Our 9th President of The Republic, Süleyman Demirel was presented the ‘Strong Memory’ award by the Memory Centers of America for having a very good memory. At the award ceremony which took place on October 27, 2000 at Hotel Dedeman in Ankara; 13 Associate Professors were also presented with plaquettes for their acheivements in neuropsychiatry. The rector of Hacettepe University, Prof. Dr. Tunç Alp ÖZGEN, E. Tbp. Major General Şerif SABUNCU and Prof. Dr. Ünsal SÖYLEMEZOĞLU from GATA (Gülhane Military Medical Academy) also joined the ceremony.
Afterwards, during the panel, president Süleyman Demirel spoke as follows:
“Dear guests, I thank Prof. Dr. Tarhan and the Memory and Learning Center of Istanbul. Honorable Nevzat TARHAN had said that: when searching for people who have a strong memory, the Memory Center has actually made it a goal for themselves to keep their memory strong so that more advancements can develop in science in order to help more people.
When the life expectancy of people was on average 40 years there was probably no need to have a good memory. As a matter of fact, doctors back then did not deal with the ordeals of the brain as the Memory Center has been because of the short life expectancy. In our country, we weren’t able to see the future of our children but now we can live to the future of our grandchildren since the lifetime has increased beyond 75. The population of the world has also increased to 6 billion has a lot to do with this as well but, this increase in life expectancy causes problems among the elderly. Retirement and aging are different things. Retirement is not saving up all the money you have worked for and then sitting around waiting to die. If a person is given the chance to live longer, s/he must live those years in peace and prosperity and in order for that to be possible, one has to have cooperation among his/her mind, body and soul. Today, the group of developed countries called G8 have announced aging as their topic of importance and in the Declaration of the Millenium, again aging is stated as an issue.
We need to preserve three things during old age: 1) Individual survival; the person must make his/herself continue; eating healthy every day. 2) Survival of the generation; the person must reproduce. 3) Survival of the mind; the mind and memory mix into one another and replace each other. When we come to mind, the science of it was previously explained. When we come to the survival of the mind, I remember an expression from Descartes: ‘God has given enough intelligence to everyone.’ Human memory is bound to forget, let me rephrase that for the young: A person’s memory needs to forget, forgetting is not such a bad thing. People come to the world naked and will leave it naked; this kind of nudity is physical but eventhough a person may come to the world naked he comes highly equipped; with the brain.”
Those who received plaquettes
- Prof.Dr. Eflatun ADAM,
- Prof.Dr. Şevket AKPINAR,
- Prof.Dr. Kemal AYDINALP,
- Prof.Dr. İsmail ÇİFTER,
- Prof.Dr. Doğan KARAN,
- Prof.Dr. Özcan KÖKNEL,
- Prof.Dr. Turan ÖRNEK,
- Prof.Dr. Hıfzı ÖZCAN,
- Prof. Dr. Orhan ÖZTÜRK,
- Prof.Dr. Refet SAYGILI,
- Prof. Dr. Coşkun ŞARMAN,
- Prof.Dr. Atalay YÖRÜKOĞLU
