well hello and thank you for having me
here on this beautiful baleen summer day
you did steal me from the good old days
of Istanbul that’s fine let me start
with a show of hands how many of you in
the audience believe that the elections
in Germany are completely rigged shell
event she almost 0 that number maybe one
maybe one right there I’m gonna take
your number and social security number
just to pass it on that number was 72%
in Turkey so 72 percent of my population
believed that the elections were rigged
which means even the winners thought
they were winning by rigging the
elections that’s why we found it’s vote
and Beyond right and this is from a real
summer day in Istanbul where we had the
open microphone session which then grew
250,000 members and the biggest
grassroots movements of modern Turkish
history now when I will look back at
today’s orvonton beyond all the
excitement and all the joy that we’ve
had there’s one sentence that sticks out
its timing beat speed and precision
beats parry it also happens to hang over
the dojo where I trained it right I
think there’s a very strong analogy
between this sentence and the social
movements of today that are fighting
that are resisting the growing rise of
populist authorities and so up what I
would like to do with you today what I’d
like to explore with you today is how we
can Muhammad Ali ourselves out of this
discrepancy some people argue that the
loud alarm bells about populist
authoritarianism around the world are a
bit exaggerated yet when I look at this
from religious conservatism to socialist
extremism from North America to the
Middle East from sub-saharan Africa to
the very heart of the you there’s a very
clear trend that populist authoritarian
ideologies are gaining ground now some
battles are win won and some battles are
lost but the trend there is visible
there are very complex reasons behind
this and there are people from academia
here that would explain a lot better
than me so I’m not gonna go into the
details because of the risk of
oversimplifying and misinterpreting some
of them
but from first and experience I can say
that if anyone authoritarian regimes
come to power it leads to an inescapable
erosion of indispensable values of and
human rights most of which we take for
granted that we as individuals who
cherish the human dignity and human
integrity we wake up to every day with
freedom of expression secularism a right
to a fair trial a free and functioning
media all these pillars of liberal
democracies we take them for granted we
don’t have to work for them now when
authorities are empowered through their
professional mechanisms of communication
and through all the resources they
dedicate to this what they do is they
first make these pillars of verbal
democracy optional and then completely
trivial so what I claim and what I
wholeheartedly believe is that social
movements of our age are the most
effective if not the only tool that we
have to resist this trend and perhaps
one day to avert it why do I believe
that there are three main reasons really
the first one is a fall see I used to
believe that institutions are there or
were there and would stand their ground
right somehow checks and balances would
prevail the Supreme Court would step in
and stop the abuses against academia and
against opposition movements I would
believe that international associations
or the international community would
come in and stop the detainment or
arrests of opposition journalists I
would believe that my own portion my
forces or an Intelligence Agency they
would stay the course and not all of a
sudden start acting against the laws and
the regulations that they were sworn to
uphold just because the government
changed right but make no mistake a
political will that is strong enough and
sustainable and authoritarianism
certainly doesn’t like that can erodes
some of the most established
institutions in the society over the
course of a single generation Supreme
Court decisions can be circumvented
through declaring martial arts martial
law martial
martial law international calls can be
dismissed by various political labeling
and you know very peaceful resistance
movement grassroots movement can be
dispersed violently at times because the
Armed Forces aren’t necessarily working
in a legal framework anymore now what we
need to do at this stage is really
acknowledge that institutions are as
strong as the will of the people and if
they’re not supported they can only
fight the fight for us for so long
second reason why I believe social
movements are the only way to go we have
expectations from the opposition parties
right especially in the face of the
threat of authoritarianism we expect
them to get their acts together and
create a vile political alternative a
problem cannot be solved by the same
parties that created it opposition
parties in most cases are as responsible
as guilty in the rise of authoritarian
regimes as the regime itself right that
may be through apathy that may be
through in capability but expecting them
to solve this issue is like expecting
international agribusiness companies to
solve the threat of deforestation
they’re not going to be the solution
they’re not going to be the answer that
we’re looking for and finally a bit on
the good news side with technology
intervening in our lives or like we we
using technology a lot better we
communicate a lot better when we
collaborate a lot better across the
borders and social movements are
uniquely positioned to make the best out
of the cross-border communication some
battles are when and some battles are
lost but all over the world there are
social movements who are experiencing
the resistance against the rise of
political authoritarianism you know we
can learn from the good experiences
where you can learn from the bad
experiences but at the end of the day we
reached a collective experience
collective conscience that you can say
which gives us the tools to fight the
pipes in the best way possible and
that’s why I think the social movements
