Opening gates to the `Zones of Silence`…(*)

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

We walk in the quiet streets of Vienna, in the area of Stefanplatz and it’s late at night so the town is not as alive as it was during daytime… Some laughter comes from some of the restaurants as our group proceeds towards the underground…

I am walking with Freimut Duve, who was the person responsible for `Freedom of the Media` for OSCE(Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe)… He is an old man, who has seen a lot, who knows a lot… A human rights activist, a writer, a thinker… His name meaning `Free Courage` and he matched the name his parents gave him throughout his life…

`I travel a lot nowadays` he says, `every week I am somewhere else…`

Born in 1936 in Hamburg, he was an MP from SPD during the 80s…

During the years of apartheid in South Africa, he was banned for 10 years – he could not enter South Africa. The apartheid regime did not like what he wrote… He was an expert on `colonialism` and had stayed in South Africa and Zimbabwe for his studies… He wrote the book `Cape without hope or the policy of apartheid` in 1965… In 1970 he went on to write `Development policy between fear and poverty`… In 1994 he wrote `The war in the soul…`

During years of apartheid he was communicating with the wife of Mandela, Winnie Mandela and when Mandela got out of prison and went for a visit to Germany, he met Duve… Duve told him how he helped to fight the apartheid regime and how he was banned from entering South Africa…

Later when South Africa was setting up the `Truth and Reconciliation Commissions`, Desmond Tutu invited him to South Africa… Finally, the ban on his entry to the country was lifted and he went on at the beginning of the working of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to participate with his experience there… He also went on to Chile when Chile was in the process of handling its own unspeakable truths… He was in all the difficult places – Bosnia to witness the pain of the widows of Srebrenica…

We are in Vienna with Makarios Drusiotis and Demet Bilge Ergun, in order to take the award `2005 Press Freedom Award` of Reporters Without Borders Austria Section… The three of us won this award this year and there’s a ceremony in the Music House where we meet Duve… I remember years ago, when I had seen him at a workshop at the Cambridge University… He too, vaguely remembers…

He is critical about the state of the world concerning press freedom… `Whenever a country considers itself to be at war, freedom of expression is the first casualty. The urge to abandon plurality and debate is overwhelming` he said in an interview with Eurozine, pointing out to the curb on freedom of expression in the US… `

At the Music House in Vienna, Duve makes a speech in the name of the jury who looked at the articles of journalists from Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. There were 25 participants and for this year, the three of us were selected to receive this prestigious award…

Duve explains in the ceremony:

`Sometimes there are `zones of silence` in societies… How can humanity live with these `zones of silence`? `Zones of silence` are dangerous for democracy – they are a threat to democracy… You, as Cypriot journalists, have opened gates to these zones of silence so that people could speak…`

His speech is meaningful:

`Journalists must cross borders… These journalists got this award because they could cross borders… All three of them used their skills in order to give us a perspective about the tragedies and the crimes committed in their countries. The whole world needs a free press. Culture cannot be shown as a justification for violence… If we don’t question the past, we can’t have peace in the future. I say this quite consciously… As a German, this is my responsibility… We cannot put aside the crimes committed by some Germans in the past… I am someone who questioned these a lot. I participated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the beginning in South Africa. I was also invited to Chile for similar work… What Germany has done concerning questioning its own past must be an example. Each democracy, each country must question its past… What has happened in Chile and Argentina or the activities of the USA must be questioned. The fact that the Cypriot journalists are talking about mass graves and mass killings is very important, it is important for gaining consciousness about the issue. This is also important for Europe… Sometimes, in communities `zones of silence` are formed. How can humanity live with such `zones of silence`? Such `zones of silence` are a great danger for democracies. You, the Cypriot journalists, have opened the gates to these `zones of silence` in Cyprus, you made people talk…

If we go to the bottom of things, there is no homogeneous country. Each nation is responsible for its country’s peaceful future… For internal peace, human rights must be respected. This is valid for all countries… And this is also the task of the responsible, professional journalists. If we don’t have responsible journalists, there can be no future for democracy… Freedom of the media is not something that the governments can decide about, it has nothing to do with them. This is something that the journalists must decide on and it is about responsibility. I am talking about responsible journalism. If you kill responsibility, you also kill the freedom of the media. And this must be discussed by the institutions formed by journalists and publishers, not by the governments…`

The President of the Austrian Section of the Reporters Without Borders, Rubina Mohring, also makes a speech, pointing out how the freedom of the media is in a difficult situation all over the world… Mohring says:

`The Cypriot journalists Uludag and Drusiotis have questioned their island’s past, they have told the stories of murders, of mass graves… They did not hide anything. They have pushed for the opening of the Green Line… They have all done this with courage. They have gone on a difficult and long term struggle for communication… People must accept and admit the crimes they have committed and both sides must question its history…`

We get our awards, Makarios and me, for questioning the recent history of Cyprus, for opening the gates to the `zones of silence` in our communities… We have broken down some taboos but there are still a lot more to write, to research, to discuss, to talk…

(*) Article published in Fileleftheros newspaper on the 26th of March, 2006.

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