MOUDAINA BAND & ÇAKMAKLI CLARINET .................................................................................
Hüseyin Türker Değirmenler
Moudania Municipality Council Member Since I am a child of Crete origin, I have observed the Turkish-Greek relations throughout my all life carefully. After the Turkish war of Independence in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed and together with this Agreement a protocol was also signed connected with an exchange of Turkish and Greek People. According to this protocol Muslim Turkish people and Orthodox Greek people were exchanged with each other and they would never come back to their homeland again. One morning I had woken up with the call to prayer. I hadn’t finished my breakfast yet. I didn’t know why but the church bells began to ring continuously. I felt that some strange things would happen. As soon as I put on my clothes I went out. I walked towards the plane tree. Greeks and Turkish people had gathered to understand what was happening. Venizelos and Mustafa Kemal had reached an agreement. Therefore we (the Turkish people) would abandon Crete and would not be allowed to come back again. Both of the communities were bewildered by these decisions. Everybody was rushing from one place to another and trying to find out whether this news was true or not. We were surprised at this bad news because people were accepted like goods as if they had no thoughts and wills. They had to leave their homeland where they had lived for three centuries. In order to settle there, they had to sacrifice many people so they felt as if they were unfaithful to their ancestors. In those years they had struggled to be able to live there and lost a lot of things. Now this society sharing common fate didn’t exist.
Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de L’Europe
We (the Turks) haven’t explained Atatürk’s principle and our devotion to these principles to the Greeks clearly. We can neither give nor get any inches of this soil that was determined by Atatürk’s ‘’Misak-ı Milli’’. National Soil Politics has adjusted to this principle, nothing contradicting with this principle has ever been done or could be done. One of Atatürk’s sayings ‘’ Peace at home, Peace in the World’’ is our guarantee for this principle. This devotion shows Turkish people’s point of view about Cyprus, continent and air shelf and armed islands. None of the enmity includes wars. Consequently, there must be peace in Mediterranean so, our Misak-ı Milli border can be in safety and our existence can maintain day by day as a whole. Why didn’t we fight in the second World War? Why didn’t we accept Dodecanese Islands offered to us? Because, we don’t need new land, new confusion, new pain. We only need to advance and together with the West we need to catch happiness and live in peace. Global world must bring peace not wars. Our politicians must take lessons from our history, they must show respect to themselves and their rights, they must present peace to our society and they must themselves also live in peace.
Population Exchange