Award Ceremony of 8th "Individual Disarmament And Individual Peace" Sculpture Contest

September 28, 2002
Presidency Mansion of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality

Nazire Dedeman
Founder President of Umut Foundation
Speech Text

Our precious guests,
As the years with 2000 continue,humanity has been directed towards a new civilization with attacks in information and communication technologies.It is not possible yet to estimate what will this big direction bring to humankind.But it is calculated that three fourth of world population estimated to exceed eight billion in the middle of 21st century will live in cities,50 big cities that will shelter 30 million people will emerge.It is thought that number of unemployed people will reach 2 billion in near future;every year millions of people will emigrate to rich countries from the poorest 50 countries that 20% of the world is living in but can obtain only 2% of world income.Traces of these estimations are seen also in our country since today.It will be difficult to find peace,protect it,stop the individual quarrels within this confusion.

Isn’t it the peace that complete the societies,open the way to development of affection,friendship and mutual reliance.It is clear that peace and peace culture which are perceived as opposed to violence and war at first glance are basically individual and very dimensioned theme as far as being a social theme.Don’t we all want peace when speaking?Then why does weapon appear in front of us?And what are the reasons and effects of weapon taking place in the society?Today I want to talk about these a little as headlines.I am sure that you will find these stabilizations remarkable but dignity hurting.

-Weapon is an alogical tool that we believe created and also can be terminated by human,ends human life,threaten the living right which is the basic right of humankind whether it is used for defence or attack.
-The most defended reason of individual armament is self-protection.The increase in number of weapon owners due to this reason composes the judgement of unfulfilled law government.Individuals are distrustful to the government and its institutions.Also the government is so distrustful to its institutions and establishments that it gives weapon licence to its citizens for this reason.Weapon;that is to say the place of object with fire or fireless and tool at human hand that gives harm to human,living creature and nature carry a symbol that continue from the first man to today whether it is for to continue the life or self-protection.So, first of all,it is necessary to terminate this symbols that differentiate in minds.According to an investigation made upon a group consisted of 800 people,people buy weapon for 30,4% job risk,29,6% keeping at home,15% hunting,10%hobby.A very remarkable another stabilization is 87,5% of people who applied for weapon licence did not exposed to any threat,theft and robbery.Then there is difference between the reason of giving weapon licence and the demand of keeping weapon.
-There is impulse control problem in great section of people who applied for and took weapon licence.That is to say,these are elements as quarrelsome personality in 6,3%,driving car fast in 5,4%, habit of gambling in 1,3%,getting drunk frequently in 0,5% of people.
-There is opposite proportion between the tendency to buy weapon and positive personality characteristics in individuals.Another way of coping with armament in civil life is socially making people realize that buying weapon is not a natural behaviour.
-Studies made upon murder make us think that the foremost condition of commiting crime is firearms.Guilt is a social episode.So the sense of weapon for our society determines the opinion of guilt commited with this tool.We see that guilt of murder is prefered to shameful guilts also in occupation to jobs after the setting free of the sentenceds.
-According to a study made in Bakırköy Woman and Child Jail,40% of women are in prison because of murder and 80% of people killed by these women are their husbands and the most remarkable reason of husbands’ being killed by weapon is having a weapon.
Investigations point out that some regions in Istanbul carry potential risk pregnant to social explosions because of cases like distorted urbanizations and emigration and there is illegal armament in these regionsAccording to an emigration,weapon and crime investigation made by the same institution about 10 thousand incidents between 1998-2000,20 murder is commited in a year in Esenler.When the applications for weapon licence are inspected,25% Küçükçekmece,22,5% Bakırköy,10,5% Bahçelievler, 7,8% Güngören,7,5% Bağcılar,5,1% Zeytinburnu,4,7% Büyükçekmece,3,3% Avcılar,2,5% Gaziosmanpaşa,as for Esenler 2,3%compose of this.Additionally,it is indicated that there is increase in murders in general Istanbul;60% in Esenler,78% in Gaziosmanpaşa,200% in Sultanbeyli,50% in Ümraniye,54% in Bağcılar,200% in Kartal.Specialists connect licence application’s being few in spite of murders commited by weapon with illegal armament.

