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MAYOR MANDALINCI MARKS 1 SEPTEMBER WORLD PEACE DAY
01.09.2026
Mayor Tamer Mandalinci has issued a message marking 1 September World Peace Day, stressing the need not only to tell children the history of wars, but to work for a future without them. Mayor Mandalinci said:
“Speaking about peace is perhaps one of the greatest responsibilities of our time. Across different parts of the world, people are still trying to live in the shadow of war. Conflicts lasting for years change the lives of millions. In many places, people are forced to leave behind their homes, their cities and their loved ones.
The sight of a child looking up at the sky and seeing not a kite, but a warplane, stands before us as one of the gravest realities humanity must confront.
We do not see peace as a concept to be confined to grand statements. Peace is a mother being able to send her child to school safely. It is a young person not losing hope in the land where they were born. It is the ability to build a society where people are not marginalised because of their identity, language, belief or way of life. It is different lives existing side by side on the same street, with respect for one another.
And peace begins in cities. To govern a city is not only to manage its roads, parks and squares; it is also to protect the shared life built by the people who live there.
In Bodrum, we know the value of that shared life. Coexistence is part of the culture of these lands. On both sides of the Aegean, people looking out over the same sea share much in common in their songs, their tables, their sorrows and their joys.
Today, the world needs the language of peace more than ever. Alongside wars, we are living through a period in which hate speech, discrimination, polarisation and intolerance are also growing. When people stop listening to one another, words become harsher first, and societies then drift apart.
That is why defending peace does not mean remaining silent. On the contrary, it takes courage to speak out against injustice, to defend children’s right to life, to stand for justice, and to protect nature and the right to life of all living beings.
Peace requires courage
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s words, ‘Peace at home, peace in the world’, remain a powerful vision for the future, even after so many years. This understanding, entrusted to us by the Republic, teaches us not to separate the peace of our own country from the peace of the world. Our generation also carries a responsibility towards those who will come after us.
We cannot merely teach our children the history of wars. We must strive to leave them a future without war.
We cannot accept as normal a world in which young people witness suffering in other countries through screens, and children begin to grow accustomed to images of war. We cannot reduce any person’s pain to statistics. Whatever language she cries in, a mother’s pain is the same. Wherever a child is born, their right to life is the same. On whichever shore people live, their desire to live freely and safely is the same.
From Bodrum, from the shores of the Aegean, our message to the world is clear. We stand for life.
We stand for cities where children smile, young people look to the future with hope, women walk without fear, people express their thoughts freely, and the right to life of animals and nature is protected.
I believe peace is not a destination the world will one day reach on its own. It is a shared will that every generation must rebuild, protect and strengthen.
We will not lose that will. Because the future of humanity lies in understanding one another, in justice, in solidarity and in a culture of shared life.
On 1 September World Peace Day, our wish rising from Bodrum is clear: a world where children do not die, mothers do not weep, people are not driven from their homelands, and cities are rebuilt with hope is possible.
And building that world is the responsibility of us all.”
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