XI. International Turkish People Traditional Sports Games Symposium Completed
With the cooperation of our university and Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality, Kyrgyzstan-Türkiye Manas University, Gaziantep University, Bowie State University, Traditional Sports Federation and World Ethnosport Confederation, XI. International Turkish People Traditional Sports Games Symposium was hosted by Gaziantep University (GAÜN). International Turkish People Traditional Sports Games Symposium was held with the participation of World Ethnosport Confederation President Necmeddin Bilal Erdoğan.
Speaking at the opening of the program, World Ethnosport Confederation President and Symposium Honorary President Necmeddin Bilal Erdoğan stated that their work in the field of traditional sports games is recognized worldwide.
Stating that writing a doctoral thesis on traditional sports games should be encouraged and that they offer scholarships in this field, Erdoğan said, "We give our scholarship after the thesis is accepted. Therefore, your accepted scholarship topic must be related to traditional games. There are varying amounts of scholarships according to the country of study.” Erdoğan stated that the development and importance of traditional games is a cause of cultural revival, a stance against the decline and corruption of cultural diversity in the world.
Stating that traditional sports games are a tool that carries the codes of culture to the future, Erdoğan said: "If we want to keep our culture alive on the street, in our neighborhood and in our family, if we do not want this cultural corruption to dominate, then we should all support the survival of traditional sports games. Not only in Türkiye and the Turkish world. We must bring together the rich world of traditional sports with humanity all over the world."
Postgraduate Education in Traditional Sports
Speaking at the opening of the symposium, GAÜN Rector and Symposium President Prof. Dr. Arif Özaydın stated that they are the only university in Türkiye that provides postgraduate education in the field of traditional sports, and underlined that today they are holding the largest symposium in Turkey in the field of traditional sports. Referring to the importance of Turkish traditional sports games in his speech, Prof. Dr. Ozaydin said that "110 academicians from 5 continents and 7 independent Turkish states participated in the 11. International Turkic Peoples Traditional Sports Games Symposium. I would like to thank all academics for their contributions.”
Sport Has Much Deeper Meanings than All Culture-Physics Movements
Our Rector, Member of the Symposium Honorary Board, Prof. Dr. Fethi Ahmet Polat in his opening speech, reminded that the World Traditional Sports Federation was established in 1996 for the performance and sustainability of traditional sports branches and games that have been handed down from generation to generation. Polat underlined the following points in his speech: “It has been a considerable time since people in Turkish society were cut off from their traditions. Just as we could not bring our children together with our traditional games and sports branches that our ancestors practiced with great enthusiasm and dexterity, we accused those who try to produce scientific products with their personal efforts as "busy with simple tasks". While many sports branches or daily entertainment that do not belong to us by origin have almost completely surrounded our children and young generation, we unfortunately lagged far behind in sports or games that match our cultural texture.”
We want to ensure that sports activities are carried out by emphasizing the unifying aspect of traditional sports, which is one of the most significant and rooted foundations of the common historical heritage of the Turkish people, and by this means, we want to bring our young people together with the brilliant achievements of sports in the most productive and vigorous era of their lives. However, making our young people adopt that there is a goal far beyond this goal, and showing that sport is an ideal and a vision of life that has a much deeper meaning than the whole of movements consisting of culture and physics, constitutes the essence of our entire purpose. This essence is the values we proudly inherit in our genes and in our minds, which Sultan Muhammad Alparslan and his blessed soldiers, Sheikh Edebali and his noble disciple, Dedem Korkut and his faithful students, Köroğlu and his brave men entrusted to their children for generations.
It is unacceptable to try to erode these values in the field of sports, as in every field. For this reason, being indifferent to the aforementioned issues is not negligence, but criminal behavior. We must get rid of this mentality that honors its soldiers with the name of its prophet and condemns the children of a country that has an army-nation tradition to obesity, laziness, callousness and lack of ideals. We should remove sports from a sterile term such as "physical education" and an understanding of teaching that is often seen as a chore and include it in the natural flow of life with all its merits. You will appreciate that the human resource (!) is an easy prey for the enemies of a rotten, sick, sluggish society, a crowd that is eager to be manipulated.
Behind every successful organization, there are establishments and lovers who are aware of their duties and diligently strive.
I would like to thank all the institutions and organizations that contributed to the execution of this symposium and whom I spoke highly of at the beginning of my speech, to the managers and their delegations who devotedly perform their duties there, to the academicians who brought intellectual depth to the event with their scientific studies, especially I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Prof. Dr. Mehmet Türkmen from the Faculty of Sports Sciences of Mus Alparslan University and the scientists he worked with, and greet your valuable assembly with my respect and best wishes for success.
Turks Are Institutionalizing With These Three Sports
Symposium President Prof. Dr. Mehmet Türkmen, emphasizing that equestrian sports, archery and wrestling in Turkish sports culture mean far beyond being a sports format, said: “The Turks are institutionalizing with these three sports. The Western world has seen sports as the greatest means of summarizing the culture of a society, and they have seen it as the most basic tool of cultural transfer in the phenomenon of game. We have realized this in the last 15 years.”
After the opening speeches, our Rector Prof. Dr. Fethi Ahmet Polat and Rector Prof. Dr. Arif Özaydın were dressed in a local outfit called 'çapan', which was sent by the Kyrgyzstan State Sports University, by Necmeddin Bilal Erdoğan (President of the World Ethnosports Confederation).
