The Surp Giragos Armenian Church is not located where one could randomly stumble upon it during a casual walk through Diyarbakır. Even though it is in the very heart of the Sur neighborhood, its tall walls and sober looking entrance prevent it from getting noticed at first glance. However, upon entering, you get the immediate feeling you are in a space that has witnessed more Anatolian history than most. Surp Giragos was restored and reopened to worship and community service in 2011, through the initiative of Sur Municipality president Abdullah Demirbas.
Since then, it has been utilized as the regular venue for Anatolia’s first municipal interfaith council in the 21st century: the Council of Forty (Kırklar Meclisi).
The Council of Forty brings together 46 opinion leaders and clergy from all communities in Diyarbakır, which include Kurds, Armenians, Turks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Alawites, Muslims, Yazidis, Christians, Doms, and Naqshbandis, to promote dialogue and sustain a fruitful engagement. The name comes from an old Diyarbakır legend about forty cats trying to find solutions to their city’s problems by meeting secretly at night.
Established in April 2012 at the initiative of Abdullah Demirbas and the leading Kurdish intellectual Şeyhmus Diken, the Council of Forty contributes to Diyarbakır’s social life by focusing on the needs of the under-represented, monitoring public services, generating new ideas to enable people from different faiths to be accurately represented in the city and in the long run, to promote a shared cultural heritage and foster the outreach of interfaith dialogue in the region.
The Council had an immediate impact on identity politics in the region. The initiative was quick to pave the way for hundreds of Armenians who converted over time to reveal their multiple identities, building the Love and Genocide monuments and disseminating the idea of celebrating diversity to enrich religious experience. Yusuf Karadayı, who has served as the Chairman of Board of Directors of the Chaldean Catholic Church Foundation for the past 30 years, says he recently has started to wear his cross openly.
In May 2014, almost two years after the Council’s establishment, nine representatives paid a visit to Papa Franciscus, known for his commitment to tolerance, to discuss their local work and advocate the importance of disseminating grassroots interfaith dialogue in the context of the Middle East. In return, Papa Franciscus requested a meeting with Mr. Demirbas during his official visit to Turkey six months later. The group and the Vatican have maintained contact ever since.
We met with the Council of Forty right after the Turkish parliamentary elections that welcomed the most inclusive and representative parliament in modern Turkish history. The group narrative demonstrated that they were happy with the outcome of the election – although they voiced their fear of ceasing peace talks between the government and the Kurds at the expense of populist politics driven by a coalition formation.
The meeting started with all participants introducing themselves and voicing recent demands of the communities they represent. The participants acknowledged the general rules of respecting all communities’ sensitivities, not disturbing anyone while speaking, and always acting in favor of mutual understanding and engagement. They unite around the belief that humanity comes before religion. The members were skillful in discussing local problems with constructive analysis and reached concrete agreements.
The participants – all of whom come from communities that suffered from years of isolation and assimilation – are simply hopeful. They determinedly put forward the notion that a multicultural perspective and a culture of tolerance is the very essence of their land, and that hate can only be generated artificially. They joyfully gave examples from 1860s Diyarbakır (a.k.a Amid, Amida, Dikranagerd, Amed, Omid) in which different communities within close proximity lived peacefully and collaborated extensively in social life.
They refer to the Ottoman social structure in which even though Muslims were favored in bureaucracy, non-Muslims had minority status as self-governing communities known as millets. Millet’s socio-cultural fabric was made up of religion, language, community, and ethnicity, in which clergy and places of worship played a central role in ensuring continuity of the community’s cultural traits as well as maintaining the sense of togetherness. Almost 150 years later, clergy and opinion leaders in Diyarbakır still wield significant influence to voice community demands and expectations.
However, the participants did not refrain from mentioning past resentments and ill treatment while searching for recognition of their identities and rights. They did highlight that ‘things have been easier’ since 2011 and that the peace process benefited not only Kurds, but also all minorities living with fear of oppression. Pointing out that minorities who suffered from repression of the state united for the sake of democratic rights, one participant summarized the incentive of the group as ‘when the wolf attacks the sheep, the sheep unite to protect themselves.’
