Kader Sevinç, the Brussels representative of Turkey's main opposition party CHP, has recently unveiled an exciting project: Turkish Coffee Briefings, a roundtable debate club on international issues in Brussels. Check out the attractive summary:
According to the Turkish tradition, it is customary for the host to serve Turkish coffee to guests as soon as they arrive, as a gesture of hospitality. As parties start sipping their coffee from traditional demitasse cups, they also engage in a short pep talk to “melt the ice” which spurs on the main conversation. Therefore a cup of Turkish coffee is an important part of daily social and business life in Turkey as stated in the following proverb: “A cup of coffee will not be forgotten for 40 years”...The intent of the Turkish Coffee Briefings is to carry that tradition over to our roundtable discussions in Brussels. Since the Turkish coffee is inherent in the social customs in showing respect to each other, intrinsic in interpersonal relations of people as the icebreaker and it is an expression of hospitality, we want to apply the same principles to our intellectual debates.At the Turkish Coffee Briefings we will host the participants to discuss a topic by exchanging ideas from different perspectives and creating an intellectual framework of debate in an entertaining and enjoyable manner, while we are savoring our freshly brewed coffee and Turkish delights of different flavors. These roundtable sessions are devoted to promoting debates concerning selected topics in relation to the European social, economic and political agenda. The sessions are introduced by guest speakers, followed by the views of the participants.
Turkish coffee and international relations are two soft spots of me, so I'm impatient to participate in one of these briefings the next time I come around Brussels. I congratulate Kader and thank her for giving such a name and context to her initiative.