will really be the strongest tool that
we have in the fight over the next
couple of years now how do we ensure
they are successful
how do we ensure that social movements
really leave this battle winning that’s
when we go back to the boxing again
right timing is really of essence I
realize that we’re all at different
stages of this threat right some of us
are already suffocating others are not
feeling it yet on hopefully never will
somehow have felt it in the past and
really live through it and not seeing it
today so I acknowledge that were at
different stages but timing really is
everything when we were at the peak of
fortune beyond a hundred and fifty
thousand people mobilized in a fairly
good organizational structure two-thirds
of them were young
predominantly college-educated and these
were the people who actually stepped out
of their doors so Mariah as you were
said they went through the first step of
getting out of their doors to take the
risk and to really do something so we
had a community we had a movement that
could create real impact it is very
disappointing when you’re at that moment
and you realize that you’re the
judiciary in the country is completely
compromised through political
appointments that the education system
has evolved in a way that is leading to
creating the next use of unquestioning
people because evolution has been thrown
out of the roof and the religious skips
have been sort of second it sucks that
the free media infrastructure has
completely completely been destroyed
either through detaining or arresting
opposition journalists or through
various media connections that they have
at the business level I’m not saying
it’s too late when we don’t act early
but just makes the job a lot more
difficult we can’t afford to be the
boiling frog in the in the pot it’s very
easy the waters getting warm and we get
relaxed and we just can’t stop thinking
you know it’s not gonna get better as
bad it’s not gonna touch us but what we
need to do is not wait to try to jump
out of the pot until the water is
already boiling at the first side of
things the first moment that we hear
someone turn on the oven that’s the time
to move and that’s the time to move
decisively timing good timing is the
best weapon that we have in the space to
fight
against the authoritarian against the
speed of the authoritarian regimes that
are coming at us
precision beats power when we start wars
and beyond the political parties in the
government agencies were the strong
incumbents right they had millions of
members they had massive budgets and
they were dominating the the
infrastructure basically 150,000 people
rallied with us why did they do that and
why did they not go to the political
parties I think it was because we were
very precise in terms of what we wanted
to achieve we didn’t take the system
head-on we didn’t pretend that that we
were going to solve everything that was
wrong with the elections in Turkey but
we said on election day we have a very
precise target of making sure that
independent people who are educated in
the electoral law will be there and
we’ll solve that one issue going against
the system in the first is wasteful and
risky and if you can actually get the
people to believe that you can be the
solution for a part of the situation
then that creates a story that people
can buy into that also creates a
consensus it’s easier to create a
consensus around this by the majority of
the people now imagine this every single
person in this hall owning one top one
social issue it can be something macro
it can be the integration of refugees
into the society can be improving the
educational standards in the rural area
especially for girls or it can be
something like or something as small as
lack of sports facilities in your
neighbourhood lack of indigenous cuisine
in your neighbourhood doesn’t matter
what it is
it doesn’t matter how many people you
get around it but as long as we get
caring and capable people around this
issue
think about the exponential impact of
these collectives of network don’t get
me wrong I’m not saying that one day
will come together and centrally manage
the system to create the uber
organization of the world that’s never
gonna happen it’s not realistic and it’s
not necessary either but collectively
and separately these networks of caring
and capable people will cover the entire
social base so that one day if also
returning an or authoritarianism may
chance pass we
have already infrastructures we will
already have the networks that we can
use to stay I our grounds and to move
now there’s a third bit that is key to
the success of social movements and this
doesn’t necessarily coincide with my
boxing reference but bear with me
it’s the way we think about in the way
we define leadership in the New Age he
used to be the case that the leaders had
more access to the information that were
better connected they gave more time to
this and they simply gather a lot more
information they synthesizes better
right so what we expected from them
primarily was directions setting for the
organization just tell us which way to
go and we’ll follow the situation’s
changed the society as a collective now
has more access to the information and
thanks to the technology the society is
a collective now can synthesize this
information better and actually do the
target sending a lot better than a
single leader or a group of leaders
think about it as neurons right so the
leaders were somehow centrally placed in
the in the brain before maybe they were
in larger neurons but we as the society
are the brain now and don’t necessarily
need that one cool neuron to do these
things for us what does that mean for
the role of the leader for social
movements or in general in our society I
think they’re really three things that
the New Age leadership needs to think
about and needs to prioritize the first
one being the role of the leader is to
keep the community together especially
the core of the community together even
in a massive organization like volt and
Beyond where we had 150 thousand people
