One day I was watching a discussion programme on politics on Turkish television. I am very much interested in Turkish political life so I thought the programme would be interesting. However, I fell asleep and when I woke up half an hour later, I didn’t get the impression that I had missed very much. The reason was simple: there was no real dialogue between the participants. Most political programmes on Turkish television are like that. Turks who like the current government, talk continuously about democracy, the will of the people and human rights. Turks who are opposed to this government, go on and on about Atatürk, the Republic and the uniqueness of the Turkish system. Both parties sound like jukeboxes to me – their discourse is preprogrammed. But they are bad jukeboxes: they only have one song. Whatever question you ask, they will always play the same song.

I wanted this dialogue project to be different. I wanted Turkish people to come together and really listen to each other and try to answer each other’s questions and objections. In my opinion dialogue is very important – if there is no dialogue, people start to lose respect for the other. The other starts to be perceived as dangerous, as an opponent that has to be eliminated. Without dialogue, there is no real democracy, I always think.

We are making ten programmes and every time we invited different people. Sometimes there was a real dialogue. Then the atmosphere in the studio became so special that it almost seemed, when I looked outside, that the weather became brighter and the sun started to shine. One of the programmes where that happened, was the one on spirituality. No ‘prerecorded’ talks there about the headscarf, the participants engaged in a real discussion about what spirituality means. I also liked the programme on politics – I wanted it to be about the AK-party, but it turned into a nice discussion about the essence of democracy.

I learned a lot more about Turkey during this project. There is no dialogue culture in Turkey as yet, but I am sure that projects like this, small as it may be,  help to change the atmosphere. So – if you have time, listen to the shows and enjoy. And when you walk outside in the street and see someone who differs from you, talk to them instead of condemning them!

Bernard Bouwman
bernardbouwman@yahoo.com