We had a meeting in İstanbul Bilgi Univercity with 50 people. Our speakers were the lecturer Murat Belge and Nurhan Yentürk, student from the university Nisan Ak, our member Sengul Cifci.
Murat Belge, talked about his coming book “the military in Germany, Turkey and Japan”. He explained why we have such a strong military tradition in Turkey. He said that the military hegemony was not from the military but from whole society. So that fighting against it should be civil peoples responsibility. He finished saying that change for military could from below, from people.
Nurhan Yenturk explained their report on Turkish state military spending. They prepared a report of military and other sectors and compare them. She said that unfortunately our spending is still high than even European Union average. She suggested that our military expenditure should be used for poor people, if this happens there will be less poverty in Turkey. Her report in Turkish is http://stk.bilgi.edu.tr/docs/SAVrapor.pdf and http://stk.bilgi.edu.tr/stkButce.asp
Nisan Ak, talked about the military hegemony of Turkey, have student should do something against it. She explain their student association activities for non-violent protests.
Sengul Cifci, talked about general situation of the world. That each day wars and military spending is growing.
We are planning much more meetings for next year.
The event is on our web site in Turkish: http://www.kureselbak.org/2011/04/12-nisan-2011-%E2%80%93-askeri-harcamalari-durdur-%E2%80%93-istanbul/
The pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/kureselbak/12Nis2011AskeriHarcamalarDurdur#