Each year Hrant Dink Foundation prepares an agenda on a particular topic in three languages, Turkish, English and Armenian. The theme for 2016 is 'Games'. For each week, the agenda presents the concept of a 'game' from different angles and includes 53 texts and 64 photographs on the topic. 'Games' agenda not only reminds us the games of different eras that we either forgot or the games we always remember, but also focuses on many social events and how games are linked with them. The content includes many subjects ranging from arts to politics, from history to gender. Although the technological devices replaced the importance of agendas in the past years, Hrant Dink Foundation’s agenda gains much attention by the audience with its eye opening and informative content.

Prominent cultural historian Johan Huizinga put forward a new definition of human in his Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, which was published in 1938. Huizinga suggested Homo Ludens, the game player/ player, in addition to the two existing definitions that are a product of an entire history of human civilization, namely Homo Sapiens (thinking / rational human being) and Homo Faber (man the maker / working man).

Game is sometimes a child, other times it’s a dance or a word. What is distinctive of game is that players both join and quit the game of their own will. As such, games offer freedom and help liberate players by way of the very act of engaging with the game.

A player is also a rational thinker. A player knows that pushing their own limits, as well as their opponents’ lies at the core of the game. As such, game stands out as a peaceful tool for people to understand one another. A player is also a worker. His product, his invisible bond with his opponent, is solidarity. The latter, which is the moment of positive interaction when the players are able to respect each other’s rights and freedoms within the rules of the game, in a way, also becomes the source of inspiration for the strength that is required for setting about more general social rights and freedoms.

What about the most comprehensive freedom game of democracy? Adhering to the rules of the game despite our desire to win, our ambition and passion, and allowing all opponents to enjoy equal rights even when we are leading the game, in other words, being a good sport... Can we really say that we are playing the game the way it should be played?

Then, until the day we are able to say so, let us continue playing the game in spite of the poor sports...