‘Shared Values’ initiative releases fresh interview series

ISTANBUL

A Doğan Holding initiative, the “Shared Values Movement,” which aims to create a dialogue environment where various segments of Turkish society can express their belief in common values, has released a new series of interviews with notable public figures in the country such as Türkan Elçi, İpek Çalışlar and Ali Çarkoğlu. 

Launched in early September, the project by Doğan Holding, which owns the Hürriyet Daily News along with a number of other media outlets, aims to create an environment of dialogue to explore the common values that glue the country together. 

In the series of interviews published on Oct. 31, Elçi, the wife of slain Diyarbakır Bar Association Head Tahir Elçi, said it was our “cultural treasure that we collected in our childhood” that ties us together. 

Doğan Holding Chairwoman Begümhan Doğan Faralyalı said the project initiated a field study probing what members of Turkish society want to see, according to which justice, trust, respect and morals topped the list. 
She added that “most importantly the distinctions based on the divide between women and men, rich and poor, left-wing and right-wing, Turk and Kurd, educated and non-educated do not play any role in the above mentioned preferences, meaning that these priorities are applicable for people on all sides.”

Elçi said growing up Diyarbakır in an environment that featured civil servant families coming from all across Turkey was a “stroke of luck” during her childhood years, as they taught her to be tolerant about differences with others.

Author-journalist İpek Çalışlar said “our rising values could be the respect for the constitution’s section for rights and freedom.” She added that if people do not protect these commonalities, they must find a way to acquire them. 

Koç University Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences Dean Professor Ali Çarkoğlu said the fact that people had to stop to think about the issue was the result of a process that has been continuing for the last few decades. 

He said everyone in the country still had an interest in dancing to music and enjoyed breakfasts but that the problems of living together politically surpassed all these positive observations.