A panel titled “Gaza: Humanity's Conscience at a Crossroads” with Prof. Dr. Erol Göka and Ayçin Kantoğlu as panelists and moderated by Dr. Necdet Subaşı was held at our Institute.
The ongoing test of humanity, the test of conscience, compassion, and morality in the context of what is happening in Gaza.
Delivering the opening speech of the panel, Prof. Dr. Mehmet Görmez, President of the Institute, emphasized that the test of humanity that has been going on in Gaza for fifty days already has not only destroyed our physical world but is a destruction movement that reached intellectual, cultural, theo-political, conceptual, moral, and philosophical dimensions. In his speech, Görmez said, "The intellectual dimensions that turned the truth upside down, changed the definition of justice and transformed morality is more devastating than the wreckage seen in Gaza."
The occupation of minds is more severe than the occupation of Gaza!
Görmez emphasized the dangers of placing religion, sacred texts, science, and philosophy at the disposal of Zionism. He described the written statement by the German philosopher and sociologist Jurben Hebermas, together with a group of scientists, as the ugliest document in the history of this dirty war. He pointed to the theo-political dimensions of metaphysical guilt psychology through this statement titled Principles of Solidarity.
The fate of Gaza in Quds (Jerusalem) is similar to the fate of Granada in Andalusia.
He mentioned that this atrocity, in which the civilization of Quds is being destroyed day by day, is not a war but an act of destruction of the earth. Drawing attention to the fact that Islamic jurists distinguish between war and the destruction of the earth, Görmez mentioned in his speech that massacres that constitute crimes against humanity cannot be characterized as war and that war also has its own law and morality.
In his speech, Prof. Dr. Erol Göka, the first speaker of the panel, said that what happened in Gaza was an event that restructured modern history and that the psychological transformations in the background of sympathy for Israel emerged in the West and the desire of Western society to return to a human and morality-centered worldview.
A new milestone in the literature of modern times: Before Gaza and after Gaza
Göka said, "What happened in Gaza in October 2023 will shelve all previous revolutionary attempts. This date will be remembered as the Gaza genocide and resistance."
How did the Jewish-Christian tension turn into Jewish-Muslim tension?
"For hundreds of years, the greatest tension and contradiction in the West was the Jewish-Christian tension. But with the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel after World War II, this tension was left in the lap of the Islamic world." He emphasized that the West, out of guilt, identified with the Jews whom they had victimized in the past and that this was the first time in history for something like this to happen.
Globalization of the banality of the evil also globalizes conscience.
Göka mentioned about the moral dissolution caused by the anti-human and anti-virtue progress that serves the interests and pleasure of human beings in modern processes, which he characterized as techno mediatic, on the basis of individuals and society. "From their hypocritical reactions to the genocide in Gaza, we understand that Western societies have shrunk from anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia and technology-centered politics, and they want to return to a human and morality-centered worldview." he added.
Ayçin Kantoğlu, the second speaker of the panel, opened her remarks with a poem written by Palestinian poet Ibrahim Nasrallah
"There is so much here, and they only want so little,
Like the awakening of the day and the smile of a child..."
This war is not an Israeli-Palestinian war, but a war of human dignity on earth!
"The unity of Muslims is not an integration, but a state of unity established from the source. Today, we need to get rid of the western mentality that covers our return to the source, and we need to be united." said Kantoğlu. She also pointed to the power that will arise from the unity of Muslims.
We need to remember who we are and what we have lost!
Kantoğlu pointed out that a hundred years ago we experienced a similar struggle to the one the Palestinians are going through now and said, "We paid the price for the identity we have today a hundred years ago. We must be able to reclaim this original identity from its main source. Because if we lose identity, we lose meaning." She added.
In a world where children are being killed, no sentence starting with "but" is acceptable.
She stated that those responsible for this massacre, which she described as an organized evil, could not conceal the truth despite mobilizing all their means, and that today the truth is represented by the people in Gaza who are exposed to all kinds of atrocities.
The panel was completed with the Q&A session.