across 46 provinces we had 30 to 40
people in the core of the network
assuming various roles such as legal
field organization communication and so
on and so forth these 30 and 40 people
they dedicate a good chunk of their
lives to the organization but we’re all
human beings right
fights break hearts are broken ideas
clash everybody wants to go their own
way so it’s on to the leadership to keep
them together through various methods
everything different things work with
different people but primarily we need
to convince the group that there’s
something larger in what we’re
doing then our individual opinions or
individual feelings the second thing
that the lira needs to do is to ensure
participation beyond our natural
reflexes it was mentioned several times
in previous speeches as well
the biggest policy of our age that we is
that we tend to group with the people
that are in our immediate surroundings
right it could be physical it could be
social income economic but our natural
reflex and the natural reflex of any
social movements is that it brings
together people that are alike what the
leadership needs to do is to ensure that
in the ideal scenario that people from
different views and different
perspectives but if people are not
coming at least their perspectives are
reflected in this movement so that
finally the outcome is sustainable and
is representative of the society that’s
one of the primary goals and primary
responsibilities of leader finally have
it only boring end somebody needs to be
ensuring the delivery and the deadlines
right there’s a really nice thing a
camel is a horse drawn by a committee
it’s wonderful to sit around the table
and to discuss things for hours to
arrive at that one perfect solution but
there will be times when we need to move
there will be times when no decision is
worse than any decision it’s really
answer to leadership to enforce those
deadlines and make sure that the
community moves now we’ve talked through
a lot of things today but there’s one
overarching thought that I would like to
leave you with it was a Lea is that
bigovich the first president of
bosnia-herzegovina who said in the end
what matters what we will remember is
not the words the words of our enemies
but the silence of our friends ever
since I heard that sentence I’m
terrified I’m terrified I get the chills
of being that silent friend so my call
on you is the moment you spot something
the moment you realize that there’s
something off that you feel strongly
about don’t risk being that silent vent
start moving it’s time to move now
doesn’t have to be large that it can be
anything large or small but start moving
because I promise you if you stay the
course if you keep moving you won’t walk
alone
and if your heart puts you in a path
that’s close to the things that we’ve
talked about today you will certainly
create impacts beyond your imagination
in preserving the values of liberal
democracies and we desperately need
today thank you very much for listening
[Applause]
here on this beautiful baleen summer day
you did steal me from the good old days
of Istanbul that’s fine let me start
with a show of hands how many of you in
the audience believe that the elections
in Germany are completely rigged shell
event she almost 0 that number maybe one
maybe one right there I’m gonna take
your number and social security number
just to pass it on that number was 72%
in Turkey so 72 percent of my population
believed that the elections were rigged
which means even the winners thought
they were winning by rigging the
elections that’s why we found it’s vote
and Beyond right and this is from a real
summer day in Istanbul where we had the
open microphone session which then grew
250,000 members and the biggest
grassroots movements of modern Turkish
history now when I will look back at
today’s orvonton beyond all the
excitement and all the joy that we’ve
had there’s one sentence that sticks out
its timing beat speed and precision
beats parry it also happens to hang over
the dojo where I trained it right I
think there’s a very strong analogy
between this sentence and the social
movements of today that are fighting
that are resisting the growing rise of
populist authorities and so up what I
would like to do with you today what I’d
like to explore with you today is how we
can Muhammad Ali ourselves out of this
discrepancy some people argue that the
loud alarm bells about populist
authoritarianism around the world are a
bit exaggerated yet when I look at this
from religious conservatism to socialist
extremism from North America to the
Middle East from sub-saharan Africa to
the very heart of the you there’s a very
clear trend that populist authoritarian
ideologies are gaining ground now some
battles are win won and some battles are
lost but the trend there is visible
there are very complex reasons behind
this and there are people from academia
here that would explain a lot better
than me so I’m not gonna go into the
details because of the risk of
oversimplifying and misinterpreting some
of them
but from first and experience I can say
that if anyone authoritarian regimes
come to power it leads to an inescapable
erosion of indispensable values of and
human rights most of which we take for
granted that we as individuals who
cherish the human dignity and human
integrity we wake up to every day with
freedom of expression secularism a right
to a fair trial a free and functioning
media all these pillars of liberal
democracies we take them for granted we
don’t have to work for them now when
authorities are empowered through their
professional mechanisms of communication
and through all the resources they
dedicate to this what they do is they
first make these pillars of verbal
democracy optional and then completely
trivial so what I claim and what I
wholeheartedly believe is that social
movements of our age are the most
effective if not the only tool that we
have to resist this trend and perhaps
one day to avert it why do I believe
that there are three main reasons really
