HAS HRANT DINK’S DEATH CHANGED TURKEY?
Guillaume Perrier
French newspaper Le Monde’s correspondent in Istanbul
Six years have passed since the winter afternoon when Hrant Dink
was assassinated in Istanbul, on the wide pavement of Halaskargazi
Avenue, in front of the Agos offices. Six years since he was struck
down by anti-Armenian hatred. His cluttered editor’s office at
Agos has remained untouched. An armoured double door was installed
at the entrance. The little weekly newspaper Hrant founded in the
1990s survived him and, even better, developed, bloomed, and gained
visibility. The number of its subscribers soared and the Turkish
Airlines company even allowed it on its airport displays, next to
Turkish newspapers – an unexpected recognition.
In six years since that tragic 19th January, Turkey has changed
considerably. The country gained confidence, developed economically,
bristling with new towers, mosques and shopping malls. Recep Tayyip
Erdogan won another two elections and tamed the army… And the
Armenian question which has been haunting Turkey since 1915 has
undeniably come to the foreground. A corner of the veil over the
founding taboo of the TurkishRepublic was lifted, oral and written
accounts as well as cultural projects now abound. Hrant Dink’s death
came as a wake up shock, causing unprecedented emotion given the
fact that he was Armenian. The day of his funeral, almost 100,000
people took place in the procession which accompanied the journalist
to the cemetery.
Huddled in sorrow, the mourning crowd was waving the now famous little
black, round signs which read in Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian: “We
are all Hrant. We are all Armenians”. Then again, this spontaneous
response came as a surprise – a comforting one for the thousands of
Istanbul Armenians paralyzed by terror – as well as a source of hope
for all the Turkish democrats and friends of Hrant Dink. His death
may at least have ushered some change, people then thought, in 2007.
At the time, Ani and Garabet Balikci, an Armenian couple from Istanbul
had not dared go demonstrate. To tell the truth, it had not even
dawned on them to do so. When you are an Armenian in Turkey, unless
you have Hrant Dink’s courage and charisma, you shut up, you keep
to yourself, and just lay low. Apart from a few young activists such
as the Nor Zartonk movement, defenders of human rights, a handful of
intellectuals and a few headstrong individuals, the vast majority of
Armenians in Turkey live in a stronghold of silence and solitude. And
this has not changed with Hrant Dink’s death. The Balikci never took
part in the rallies organized every 19th January in front of the Agos
offices, nor in the public anniversaries of 24th April organized for
the fist time by the Istanbul Human Rights Association (IDH) and by
a few Turkish intellectuals in Taksim Square. However, they have felt
wounded in their flesh by the murder of the Agos editor in chief. By
eliminating the spokesman for Armenians in Turkey, his murderers had
sent an implicit threat to the whole community – the vestiges of the
two million Armenians who used to live in Turkey before the genocide.
And, since 2012, Ani and Garabet have been taking part in all the
demonstrations. Indeed, their family has nothing more to lose. What
has changed for the Balikci since Hrant Dink’s death is that they
lost their son. 20-year-old Sevag was doing his compulsory military
service in isolated barracks of the Batman district. He was gunned
down on 24th April 2011, Easter day and the anniversary of the
beginning of the genocide, by a fellow conscript, Kivanc Agaoglu,
a young activist connected with the extreme right wing BBP party. “An
Armenian assassinated on 24th April in Turkey, everyone is well aware
of what it means,” an indignant friend of the family reacted over the
young man’s grave in Sisli. Seva is one of the last victims of the
Armenian genocide, a process which goes on as long as the horrors of
the past have not been acknowledged and dealt with. Six years after
Hrant, Armenian bashing had killed again. “With Hrant Dink, it made
1 500 000 million + 1. With my son, it makes 1 500 000 million + 2,”
summed up his mourning mother, Ani.
