By Burak Sayin
Since the civil war broke out in Syria in 2012, Turkey and Syria entered a new phase of relations in cultural, social and political spheres. The 2016 Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum hosted a panel focusing on the culture to bring people and build a better tomorrow.
Goethe Institute brought Kefah Ali Deeb, artist, children’s book author and political activist, Danny Daoud, filmmaker from Syria, Fatma Colakoglu, film and video curator, Ayşegül Sönmez, art critic together exchange ideas on the role of culture and media in the society.
Danny started the conversation with the importance of the culture
“I will tell you why art matters in Syria. I don’t what happened in Iraq to be copied to Syria. Are we going to do the same in Syria? I don’t think the cultural institution should be destroyed. If we do so we will give way to ISIS. They destroyed the culture first. They did same in Iraq then it was easy for them to control. Our culture and heritage should be protected,” Syrian filmmaker Danny Daud says.
Culture is ‘perversion’ for some
Ayşegül Sönmez, art critic, pointed out how culture evolved to ‘something’ else and it is ‘perversion’ for the fundamentalists. “Attack in Paris concert, Orlando attack… They attacked cultural event. I think the culture is space for criticism. Oxygen for us but perversion for ‘them’. Culture vs religion. Culture is a battleground, maybe we should redefine the culture,” Aysegul says.
An artist Kefah Ali Deeb emphasized how hard it was in Syria to do anything related to the culture. “People live under the regime control they won’t go in front of the camera because they are afraid of the regime,” Kefah Ali Deeb says.
“There is another aspect of the culture. We are consuming the culture. We can only talk about culture in financial terms. I used to be a Marxist but I came to terms with it. That’s how it works,” film and video curator Fatma Colakoglu says.
The world keeps evolving and changing so does the culture. According to Aysegul, counter culture might bring some solutions to the problems we face today.
