South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was awarded the Fethullah Gülen Peace and Dialogue Award during the seventh annual Ubuntu Lecture and Dialogue Awards ceremony held in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening.The awards were organized by the Turquoise Harmony Institute, a dialogue center inspired by the prominent Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen to promote mutual understanding and exchange between people from different cultures and religions.Archbishop Tutu accepted his award from Hüseyin Hurmalı of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), of which Gülen is the honorary chairman. Holding a speech after he received his award, Tutu said: “Wonderful thing to have a complexion like mine; you don’t realize when I am blushing. Adam could not be fully human on his own. We are programmed to be interdependent. I learn how to walk like a human being by imitating other human beings. We are fundamentally made for complementarity. A person is a person by other persons. To harm other is to harm oneself. ”
Underlining the importance of efforts that Turkish volunteers are expending to improve Ubuntu in South Africa, Tutu ended his speech with the words: “We have resources; it is an abomination if a child of this nation goes to bed hungry. Wake up, South Africa, to realize your potential.”
Tutu is a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s due to his efforts against the South African apartheid regime. Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; he also worked as the chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in 1995, and known not only for his efforts to reinforce peace within South Africa but also as an aspiration for universal peace and struggles against dictatorial regimes around the world.
The Fethullah Gülen Peace and Dialogue Award is bestowed upon outstanding individuals or organizations that are seen to have made noteworthy contributions to dialogue, peace and harmony in the society.
KYM Secretary General Savas Metin said this campus will function as a base in Malindi for the aid efforts to be done in the region. “We have brought drinking water for 1 million people, with the water wells we established in the drought-ridden Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya. We will not only educate underprivileged students at Light Academy but provide medical aid.”
A Very Predictable Coup?
First of all, though it is not a major issue, none of us believes that Gulen was behind the coup. It is convenient for Erdogan to blame his principal opponent because it will facilitate the arrests of any and all opponents not linked to the actual coup by claiming that they are Gulenists.
“Peace and Sustainable Development: A Two-Way Relationship” Panel
Mr. Huseyin Hurmali, Vice-President of the JWF emphasized and explained how civil initiatives inspired by scholar Fethullah Gulen have been contributing to both durable peace and sustainable development in about 160 countries around the world. Schools, universities and other educational institutions have been providing high quality science and mathematics education and also contributing to peace through becoming entities of “social mediation” in the regions of conflict.
Turkey Coup Attempt: Who is Fethullah Gülen, The Cleric Being Accused Of Orchestrating The Turmoil?
In an address to his supporters at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport early on Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Fethullah Gülen — a cleric living in a self-imposed exile in the United States — of orchestrating the coup attempt against his government. Here’s what you need to know about Gülen, who has denied being involved in the […]
Fethullah Gülen’s message of condemnation and condolences for victims of 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.
Turkish engagement with Southern Africa depends on the Turkish attitude towards Hizmet
Turkish engagement with Southern Africa will not be without challenges. The success of this engagement will depend on the Turkish attitude towards the Hizmet Movement. If Turkey decides to tackle the Hizmet Movement head on as it has done in Turkey and in other countries, it will risk alienation in South Africa and the wider region. The Hizmet Movement is generally popular in Southern Africa, with long standing ties to civil society and the political elite.
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