Hrant Dink – Would Doves Still Flutter in Turkey Today?

Newropeans Magazine, France
Jan 31 2007

Written by Harry Hagopian
Wednesday, 31 January 2007

Hrant Dink, the 52-year-old Armenian Turkish editor-in-chief of the
bilingual weekly Agos (furrow, in Armenian) was murdered in cold
blood on 19th January by the so-called ultra-nationalist teenager
Ogun Samast from Trabzon. Hrant’s crime resided in his being an
Armenian Turkish citizen from Istanbul who spoke out about the
Armenian Genocide, pushed the boundaries of freedom of expression and
often called for dialogue and reconciliation between Armenians and
Turks.

I remember clearly how I first heard about this murder. Steve, a
friend, texted me a short message in which he stated simply that
`Dink was killed’. So befuddled was I that I texted back asking
whether he meant `Hrant Dink’. Yes was the ominous answer, and with
it came the realisation that another Armenian voice in Turkey had
been muffled forever. After that initial shock, the tributes poured
in from all quarters, from those who knew him or did not, from those
who had liked him in the past or had not, and numerous articles were
written about Dink and his mission. At his funeral, Turkish Istanbul
transmogrified into Armenian Istanbul, and there was both a popular
movement to show respect to Dink who had been cheated by the
insidious angel of death and a rallying round his wife Rakel, their
children and other members of his family.

I had met Dink twice only, so cannot claim to know him at all. For
me, he was the man who had frequently ended up in Turkish courts
after being indicted for `insulting Turkishness’ according to Article
301 of the Turkish penal code. In fact, the last judgment against him
was a suspended six-month sentence (meaning he would have been
imprisoned if found guilty of the same offence again), although two
more cases were pending in the Turkish judicial pipeline. It seems
that just before Dink’s death, his lawyer Fethiye Çetin had also
seised the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on his
behalf.

So I set out to read some of his Agos editorials and listen to a
couple of interviews he had given last year, including one to VEM in
Armenia during the Armenia-Diaspora annual forum. My own mental
portrait of this man is of someone who was embedded in his native
Armenian Turkish homeland, culture, values and traditions, and who
wished to stay in his country despite the `psychological torture’ he
– and his family – were being subjected to from different corners.
But there was also the winningly naïve side to this man that shone
through – and possibly helped him surmount the enormous stress. For
instance, in one of his vignettes, he writes that `my only weapon is
my sincerity’, whereas in another he adds that `unfortunately, I am
more popular nowadays and feel the look of the people telling each
other: `Look, isn’t it that Armenian?’ And just as a reflex action, I
start to torture myself. One side of this torture is curiosity, the
other uneasiness. One side is caution, the other side is
skittishness.’ And with much foreboding, he concludes that `probably
the year 2007 will be a more difficult year for me. Trials will
continue, new cases will come up in court. Who knows what kind of
injustice I will encounter?’

So why would a man with such a fervent wish for reconciliation who
acknowledged the Armenian Genocide on the one hand whilst he also
encouraged Armenians to bolster Armenia and Armenia-Turkey relations
be murdered with such malice aforethought? And was Ogun Samast –
besides the other six suspects who were detained, one of whom having
apparently incited the killing – a lone culprit in committing this
murder? Or is Turkey in its institutional sense also guilty of this
crime?

What struck me most in the wake of Dink’s murder were the
conciliatory gestures between Turkey and Armenia, let alone the
throngs of people who gathered spontaneously in front of the Agos
building or walked at his funeral. Despite the fact that Armenia and
Turkey entertain no diplomatic relations, and that Turkey has kept
the Armenian-Turkish border sealed since 1993, Armenia sent its
deputy foreign minister, Arman Kirakosyan, to attend the funeral.
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, from the eastern diocese of the Armenian
Church of America, also attended the interment. Those and other
gestures – the write-ups, the interviews, the popular rallies, the
representations, and the statements from ordinary Turks or Armenians
as well as from officialdom – together represented hopeful stations
at a painful moment of history for both peoples.

For the space of one moment, I actually felt that common humanity and
mutual solidarity had transcended the deep furrows cleaving both
peoples’ lives. But although such decent gestures were indeed
promising and healthy, I fear that they remain ephemeral in the
present climate. Besides, they do not facilely exonerate Turkey. Why?
Simply because successive Turkish governments – including the
incumbent government of Reçep Teyyip Erdogan and his Justice &
Development party – have nourished [rather than challenged] the
culture of fear, intimidation and persecution within Turkey against
those who protest the injustices and discrimination that are still
part and parcel of everyday Turkey today. It is true that the chief
culprit for the recent spate of persecutions (from which Dink
suffered during his latter years, as have others like Ragip Zarakolu,
Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak and Murat Belge) is the notorious Article
301 of the Turkish penal code. After all, this Article has incited
virulent negative nationalism within some Turkish ranks and led to
its judicial misapplication time and again by nationalist lawyers the
likes of the ubiquitous leader of the Turkish Lawyers’ Union Kemal
Kerincsiz who are hell-bent on keeping Turkey out of the EU and in
the process also vilifying anybody who dared speak about the Armenian
Genocide.

