N: What was your biggest confrontation?

B: Since I knew this question was coming, I had a chance to think about it a bit. I lived in Spain for many years. My childhood was spent there. I went to school there as well. I was a very shy kid back then. I was getting confused whether I was Turkish or Spanish. I'm a Taurus, I'm very fond of my appetite. At that time, the school's meal had gotten very bad. Every lunch was like agony. Then I made a decision. I don't know where I learned this, I took a pen and paper, went to the students of the whole school and collected signatures. “Our school's meal is so bad it should get better!” All the children signed up excitedly. I was seven or eight years old. I gave it to the principal of the school with great excitement, some pride and fear. I said: “I collected signatures, our food is very bad”.

I didn't know what would happen to me. I was thinking that I was going to be expelled. The next day, meals began to appear such good… From one dish to three. This was a great success and my biggest confrontation that has been imprinted in my memory. But this question awakened something else in me. When I was a child, I was able to make great confrontations, but after a while I stopped for a moment. I started doing exactly what was said. Then if I’d ask a question like this; When we were children, we used to make confrontational things and we were loved anyway. Why does something become unpleasant when we become confrontationist when we grow up? Why shouldn't we be confrontationist so that a beauty can emerge and people can witness the beauty in us? Let's be such a confrontationist person that everyone will be happy with our innocence, like the innocence of a five-year-old child, and support that confrontation.

​

N: You just said, "Let them witness the beauty in us". We also have very valuable guests here. They are witnessing the beauty born here right now. What does it mean to be a witness? What’s being witnessed right now?

B: I’d like to reveal something about my own life. I lived abroad most of my life, I grew up in different countries. I grew up very far from Turkish culture, thanks to my parents, they tried very hard to adopt this culture to me and I was able to preserve it and be proud of it all the time. However, when I settled in Turkey, I saw that all the truths about Turkishness that I thought I had learned disappeared in an instant. That's why I had to relearn what Turkish means, what it means to be Turkish. But by that time I had known all the Western culture, had learned to love it. I learned what a Turk is in the West. I went to the Balkans. I searched eagerly for Turkish works in the Balkans, but nothing satisfied me. During these travels, I was a guest in the house of a Croatian family. I saw that there is a tradition of taking off shoes. The grandmother of the house told me to wear slippers. That's when a light bulb turned on in my head. I have searched Turkish culture in works in vain. There it is; Turkish culture lives right there. I have traveled to thirty countries, only my own grandmother and that Croatian grandmother told me to wear my slippers. This is completely Turkish culture. Because I know that when our ancestors went to the West, they brought a civilization and made them get witnessed. They did not forcibly convert anyone to Islam. They did not adopt this culture by force. They shared what they loved. They took this culture there and allowed those people to take this knowledge and live it as they wanted. That's why that family in Croatia go to church every Sunday, but wear slippers at home, and this is a living Turkish culture. Being a witness means revealing beauty. You can teach by showing and experiencing the most beautiful state of yourself. Beauty cannot be shown forcibly to anyone. There is a proverb that says "Beauty cannot be forced". Confidence can only be transferred by showing.