Civil Society Meets At Civil Voices Festival With All Its Colors And Variety 

Civil Society Development Center (STGM) has organized the fourth of the Civil Voices Festival with the support of The European Union Turkey Delegation between the 20 – 21th of September 2019 at Istanbul Uniq Hall. Civil society was represented at the festival with all the colors and diversity by 300 activists from almost every city in Turkey representing 215 civil society organizations and with guests attending from Europe. As Civil Pages, we have tried to follow the busy Festival program for 2 days and on this occasion we have talked with the managers of the host organization, with the festival speakers and with the participant NGO representatives about civil society’s today, future and about STGM.

The festival program, which was determined with the main themes of “participation, goodness and beauty”, hosted many events such as Performance Point, Game Point, Civil Sounds Cinema and Exhibition Point as well as simultaneous workshops.

Besides the organizations like Açık Açık Association, Memory Center, Etkiniz EU Program, Sivil Düşün Program, civil society organizations such as the Leading Women Association from Mardin, Çukulit New Life Association from Rize, Yüzümle Mutluyum Association, Falun Dafa Community that work locally or on a subject specifically were also represented at the festival.

At the open session conducted at the opening of the festival, Andre Etienne Lys from EU Delegation to Turkey emphasized the contribution of civil society, an indispensable element of the democratic environment in the EU to pluralism and representation of differences, while Bulent Ozcan from the EU Presidency of Foreign Ministry highlighted the contributions provided by them identifying the civil area as a “sector” in recent years in Turkey and by the strategy they have developed regarding civil society. Speaking of the country, Gerasimos Kouvaras, Country Director for Greece, spoke about the shrinking civil society area at the global level and in Europe, and Malin Stawe, one of the Swedish Embassy undersecretaries, that it will not be possible without the support of civil society. One of the speakers, the Country Director for Greece, Gerasimos Kouvaras, emphasized the narrowing civil society area at global level and in Europe, and Swedish Embassy Undersecretary Malin Stawe said that combating the climate crisis would not be possible without the support of civil society.

Technology for Civil Society

At the Civil Voices Festival, the contributions of digital technologies to civil society developing its capacity as well as the problems they create were also discussed. One of the speakers, Mert Fırat, explained that they have established İhtiyaç Haritası by creating the right system with the support of volunteers in the digitalized world, and that they have met the need of 15 million TL in the last 2 years thanks to digital solutions. Fırat stated that every non-governmental organization should consider digital solutions as a remedy and said that a correct digital structuring will improve civil society.

Kadir Has University New Media Department Lecturer Pınar Dağ defended that both civil society and the academy had been lazy about using the data in Turkey and each civil society organization should make the data of the organization accessible, and highlighted that they should license their data by using the right of ownership as well as sharing it. Dağ pointed out that we are disconnected from reality as individuals and as a civil society in the post-factual period we are in. Emphasizing that data-based work will make civil society strong against the state and government, Dağ said, “Civil society can collect, analyze, visualize and narrate, or even sell if it wishes, with very simple tools without code knowledge.”

Art and Civil Society 

The Civil Voices Festival was also attended by Her Yerde Sanat Var Association from Mardin, one of the non-governmental organizations that bring together civil society and art, as well as the Association for Women in Life and Art from Istanbul and Leyli Art & Production. We talked to Mert Fırat, one of the speakers of the festival about art and civil society. Fırat stated that he defines himself as a civil socialist and he uses acting as a tool to carry out these activities and that they bring art and civil society together through Inogar Art and DasDas, which is one of the social initiatives that he contributed. Fırat stated that it is important to add art to civil society, to develop vision and to create a correct-sustainable structure and said that these initiatives will function as “laboratories or accelerators”.

After the Festival

In the last session of the Civil Voices Festival the 13th STGM Consultation Meeting was held in which around 100 Festival participants were present. STGM General Coordinator Tezcan Eralp Abay emphasized that they will consider the evaluations made by the participants in their future plans. The survey conducted during the STGM Advisory Board showed that the majority of those who attended the board thought that “there has been a development in civil society in the past 12 months but it is not enough” while the other part thinks there is “a significant deterioration”. Again, according to the survey, the majority of the participants think that “civil society cannot be actively involved in decision making processes” and “the public does not trust civil society organizations”.
Although this scene and the future of our time being increasingly difficult to predict, the Civil Voices Festival ended after an event and inspiring sessions where civil society re-experienced the dynamism and diversity. The participants left the festival remembering the potential of civil society still being a strong actor.