Following Dink’s murder, the parliamentary chairman of the ruling
party Bulent Arinç stated that he would back efforts to abolish
Article 301 – adding that members of Parliament were open to its
total abolition or complete revision. But I would argue that such
sanguine statements become redundant if they are devoid of any
concrete strategy that is matched by equally concrete steps. For
Turkey to move forward in its broader EU-friendly agenda, it must not
only repeal this article or – more likely – tinker with it in order
to make it harder for courts to apply it. Rather, Turkey must invest
in this grassroots wave of goodwill to push through a reformist and
forward-looking agenda that tackles a host of issues (defined in the
Chapters under negotiation with the EU) and create a suitably
EU-friendly legal environment. Otherwise, how could it aspire toward
accession when its standards of human rights and fundamental
freedoms, for instance, do not subscribe to the normative values of
the free world? To take one simple illustration, how is it that Hrant
Dink (alongside other Armenians in Turkey) was disallowed from using
his first name in his passport, but had to use his designated
official Turkish name of Firat instead?

One elegiac reflection to Dink came from Dr Fatma Müge Goçek who
wrote In Memoriam: Hrant Dink, 1954-2007:

How had Hrant Dink achieved, how he had managed to overcome that
ever-consuming, destructive, dangerous anger to fill himself instead
with so much love and hope for humanity, for Turkish society, for
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation? How could he have done so in spite
of the memory of 1915 and in spite of the subsequent prejudice and
discrimination he faced in Turkey?

It was for me that particular quality which made Hrant Dink a great
human being and a great role model: his unwavering belief in the
fundamental goodness of all humans regardless of their race, ethnic
origin, regardless of what they had personally or communally
experienced; his unwavering vision that we in Turkey were going to
one day be able to finally confront our past and come to terms
without faults, mistakes and violence as well as our so brandied
about virtues; his unwavering trust that we all would manage to live
together in peace one day.

Addressing issues of ethnicity, Dink often emphasised that identities
need not be mutually incompatible. As an Armenian from Turkey, he
considered himself a good Turkish citizen, believed in the republic
and strove to make it stronger and more democratic. He also
encouraged people to keep the dialogue between Armenians and Turks
going, just as he sought to redress Turkey’s amnesia about its role
in the slaughter of over one million Armenians in 1915. In promoting
freedom of speech, even when it came to a subject as sensitive as the
genocide, he was still even-handed and stressed that legislation in
Western European countries outlawing the denial of this holocaust was
also an affront to free speech. Yet, his liberal philosophy
antagonised those who adhere to the belief that nationalities are
hermetically sealed and mutually opposed.

In Turkey today, there is clear pressure for reform from the EU as
well as from some intellectual resources within Turkey. In my
opinion, this battle for reform – and that would include historical
memory in my own thinking – has not yet seriously impacted Turkey’s
stance toward the genocide. In fact, I am not even sure that Dink’s
murder would lead to more openness for recognition. Whether it is due
to rabid nationalism, a fear of facing up to the past with its
gruesome conclusions, or even possible reparations and restitution,
Turkey today is still entrenched in a denial that is fomenting
hatred, violence and homicide. Dink, who described himself as an
optimist, often voiced the opinion that such recognition would happen
– but later rather than sooner. However, he also thought that the
pressures for reform, just like those for recognition, should come
from the bottom up, rather than imposed from the top. This is perhaps
why it is vital to try and encourage ordinary Turks to come
face-to-face with their history, wrestle with it, and liberate
themselves – and Armenians – from its debilitating hold. As the
prize-winning Turkish author Kemal Yalçin stated once, I bow to the
memory of Armenians and Assyrians who lost their lives on the road of
deportation through planned killings. This is the great pain of our
century, the stigma on the face of humanity. Your pain is my pain. I
beg forgiveness from you and from mankind. This will not be easy, or
quick, especially when the country and its press are still muzzled by
noxious laws that oppose transparency. But it must be facilitated –
or at least not opposed – by the top echelons. This is where Turkey
today is also failing: denialist groups, such as the Association on
Struggle Against Armenian Genocide Acknowledgement, should no longer
be permitted to control the future agenda of civil society so the
legal and political cultures of Turkey would transform gradually and
Armenians, let alone Assyrians, Kurds and other minorities, could
move forward in their legitimate quest for fundamental freedoms,
rights and claims.

In an editorial, Dink described himself as a restless dove, adding
that he was confident the people in Turkey would not touch or disturb
doves. But a criminal hand both touched and disturbed this dove.
Still, once the immediacy of his murder wanes from our short
memories, we should not lose sight of the fact that he lost his life
for his peaceful but insistent quest for inclusiveness, dialogue,
recognition and reconciliation. I therefore suggest it is the duty of
every Armenian and Turk to follow the optimistic path he charted in
order to exorcise the ghosts of the past, build bridges for the
future and pave the way toward mutual understanding. We witnessed an
unusual glimpse of such optimism last week, so could we possibly try
to help recreate it? Could we perhaps prove that doves would still
flutter in Turkey today?

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