Recently, the Council undertook rigorous work to create campaigns to support southeastern Turkey Doms whose futures are in danger. Doms, long shunned by other communities as heretic, come from similar Indian origins as Romani people, speak the Domari language, and are usually regarded as Middle Eastern Romanis. When Dom refugees from Syria started arriving in Turkey in 2013, AFAD placed them in refugee camps on the southeastern border. However, shortly afterward, the Doms were pushed out of the camps and left to hide their identities from authorities for fear of discrimination.
This focused attention on the marginalization of Doms that have lived in Diyarbakır all their lives. They risk losing their cultural heritage and youth dwell in the swamp of poor education and drug abuse.
Dom Association Director Mehmer Demir, a Council of Forty member, states that currently in Diyarbakır there are 15,000 Doms who have been subjected to systematic discrimination and assimilation. The Council plays a pivotal role in bringing these facts to the attention of the Sur Municipality, and formed a commission within the council to actively build dialogue channels with Doms to reintegrate them within the society.
To be straightforward, the Council of Forty had two main goals they would like to achieve in the foreseeable future. The first is to become a foundation in order to support all sorts of interfaith dialogue in the region. The second goal is to present the Council of Forty as a model of a reconciliation committee and participatory democracy to other municipalities in the region. The overall objective of the council is to enable all communities living in Anatolia – with different religions, languages, identities, and cultures – to enjoy permanent peace.
In reviewing research and practice, three basic structures emerge regarding how change occurs through interfaith dialogue: theological, political, and peacebuilding. In this context, the Council of Forty falls into the peacebuilding category, with a purpose of developing a platform for joint action to address root causes and consequences of conflict and eliminating exclusionary structures.
A closer analysis of the group’s rhetoric reveals that they do not regard peace as a destination, but rather a core value that they will never compromise.
The moderator of the group, Mr. Diken, decisively states that they are not seeking to simply maintain tolerance, but rather to internalize the idea that permanent peace comes only with engaging others. To achieve this, celebrating differences and learning from each other is one of the group’s main goals. The group narrative revolves around the feeling that learning from each other’s religious practices enrich their own spiritual experience.
Bureaucratically speaking, the Council of Forty functions as the de facto advisory board for the municipality council. Their opinions and suggestions are taken into consideration to ensure a more inclusive and effective municipality service. Driven by the belief that true democracy is based on pluralistic governance, the council is committed to the collective living model that aims to ensure fair representation through participatory bureaucracy.
On the other hand, the Council of Forty unites political factions and religious denominations. Participants revealed that even though a majority of members share similar political stances, there are those who support and also actively participate in other political movements and parties. They believe the fact that the Council of Forty includes people from different political affiliations and religions is beneficial to the quality of open communication and mutual understanding. Mehmet Ali Altınkaynak, the Sur Municipality Vice President, states that Wise Men – a diverse group of intellectuals and well-liked public figures formed by the AKP government – whose main aim is to explain and promote peace talks to the public, has been inspired by the Council of Forty model.
Even though the unique work of Abdullah Demirbas and the Sur Municipality has gained the attention of international media, the interest within Turkish civil society and media remains comparatively limited. As the peace process and the culture of reconciliation gains traction in Turkey, grassroots initiatives to support a culture of dialogue are emerging. The Council of Forty is a model of one of the best practices, which deserves greater recognition. Perhaps then the Surp Giragos church will have an entrance that reflects the true glory of its interior.
The current situation in the Middle East illustrates the brutality and inhumanity caused by the lack of tolerance of ‘others’. This should pave the way for the internalization of a multicultural perspective and encourage righteous people who value the principles of humanity above all else to help create a social order that benefits all humanity.
The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) is an independent non-governmental think-tank, analyzing social, political and economic policy issues facing Turkey. To see more information visit TESEV [3].