the first one is a fall see I used to
believe that institutions are there or
were there and would stand their ground
right somehow checks and balances would
prevail the Supreme Court would step in
and stop the abuses against academia and
against opposition movements I would
believe that international associations
or the international community would
come in and stop the detainment or
arrests of opposition journalists I
would believe that my own portion my
forces or an Intelligence Agency they
would stay the course and not all of a
sudden start acting against the laws and
the regulations that they were sworn to
uphold just because the government
changed right but make no mistake a
political will that is strong enough and
sustainable and authoritarianism
certainly doesn’t like that can erodes
some of the most established
institutions in the society over the
course of a single generation Supreme
Court decisions can be circumvented
through declaring martial arts martial
law martial
martial law international calls can be
dismissed by various political labeling
and you know very peaceful resistance
movement grassroots movement can be
dispersed violently at times because the
Armed Forces aren’t necessarily working
in a legal framework anymore now what we
need to do at this stage is really
acknowledge that institutions are as
strong as the will of the people and if
they’re not supported they can only
fight the fight for us for so long
second reason why I believe social
movements are the only way to go we have
expectations from the opposition parties
right especially in the face of the
threat of authoritarianism we expect
them to get their acts together and
create a vile political alternative a
problem cannot be solved by the same
parties that created it opposition
parties in most cases are as responsible
as guilty in the rise of authoritarian
regimes as the regime itself right that
may be through apathy that may be
through in capability but expecting them
to solve this issue is like expecting
international agribusiness companies to
solve the threat of deforestation
they’re not going to be the solution
they’re not going to be the answer that
we’re looking for and finally a bit on
the good news side with technology
intervening in our lives or like we we
using technology a lot better we
communicate a lot better when we
collaborate a lot better across the
borders and social movements are
uniquely positioned to make the best out
of the cross-border communication some
battles are when and some battles are
lost but all over the world there are
social movements who are experiencing
the resistance against the rise of
political authoritarianism you know we
can learn from the good experiences
where you can learn from the bad
experiences but at the end of the day we
reached a collective experience
collective conscience that you can say
which gives us the tools to fight the
pipes in the best way possible and
that’s why I think the social movements
will really be the strongest tool that
we have in the fight over the next
couple of years now how do we ensure
they are successful
how do we ensure that social movements
really leave this battle winning that’s
when we go back to the boxing again
right timing is really of essence I
realize that we’re all at different
stages of this threat right some of us
are already suffocating others are not
feeling it yet on hopefully never will
somehow have felt it in the past and
really live through it and not seeing it
today so I acknowledge that were at
different stages but timing really is
everything when we were at the peak of
fortune beyond a hundred and fifty
thousand people mobilized in a fairly
good organizational structure two-thirds
of them were young
predominantly college-educated and these
were the people who actually stepped out
of their doors so Mariah as you were
said they went through the first step of
getting out of their doors to take the
risk and to really do something so we
had a community we had a movement that
could create real impact it is very
disappointing when you’re at that moment
and you realize that you’re the
judiciary in the country is completely
compromised through political
appointments that the education system
has evolved in a way that is leading to
creating the next use of unquestioning
people because evolution has been thrown
out of the roof and the religious skips
have been sort of second it sucks that
the free media infrastructure has
completely completely been destroyed
either through detaining or arresting
opposition journalists or through
various media connections that they have
at the business level I’m not saying
it’s too late when we don’t act early
but just makes the job a lot more
difficult we can’t afford to be the
boiling frog in the in the pot it’s very
easy the waters getting warm and we get
relaxed and we just can’t stop thinking
you know it’s not gonna get better as
bad it’s not gonna touch us but what we
need to do is not wait to try to jump
out of the pot until the water is
already boiling at the first side of
things the first moment that we hear
someone turn on the oven that’s the time
to move and that’s the time to move
decisively timing good timing is the
best weapon that we have in the space to
fight
against the authoritarian against the
speed of the authoritarian regimes that
are coming at us
precision beats power when we start wars
and beyond the political parties in the
government agencies were the strong
incumbents right they had millions of
members they had massive budgets and
they were dominating the the
infrastructure basically 150,000 people
rallied with us why did they do that and
why did they not go to the political
parties I think it was because we were
very precise in terms of what we wanted
to achieve we didn’t take the system
head-on we didn’t pretend that that we
were going to solve everything that was
wrong with the elections in Turkey but
we said on election day we have a very
precise target of making sure that
independent people who are educated in
the electoral law will be there and
