The World Ethnosports Confederation, led by Bilal Erdoğan, son of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will organize the 4th World Nomad Games in western Türkiye's Iznik from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2.
Speaking about why they attach importance to traditional sports, Erdoğan explained that the strong trend toward cultural uniformity is actually detrimental to the world.
"We think that the disappearance of the forgotten colors, cuisines, languages, folklore, handicrafts, traditional sports and games of the world is detrimental," he said.
"To keep these riches alive in the world, to protect them we need to go to the streets, the neighborhoods and play these games," Erdoğan said.
"We hope to ensure that the World Nomad Games, which will be held in our beautiful city of Iznik, will serve this mission and make a precious place like Iznik renowned all around the world."
Speaking to the Turkish language daily, Sabah, in a recent interview, Erdoğan talked about the importance of safeguarding cultural heritage and how the World Ethnosports Confederation is working to that end.
"Our aim here is to contribute to the cultural richness of the world. Although the world is very rich culturally, the dominant currents in the world actually lead to a decrease in this richness," he said.
"You can call it capitalism, you can call it cultural imperialism. You can say that social media strengthens the influence of Western Culture. We are watching the cultural richness of the world fade into oblivion. Sports will not be the only ones in Iznik. There will be traditional clothes, there will be world cuisines," he added while talking about the 4th World Nomad Games.
"Our aim is to enable cultures that are not known in other parts of the world to be widely recognized. That way we can enable all societies to present their own cultures with more self-confidence," Erdoğan said.
He added that their goal is to protect and strengthen the cultural richness of the world. "We think that this will actually serve peace between societies. We believe that a dialogue will be formed on the basis of mutual respect when people respect each other's culture and history."
