits, no uniforms were able to achieve: their sons and daughters would have gone up the mountains singing love songs rather than killing each other singing marches. We do not want to deliver this country's future to anger, hate and fears. We do not want peace and security built on being killed and killing.

We want to ask each other questions by looking into each others' eyes without being frightened. We want to know for what global, regional or class profits you are seizing our political will and trying to turn us into the bit players of an ugly death game. We want to know how much more blood we need to give for a life without violence.

We want to shout out that we need to find a way towards peace. We know that social peace, brotherhood and the way towards peace cannot be found in new security zones, in practices that evoke emergency rule, in lives and hopes that are destroyed by mines, in emphasising the nationalist reflexes of the masses. We believe that peace is possible, that we have enough sense, heart and belief to achieve it. We want to state that we only need a little peace now for peace to start, for us to resist the fears that you are inventing every day in order to darken our lives, for us to build our future with our own political will, with responsible and calm patience, for us to look into each others' eyes and start afresh.

Therefore, we believe that by starting this petition, we will, in spite of everything, increase our hopes together.

The Conveners of the Conference "Turkey Looking for Peace" (TK/EÜ/AG/EÜ)