we’ll solve that one issue going against
the system in the first is wasteful and
risky and if you can actually get the
people to believe that you can be the
solution for a part of the situation
then that creates a story that people
can buy into that also creates a
consensus it’s easier to create a
consensus around this by the majority of
the people now imagine this every single
person in this hall owning one top one
social issue it can be something macro
it can be the integration of refugees
into the society can be improving the
educational standards in the rural area
especially for girls or it can be
something like or something as small as
lack of sports facilities in your
neighbourhood lack of indigenous cuisine
in your neighbourhood doesn’t matter
what it is
it doesn’t matter how many people you
get around it but as long as we get
caring and capable people around this
issue
think about the exponential impact of
these collectives of network don’t get
me wrong I’m not saying that one day
will come together and centrally manage
the system to create the uber
organization of the world that’s never
gonna happen it’s not realistic and it’s
not necessary either but collectively
and separately these networks of caring
and capable people will cover the entire
social base so that one day if also
returning an or authoritarianism may
chance pass we
have already infrastructures we will
already have the networks that we can
use to stay I our grounds and to move
now there’s a third bit that is key to
the success of social movements and this
doesn’t necessarily coincide with my
boxing reference but bear with me
it’s the way we think about in the way
we define leadership in the New Age he
used to be the case that the leaders had
more access to the information that were
better connected they gave more time to
this and they simply gather a lot more
information they synthesizes better
right so what we expected from them
primarily was directions setting for the
organization just tell us which way to
go and we’ll follow the situation’s
changed the society as a collective now
has more access to the information and
thanks to the technology the society is
a collective now can synthesize this
information better and actually do the
target sending a lot better than a
single leader or a group of leaders
think about it as neurons right so the
leaders were somehow centrally placed in
the in the brain before maybe they were
in larger neurons but we as the society
are the brain now and don’t necessarily
need that one cool neuron to do these
things for us what does that mean for
the role of the leader for social
movements or in general in our society I
think they’re really three things that
the New Age leadership needs to think
about and needs to prioritize the first
one being the role of the leader is to
keep the community together especially
the core of the community together even
in a massive organization like volt and
Beyond where we had 150 thousand people
across 46 provinces we had 30 to 40
people in the core of the network
assuming various roles such as legal
field organization communication and so
on and so forth these 30 and 40 people
they dedicate a good chunk of their
lives to the organization but we’re all
human beings right
fights break hearts are broken ideas
clash everybody wants to go their own
way so it’s on to the leadership to keep
them together through various methods
everything different things work with
different people but primarily we need
to convince the group that there’s
something larger in what we’re
doing then our individual opinions or
individual feelings the second thing
that the lira needs to do is to ensure
participation beyond our natural
reflexes it was mentioned several times
in previous speeches as well
the biggest policy of our age that we is
that we tend to group with the people
that are in our immediate surroundings
right it could be physical it could be
social income economic but our natural
reflex and the natural reflex of any
social movements is that it brings
together people that are alike what the
leadership needs to do is to ensure that
in the ideal scenario that people from
different views and different
perspectives but if people are not
coming at least their perspectives are
reflected in this movement so that
finally the outcome is sustainable and
is representative of the society that’s
one of the primary goals and primary
responsibilities of leader finally have
it only boring end somebody needs to be
ensuring the delivery and the deadlines
right there’s a really nice thing a
camel is a horse drawn by a committee
it’s wonderful to sit around the table
and to discuss things for hours to
arrive at that one perfect solution but
there will be times when we need to move
there will be times when no decision is
worse than any decision it’s really
answer to leadership to enforce those
deadlines and make sure that the
community moves now we’ve talked through
a lot of things today but there’s one
overarching thought that I would like to
leave you with it was a Lea is that
bigovich the first president of
bosnia-herzegovina who said in the end
what matters what we will remember is
not the words the words of our enemies
but the silence of our friends ever
since I heard that sentence I’m
terrified I’m terrified I get the chills
of being that silent friend so my call
on you is the moment you spot something
the moment you realize that there’s
something off that you feel strongly
about don’t risk being that silent vent
start moving it’s time to move now
doesn’t have to be large that it can be
anything large or small but start moving
because I promise you if you stay the
course if you keep moving you won’t walk
alone
and if your heart puts you in a path
that’s close to the things that we’ve
talked about today you will certainly
create impacts beyond your imagination
in preserving the values of liberal
democracies and we desperately need
today thank you very much for listening
[Applause]
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