DINK CASE IS ACTUALLY CONFRONTATION WITH 1915 EVENTS
ERGUN BABAHAN
Today’s Zaman
Jan 20 2012
Turkey
Tens of thousands of people that come together in Ä°stanbul’s Å~^iÅ~_li
district every year, disregarding rainy or chilly weather, clearly
indicate that the murder of Hrant Dink caused a social trauma.
Consciences are wounded because even those who followed the case via
the newspapers see the Turkish state had a finger in the murder, and
that the state has busted a gut to hide its involvement in the murder.
The protestors realize this case is a small-scale repetition of the
1915 events. Similarly, a group of people who wanted to save the
country decided on the deportation of all Armenians, including women
and children, in 1915. The decision to deport hundreds of thousands
of people from Turkey was tantamount to killing them because of the
long journey.
When the truth about the deportation came out, there was a huge uproar
in the West but ending World War I was everyone’s main concern.
Members of the Committee of Union and Progress who saw the Ottoman
Empire governors toppled meticulously destroyed the documents
concerning the deportation of Armenians. They were the key element
of the new regime that was founded in Turkey within a republic system.
On the one hand, the Republic denied and rejected the remnants of the
Ottoman Empire, and it tried to remove the language and traditions
of the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, it tried to make people
forget about this massacre.
Murders carried out by ASALA, an Armenian terrorist group, were
needed to readdress the forgotten Armenian issue. However, the main
confrontation started in the last five years.
The fact that the military tutelary lost power and its effect on
academicians and the media world paved the way for this issue to be
studied and investigated, and discussed freely.
Hrant was murdered because he pointed out the massacre. In the lead-up
to his murder, first, issues were broadcast that caused Hrant Dink to
be perceived as “an enemy of Turks” in the opinion of general public.
And a sentence of imprisonment was given to him. Now, the clues
indicating this horrible cooperation are being found one by one.
People in streets can clearly see the process of cooperation that
started with Veli Kucuk and Kemal Kerincsiz and extended to the
columnists of big newspapers. People now see through the state better.
The murder indicates the existence of a gangster state that doesn’t
abstain from killing its own citizens because of their ethnic or
religious origins and sees human as pawns that may be manipulated
for its goals.
Within the state, there are still remnants of this understanding that
started with the toppling of the Ottoman sultans in the past and moved
on to the killings of citizens that stood against the impositions
of the state in the republican era. This mindset still exists among
police, in the gendarmerie, judiciary, media and universities.
Eliminating this mindset will not be easy, but the scenes we saw
in the streets of Å~^iÅ~_li on Thursday indicated that thousands of
people, who are neither interested nor not interested in politics,
are for confrontation and eliminating this mindset.
These people, who cried as they heard Hrant’s favorite Armenian
ballads and demanded the people responsible for the murder of Armenian
intellectuals in 1915 be called to account, featured the voice of
humanity in Å~^iÅ~_li. This was a crowd of people that had learned
that corruption and dark games occurred in the recent past. This
was a crowd that had learned about the corruption of this structure,
which calls itself a state.
We are more bothered by the murder of Hrant than the murder of other
intellectuals.
We know the murderers of Ugur Mumcu and Cetin Emec couldn’t be found.
However, the fact that the murder of Hrant has attempted to be hushed
up wounds our feelings. It’s because, deep inside, we know this isn’t
only about killing a person, but it is the last of a series of murders
that has been going on for 100 years. Therefore, this case will not
be closed here.