-Now let’s look at the distribution of cases that was opened at Criminal Courts about Special Laws That Carry Criminal Judgement and showed density according to CASE NUMBER/PERCENTAGE/TOTAL NUMBER OF ACCUSEDS.
In cases opened in only 2001 about special laws that carry Criminal Judgement;here you can see top ten according to case number,the 6136 numbered law about firearms and knives takes place in top five.Total case number opened in a year because of this law is 23.547.There are weapons used in hunting,sport in eighth line.Total case number opened in a year is 7.940 also in here.

If we return to the 6136 numbered law,we should pay attention that the total number of accuseds is 30.140 in 23.547 cases.Here,it is seen that there are more than one accused in disregardable part of cases.
In addition,let’s look at the distribution of accuseds judged with the necessity Law About Firearms and Knives according to their age and sexes.Woman number is 619 whereas the man number is 29.738 out of totally 30.140 accuseds.Child number is 959 because,legally, someone between 11-17 ages is regarded as child.

I do not want to get into the statistics excessively but yet;I should say these in the other datums direction taken from General Directorate of Record of Previous Convictions and Statistics of Ministry of Justice We see that 50% of cases results in condemnation when we look at the sorts of decree of these cases.This shows us that at least 15.000 people are condemned in a year because of weapon.Another datum is:average judgement duration of each case carried out with the necessity of 6136 numbered law is 353 days.Judgement duration is taken into consideration as the time between the arrival of the case to the trial and the judgement.I will not mention about the financial loss of these cases each lasting 353 days for this country.
These determinations continue like this.But lastly,I want to transfer a matter as a reply to a question asked us frequently.Why is it individual armament rather than armament?First of all,I should say this:Getting specialist is necessary also in Third Sector as it is in all sectors.Disarmament of countries and disarmament of civils living in the same society are different matters.Investigation of disarmament of soldiers and disarmament of civils resemble to a discussion of two different matters in the same platform.But they are in same importance when it is thought of from the perspectives of gaining the peace and welfare of humankind.Is it how?56 thousand American died in the war in Vietnam within six years.Every year 42 thousand people lose their lifes in Brasil as a result of individual armament.Pay attention to this;every year almost nearly a Vietnam is experienced in Brasil with individual arms.I chose Brasil especially as an example.There are similar qualities between Brasil and Turkey in individual armament matters.The same social insensitivity and the same worn-out traditions and customs to the matter exist in both of the societies.

Ok,now that I have reached this interest,I want additionally to talk about activities of Umut Foundation very shortly.
Umut Foundation,from the date on its establishment,is making studies in the direction of its aims,in regard of growing up of youths as people away from violence,believing in the superiority of law,skilled with solving problems in peaceful ways with doctrines of our great leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.Our youths should grow up as individuals protecting human rights and respectful to human rights.

In this direction,The Foundation organized Agreement Methods Seminars,educated students and teachers and still continue to educate.In the same way,a series of book titled as ‘I AM A HUMAN’ is written in our country to be used in first stage of primary school students with the cooperation of The Ministry of Public Education and British Council for the development of education of human rights,teacher educations are organized for the productive usage of these books.

Parallel to this,teacher and student books titled as ‘TO BE A CITIZEN...’are printed for second stage of primary school students and now they are studied as helpful lecture book at schools.Until today more than a thousand teacher are educated by educators of Umut Foundation concerning the usage of this book in the classroom.Now,human rights education which is intensively effectual method is given by Umut Foundation to the volunteers of ‘Education Volunteers Foundation of Turkey’in the frame of a double protocol.The most basic right of human is to live.

Violence within family is a kind of individual violence.As for tip point of violence is the thing realized by using individual arm.Relating to all sorts of individual violence,Umut Foundation helps with all of its present possibilities also to other civil society organizations that make studies serving to the aim. In this connection,our Foundation supported ‘Father Supporting Education Programme’ carried on by Mother-Child Education Foundation.

Out of all these studies directed towards education,Umut Foundation prepare the way for national and international academic studies,symposiums,panel discussions and continue its studies on the results gained from there.
My precious guests,it is absolutely necessary to speak about peace at home,peace in the world.There is extremely nice approach in this expression that brings up the relationships of individuals with each other that is to say with their family,with their districts,with their nation and certainly the relationships of all the people in the world with each other.There is agreement,share and affection.Being tolerant,not being defeated by grudge and rage,being respectful to humanely life and different opinions are the greatest virtues of human.This is peace culture.Individual disarmament lies in its essential.

I wish our studies to be advantageous for the society,I give my thanks to your participations and to your hearts.
To the tomorrows full of hope...