Turkish Olympiads and achieving peace


Date posted: June 19, 2013

ORHAN OĞUZ GÜRBÜZ

A utopia ushers in a new era. We explore and take courageous actions thanks to our dreams of what is possible.

Turkish colleges around the world are sponsored by entrepreneurs who are members of a movement in Turkey that has made serious progress in creating this utopia. If you describe languages, religions, races and continents as meeting points rather than as points of discrimination, you can be comfortable becoming involved in global communication and friendship. Turkey, which experienced joy and enthusiasm with the 11th International Turkish Language Olympiad, is also curious about the stories behind this festivity. To better understand these colleges and schools as Turkish brands and the educational activities performed by the civil society initiatives of private entrepreneurs, a variety of answers, including those making use of different analogies, are offered to the public. It is argued that graduates from these schools will create trade bridges in the future because they have established strong communications between peoples. Without a doubt these schools will help facilitate the development of multidimensional relations between nations in the future. It is obvious that these colleges will make a huge contribution to the future of home and host countries due to the high quality education they offer.

Inevitably, Turkey will assume a huge role in world peace and the alliance of nations. However, the primary factor that makes these colleges and schools a success story and islands of hope for the future is that the idea of peace and friendship is the ultimate goal of this endeavor. In the great utopia built by the members of the movement of volunteers that is being extensively and strongly supported by people in Turkey, humane development, trade and international political relations may find a suitable place as secondary outcomes as well. However, the primary goal in the existence of these colleges is to build bridges of brotherhood. It is also about creating a model that respects pluralism — different cultures and faiths — a relationship based on brotherhood and friendship and lifestyle. There is a story and dialogue that is narrated in almost all sacred scripts. Cain and Abel, sons of Adam, had a fight. Cain unjustly killed his brother in this fight.

God asked Cain, “Where is Abel?” He replied: “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” This question has been a major underlying notion in a number of issues that philosophers of ethics and society have been discussing for centuries. Some interpreted the idea of one’s keeping an eye on their brother as the pretext for creation of a disciplinarian society and a source of legitimacy for such a social order. The world is trying to redefine society-individual relations in the post-modern era. In essence, a relationship of brotherhood among members of a society cannot be regarded as a mechanism that legitimizes attempts to tame and impose terms on others. When they define the others as a brother, people may be able to create a new culture of coexistence.

The story of Hasan Luena, who, after graduating from Türkiye Feza College in Tanzania, started to work as a teacher in the same school, offers some insights on notions of brotherhood and dedication. What most impressed Luena, who graduated from the biology-chemistry department at Darussalam University and then started to work as biology teacher at Feza College, was that he saw his teachers construct the new building for the school: “Although the new semester was about to start in January, the building was not ready in December. I went to the construction site. The teachers were building it. There was an accountant; I saw him carry beds. There was a teacher trying to install the windows. Teachers were building a new school with their bare hands so that the building would be ready by January. I was impressed by this.”

Whether or not one should keep an eye on others to achieve peace could be a philosophical discussion. However, we can rest assured that those who worked shoulder to shoulder in the construction of these schools would not allow artificial walls like a clash of civilizations divide humanity.

Source: Today’s Zaman, 15 June, 2013


Related News

Hizmet and Turkey’s relations with Nigeria

Apart from establishing most successful educational institutions in Nigeria, the Hizmet Movement, which is also referred to as Gulen Movement, has been in the fore-front in propagating modern face of Islam, while at the same time building bridges of peace through interfaith dialogue.

Survey shows Turkish gov’t seized at least $11 billion of company assets over Gülen links

Turkish government has transferred about 49,4 billion liras ($11 billion) of assets of 1,124 companies seized from those who have alleged affiliation to the Gülen movement to a special fund under a crackdown that began following a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

Fethullah Gülen condemns the terrorist attack in Gaziantep, Turkey

I condemn, in the strongest terms, the barbaric terrorist attack on attendees of a wedding ceremony in Gaziantep, Turkey that took the lives of more than fifty citizens, including children, and wounded many others. This is not just an attack on the attendees of a wedding, but also an attack on the solidarity of people of Anatolia, including Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Boshniaks, Albanians, Georgians and Circassians and others who lived as neighbors for centuries.

Turkey’s Erdogan and July 15 coup

Like many autocratic leaders, Erdogan was quick to blame members of opposition and  sympathizers of Gulen Movement  for the coup attempt. He particularly singled out the United States-based Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen as the mastermind of the coup, even when it is on record that the highly-respected cleric publicly condemned the coup when it was still on.

PKK terrorists set dorm on fire, one student injured

Terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have set fire to a dershane and its dorm that belong to the Hizmet movement in the eastern province of Muş, injuring at least one student.

Retired on disability, former bomb disposal expert kept in jail for a month over Gülen links

Bilal Konakçı, a former bomb disposal expert for the İzmir Police Department who was retired after he lost his right hand and both eyes while trying to dispose of a bomb in 2009, was detained on Dec. 20 over links to the faith-based Gülen movement, and his wife is worried about his health as authorities refuse to allow the family to contact him.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

BBC interviews families of abducted Gülen followers

Burma/Thailand: Deported Turkish Man at Risk

Members of US Congress withstand intense pressure over press freedom letter

Gulen-linked body condemns attempted Turkey coup

Trip to Turkey about understanding

Panel Discussion – The Gulen Schools In Central Asia

Canada’s Green Party leader on human rights violations in Turkey: I am entirely horrified

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News