September 28 Individual Disarmament Award "Individual Disarmament: Entitle Life!" News Contest
September 28, 2008
Lutfi Kırdar Convention and Exhibition Centre
Nazire Dedeman
Founder President of Umut Foundation
Speech Text
This year, we demonstrated our protest with the 8th march of silent shoes at Taksim Square on September 28th Individual Disarmament Day.
As the Founding President of Umut Foundation, I feel honored to award the works, which examined the individual armament problem and which we desire the critical approaches develops, at the 14th Individual Disarmament Day Award Ceremony.
As everybody knows, individual arms threat our lives at any moment.
The fact that six percent of the eight million vehicles on the road possess a firearm shows how much closer the individual armament threat is to all of us.
According to a research conducted by the member of the Management Board Dr. Akcan Akcan, Eighty percent of the firearms available in vehicles in traffic are ready to be used at any moment in Turkey. In Istanbul traffic where the anger management is extremely hard, a real danger threats quietly and unobtrusively our lives and our childrens lives.
If three thousand people are murdered by individual armament in this country, then this means there is a right to life problem.
If in average seven hundred people are killed accidently each year; if arms put a damper on weddings, associations, happiness, then it means there is a cultural problem threatening our right to life.
While taking into consideration the cultural motivations and psychological elements constituting the infrastructure of armament, we can see clearly how our right to life hangs by this thread. September 28th Individual Disarmament Day is an important day to form sensitiveness in the society and to provide the development of different approaches concerning this subject.
Moreover, the politicians who open celebration fire with guns and all the popular persons who show publicly their guns as a source of pride in televisions and public space shouldnt be forgotten. Those thoughtless acts constitute an important part in lives lost on the dark scene of individual armament. For this reason, I firstly invite them to get disarmed. It is extremely important that they sincerely condemn individual armament.
Our struggle against individual armament continues with the same effort as we started fourteen years ago today and I must say that we progressed a lot. Years ago, we had difficulties in explaining the concept individual armament. But today, the arms role in our daily life, its appearing in the media which is the reflection of our social mentality and social acts, the works we conducted persistently and the definitions we have made has provided this concept to be known.
On the other hand, our insistences and works on filling the loopholes in the laws have started to be considered by the authorities. Although the results are still inadequate and the victimhood caused by individual armament did not decreased, it is more visible now than before. The fact that the victimhood caused by individual armament is visible will speed up the sensitiveness and the process of taking measures.
September 28th should be officially accepted as Individual Disarmament Day by the Turkish Grand National Assemblys decision
The continuity of the Foundations, other nongovernmental organizations and the citizens efforts are undoubtedly important. However, the contribution of lawmaker and law enforcement officer authorities, statesmens and local administrations concerning individual disarmament are extremely important.
For this reason, it is important and necessary to recognize officially September 28th Individual Disarmament Day in our country in terms of transforming the social mentality and changing the cultural perception of individual armament in the society.
In order the world accepts this day, our attempt as a country, in the presence of United Nations, will make us leading a new concept in the world where the activism against armament is extremely active.
During the evaluations after the presentation I made with our Management Board member Att. Fikret İlkiz at NATO Small Arms and Light Weapons and Mines Meeting, in which we were invited by NATO on March, we saw that they found the individual disarmament concept interesting and important.
Because; according to researches published by The International Action Network on Small Arms, 74% of the 875 million arms available in the world are held by civilians. While one thousand people die every day due to firearms; only seven hundred fifty of those die because of reason caused by firearms such as accidents, murders, suicides
One of the important points of the individual armament problem in our country is the inadequacy of the laws related to this subject. As a nongovernmental organization giving a great importance to this problem, we think that the legal arrangements related to blank firing guns, which is just completed, is an important step in terms of our right to life and we thank those who were involved in this process.
However, we think that the law numbered 6136 concerning Firearms should be re-arranged in a way that will protect our right to life, complicate the process of obtaining individual arms and provide the highest level of supervision.
It is important that this law includes the procedure of reclaiming arms in order to destroy them. It is legally impossible today that our citizens get rid of their arms without submitting it to the circulation in the society. For this reason, it would be a very important step to develop the procedures related to the disposal of arms which we dont want to be in the usage of others; to include it in the related law; and to implement it carefully.
As Umut Foundation, we see as a liability to add our knowledge, which we collected in about sixteen years, to the works that will be carried out in the future.
The media should strengthen the citizens
Undoubtedly, the media, as a public space, is the reflection of our mentality. It is also an important base where our problems are visible and are defined easier.
John Keane says in his book The Media and Democracy: The communication media should try to strengthen the majority of the citizens directed by nondemocratic states and nondemocratic market powers. The media shouldnt be used for the personal interests or for the profits of those who are politically or economically powerful, but it should be used for the public benefit and entertainment of all citizens.
Umut Foundation, as a nongovernmental organization, is aware of the determinant role of the media in public discussion environment and, as Keane stated, thinks that the media should strengthen the public. This year, as a reflection of our thoughts, we have determined the subject of September 28th Disarmament Day Traditional Award Contest as News Article which is the principal branch of journalism.
The aim of this News Article contest is to attract attention on the social dimension of individual disarmament by benefiting from the news sociological and social-psychological indicators of the social life, from its power on social communication and from its opportunities. The other aim of the contest is to emphasize that the news, which is also an educational element beside of being a mean of communication, can be away from the violent language; to start, in this way, the proliferation of the nonviolent narration of the violent news in the society.
On behalf of Umut Foundation, I thank sincerely all the participants of the contest and dear Jury members for their contributions. Moreover, I thank the citizens, the media members, the Governorship of Istanbul, Beyoğlu, Şişli and Beşiktaş Municipalities, Lütfi Kırdar Congress and Exhibition Palace, Turkish Football Federation and Teneke Trampet for their contribution and the support they gave by participating on September 28th Individual Disarmament Day.
We are continuing and we will continue our struggle to leave to our children a society possessing the peace culture.
For future full of hope