We finished the webinar organised by the Department of International Relations of Ozyegin University (and the student OZU Diplomacy Club) on the Greek-Turkish Rivalry "Nereye Gidiyorsun/Που πάμε"
Me, Dr. Zuhal Mert Uzuner (Marmara University), Dr. Mesut Uyar (Antalya Bilim University) and Dr. Dionysios Tsirigotis (University of Piraeus) discussed the Greek-Turkish Rivalry and increasing tensions. It was a pluralist discussion with contributions from history, peace science ,conflict process, constructivism and structural realism. Topics ranged from underlying factors pushing to conflict, to the role of images and ideas, and the potential to change them by both state action (small) and direct individual action (more promising).
Main take-away points on this discussion for me were the following
Main take-away points on this discussion for me were the following
1) It is unlikely that a Greek-Turkish War will erupt any time soon (I was the most pessimistic going in. The other three contributors, based on radically different paradigms and perspectives, all concluded that the chance of war was low at this point)
2) There is a need for academics to practice more ground-up peace-building, rather than reiterating state positions.
3) There is a need for opening the black box of national histories in order to produce more holistic perspectives
4) That said, the contours of rivalry due put limits to how far these efforts at ground-up diplomacy and changing of images can do, without nullifying their worth
5) Good peacemaking must marry perspectives on ideas and images with perspectives on hard political questions.
