OPINION: A BREEDING GROUND FOR ANGER AND INTOLERANCE
New Straits Times, Malaysia
Feb 10 2007
The Dink killing has thrown new light on the social conditions
that nurture ultra-nationalists and ethnic hatred in Turkey, writes
SEBNEM ARSU.
WITH fishing boats pouring in and out of a busy harbour, white
minibuses criss-crossing in all directions and shopping streets
bustling, the regional capital of Trabzon in Turkey, nestled on the
Black Sea, appears to be a vibrant city.
But beneath the colourful shopping malls filled with trendy clothes
and chic cafes, the poverty, unemployment and lack of opportunity
that afflicts many of Turkey’s cities is crushing – especially for
young people.
All eight suspects in the plot to kill Hrant Dink, a nationally
prominent editor, came from nearby, and links to other ultranationalist
crimes here are beginning to emerge.
Dink, an Armenian Turk who was an outspoken commentator on the
country’s handling of minority rights and was once convicted of
insulting the Turkish identity for an article he wrote, was killed on
Jan 19 in Istanbul. Ogun Samast, 17, a high school dropout, who has
confessed to the killing, was arrested with seven others in connection
with the crime.
The attack has caused a harsh examination in Trabzon of how the
authorities handled early hints of this and similar crimes. The
government dismissed Trabzon’s provincial governor and police chief in
the wake of Dink’s killing, and the Interior Ministry is investigating
what might have gone wrong in the handling of an informant’s tips
before the crime was committed.
According to NTV television, the informant, Erhan Tuncel, told the
police about plots to kill Dink on four occasions in the last year.
The first tip was passed along to Istanbul, where the police made
inquiries, but the later tips were not, the television report said.
Other prominent crimes here have had a common motivation of extremism
in upholding nationalist values. A local McDonald’s restaurant
was bombed in 2004, chosen as a Western target, and there was an
attempted lynching of a group of leftist protesters and killings of two
professors from the local university and of a Roman Catholic priest,
the Rev Andreas Santaro.
But it was not until the police found personal links between Samast,
the confessed killer of Dink, and Yasin Hayal, an ultranationalist
convicted of the McDonald’s bombing, that a web of connections between
various crimes came to light. Hayal is being charged with inciting
the Dink killing.
Tuncel is a mysterious figure. He was implicated in the McDonald’s
bombing but then was given his freedom to act as an informer. There
are reports that he tipped off the police four times to the threat
to Dink, but he is also being held as a suspect.
In addition, the fact that Samast and the killer of Father Santaro,
a 16-year-old high school dropout, were both under age at the times of
their crimes suggests that someone may have been urging young people
to commit crimes, knowing that they would escape harsher penalties
if caught.
But so far the police have not arrested any older or more established
figures in these crimes.
For some of the city’s youth, the region’s culture of bravado and
machismo seems to make a breeding ground for anger.
"Black Sea people are dynamic, restless, energetic and have strong
heroic feelings," said Adem Solak, a prison therapist who works with
the youth who killed Father Santaro.
"Their environment, built on a single culture without interaction
with diverse ethnicities, creates a greater potential for reaction
to social issues."
Expressions of anger are easy to come by, as are defences of Samast
and the killing of Dink.
"I don’t think brother Ogun did wrong," said Murat, 19, a university
dropout who, like many interviewed, refused to give his last name,
saying he feared police harassment.
"We heard that the Armenian cursed our blood, which we cannot accept."
He and his friend Hasan, 18, chain-smoking at a cafe near the town
centre, said they had known Samast for years in Pelitli, the suburb
where all three grew up. They praised nationalism with a religious
undertone.
But Murat hesitated before saying whether Dink deserved to die. "If
television earlier had said what a good person he was, like they do
now, no, actually," he said after a moment of reflection.
In Pelitli, a young man giving his name as Serkan said Samast was a
troublemaker, but one who would have needed guidance to commit such
a crime.
"I bet he had no idea who Hrant Dink was," Serkan said, "because he
had nothing to do with newspapers or politics, but loved stirring up
violence, starting fights on small matters."
A colleague, who gave his name as Hamdi and said he was 21, went
on from there. "What would you expect in a town where there are no
social activities for young people, no job opportunities, and everyone
around you loves to cause trouble?" he said. The problem with Samast
was not his politics, they said, but his failure to leave it to the
government to defend the nation.
The city was populated by Greeks, Armenians and Abkhazians when it
was a trading centre, but after Turkish independence in the 1920s,
the Greeks left, and Trabzon became overwhelmingly Muslim and
Turkish. Since then, the people here have been seen as having strong
nationalist and religious values.
Nationalism "embraces intolerance towards the other, superiority over
minorities and not only fear but also hatred toward the foreigner",
said Professor Ali Carkoglu of Sabanci University in Istanbul.
The feeling is stirred up by global events like the war in Iraq, the
Danish cartoons satirising Prophet Muhammad and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Then there is Turkey’s ambition to join the European Union,
which has brought many changes.
That long process has its ups and downs, said Melek Goregenli, a
professor of political psychology at Ege University in Izmir. She
said that it "helped bring unspoken thoughts to the fore, made them
more visible, but at the same time made those who spoke out as targets
for those who couldn’t tolerate free expression of thought and equal
rights for everyone".
But even in this city, there are people who try to revive the feeling
of unity among ethnic groups that lived together for centuries. In
a historic building once used as a prison, a local theatre company
performed an Armenian comedy classic the weekend after Dink was
killed. There had been several sold-out shows, and the seats were sold
out for that performance too. But because of fears about security,
the theatre was empty, Necati Zengin, the director of the play,
said in a sad and frustrated tone.
"What we have to understand is that if Ogun and others had been
theatregoers, Hrant would have been still alive," he said.