Organised by Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality and the Trauma Studies Association, the symposium ‘Taking the Floor: Collective Memory, Testimony and Trauma’ continued throughout the day at the Metropolitan Municipality's Ali Emiri Conference Hall.

Sessions explored trauma, loss, resistance and human rights violations

The symposium featured sessions entitled ‘The Voice of the Silenced: Language, Identity and Intergenerational Trauma’, ‘Loss and Testimony: Enforced Disappearances, Impunity and Mourning’, ‘Women's Resistance and Memory’ and ‘What Remains in the Body: Human Rights Violations, Bodily Memory and the Conditions for Healing’. The final session of the first day focused on ‘Policy Recommendations’.

Co-Mayor Emin Ay: Confronting our collective memory opens the way to a free future

Speaking at the close of the first day, Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Co-Mayor Emin Ay said the symposium had once again demonstrated the importance of societies confronting their past, their suffering, the testimonies of those who lived through it and their search for truth.

Stressing that taking the floor meant more than simply speaking, Ay said it also meant giving voice to those who had been silenced, bringing hidden truths to light, standing up against denial and making collective memory an integral part of life once again.

“Collective memory is not merely a record of events in a society's past. It is that society's identity, conscience and the foundation of its relationship with the future. Societies that lose their memory struggle to understand the suffering of the past and prevent it from happening again. Confronting our memory, therefore, does not mean remaining trapped in the past; on the contrary, it opens the way to a just, free and democratic future,” he said.

‘Testimony means defending the truth against denial’

Emphasising the particular importance of testimony in regions marked by conflict, war, forced displacement, disappearances, denial and social oppression, Co-Mayor Ay said:

“Testimony is not simply about recounting what happened; it is also about defending the truth against denial. Conveying the words and stories of people whose voices have gone unheard for years, whose suffering has remained unseen and whose experiences have never been documented is a historical and moral duty. Trauma, too, is not simply a matter of individual psychological wounds. Trauma arising from war, violence, forced displacement and loss can become a collective wound, passed down from one generation to the next. It is impossible to build genuine social peace without confronting these wounds, understanding them and establishing social mechanisms to help them heal.”

‘Where there is denial, lasting peace and democratic life cannot take root’

Stating that peace meant more than simply silencing the guns, Co-Mayor Ay said it also required acknowledging suffering, bringing the truth to light, listening to victims, guaranteeing justice and enabling society to confront its past. He stressed that confronting the past should not be seen as an attempt to assign blame or seek revenge.

On the contrary, he said, coming to terms with the past was essential to building a shared future. “In societies that refuse to confront the truth, denial is reproduced. Where there is denial, lasting peace and democratic life cannot take root,” he said.

Ay said that local authorities regarded safeguarding collective memory, documenting testimonies and protecting cultural and historical heritage as important responsibilities. He expressed hope that one of the symposium's most significant outcomes would be the transformation of words and testimony into a collective social force.

“A society's future is determined not by how far it distances itself from its past or how completely it forgets it, but by how courageously it confronts it. What we need is not silence, but words; not denial, but truth; not forgetting, but remembering; not revenge, but justice; and not conflict, but democratic peace,” Co-Mayor Ay concluded.

Symposium to continue tomorrow with a memory walk and workshop

On Sunday, 8 November, the second day of the symposium will continue with a programme entitled ‘Memory Walk: Remembering, Bearing Witness, Keeping Memories Alive’. Led by Derya Bozarslan, the walk will involve 20 participants and begin at Dağkapı Square at 9.30 am.

The memory walk will include visits to Saray Gate, the Four-Legged Minaret, Surp Giragos Armenian Church, Surp Sarkis Church, the Common Conscience Monument and the Armenian Cemetery. It will continue until 1.30 pm.

The programme will conclude with the workshop ‘What Stays with Us / What We Remember’, scheduled to take place from 2.30 pm to 4 pm.