Just as for Hrant Dink, the authorities have tried to minimize the
significance of that last murder. Pressure was exerted on witnesses
and the law. “There are many similarities between the two crimes,” says
lawyer Cem Halavurt, who worked on both cases. Ogun Samast and Kivanc
Agaoglu, two young Turks nurtured in nationalism and anti-Armenian
racism, have much in common. Ogun Samast was convicted, but as an
isolated killer who had acted more or less alone. The top civil
servants implicated by lawyer Fethiye Cetin were never indicted,
or even questioned. Some police or intelligence officials were
promoted. Governor Muammer Guler became Minister of Internal Affairs.
Concerning Sevag, a military tribunal is in charge of his trial. As
for Kivanc Agaoglu, he presents himself to each hearing as a free
man to face his victim’s parents. The prosecutor requested between
two and six years of imprisonment – which would be a very light
sentence for a presumed racial crime conveying a hundred years of
history. Even more shocking, the government appointed as Ombudsman
(Mediator of the Republic), as position created to fit the democratic
criteria of the European Union, no other than former Appeals Court
Judge Mehmet Nihat Omeroglu – the same judge who had ruled against
Hrant Dink for insulting the Turkish identity as per Article 301
of the Turkish Penal Code. A clear sign that the neo-State networks
suspected to have commissioned the assassination are still alive and
well, benefiting from the benign protection of authorities. A sign
that the ideology which targeted Hrant Dink has not relented.
A series of aggressions against old Armenian ladies in the Samatya
neighbourhood last winter has also bolstered this constant fear preying
on Armenians in Turkey. A woman in her eighties was found with her
throat slit; another has lost an eye. The authorities promptly rejected
the idea of racist crimes, insisting that they had been committed by
a thief. Three months after the crimes, the police arrested a suspect,
an Armenian man from Istanbul aged 38. Although apparently reassuring,
this resolution has not totally elucidated the cases and the arrest
failed to quiet the fears of Armenians.
Hrant Dink’s assassination has raised awareness in some people,
but it also reinvigorated the old nationalist demons. On 24th April
2010, when some hundreds of Turkish citizens were rallying in Taksim
Square, behind the rather mild message “We share in this sorrow;”
strings of activists from the Workers’ Party, and others from the
Alperen centres, connected to the BBP, were shouting their hatred
from the other side of the square. In order to keep the two groups
apart, peaceful demonstrators had been caged behind metal fences
while extremists were free to come and go. It will be objected that
these nationalist factions do not represent much on the electoral
scene. But how much weigh do democrats and enlightened Turks carry in
this debate? If, with 30 000 signatories, the “Forgive Us, Armenians”
campaign initiated by a few Turkish intellectuals in 2008 did elicit
a remarkable response from the Turkish civil society, what should we
think of the 120,000 signatures collected in a snap by Azerbaijan
to petition for the acknowledgement of the Khojaly “genocide?” “We
are all from Khojaly,” “You’re all Armenians, you’re all bastards,”
they chanted. The Prefect as well as the Minister of Internal Affairs
brought their support to that flow of hatred widely publicized by
the IstanbulCity Hall. Slogans were written on little round signs
like those used for Hrant Dink – a reversal of roles so typical of
revisionist outrage.
This anti-Armenian demonstration, largely financed by Azeri oil
dollars, confirmed what political analyst Cengiz Aktar called the
“subcontracting of Armenian policy by Turkey to Azerbaijan.” Taking
advantage of its steady oil and gas incomes, the Aliev regime has
disseminated its anti-Armenian propaganda throughout Europe and weighed
on Turkish internal politics. Resorting to blackmailing over fuels,
Baku has managed to defeat football diplomacy. After the signing
without effect of protocols between Turkey and Armenia, the hope for
an appeasement of relations has vanished. As the centenary of the
genocide is drawing close, in 2015, positions have rigidified. The
slight hope that sprung from the civil response in the months and
years following Hrant Dink’s death seems ever so frail today.
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