AZG Armenian Daily #020, 07/02/2009
Diaspora; Armenians in Turkey
"I DID NOT WANT TO UNCOVER THE BLANKET OVER MY FATHER’S ASSASSINATED
BODY IN ORDER NOT TO REKINDLE MY EMOTIONS OF REVENGE"
Invited by newly formed nonprofit and human rights advocate
organization "Friends of Hrant Dink, Inc." Mrs. Rakel Dink, the widow
of assassinated journalist Hrant Dink was in Boston to participate in
the panel discussion at MIT.
The Armenian International Women’s Association that invited Mrs. Dink
last year to its international conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
used this opportunity and organized a conference at Armenian Cultural
Foundation in Arlington on Saturday, January 31.
Rakel Dink presented her life. She was born in a village near Syrian
and Iranian borders. Her family members lived together and spoke only
Kurdish. In 1988, when the earthquake happened in Armenia, her father
gathered all the village members and collected money to send to
Armenia and then recommended to all of them by saying, "Now take your
wives and go to your houses and try to have more babies in order to
make up for the loss of the earthquake".
When she moved to Istanbul as a student at a boarding school to learn
Turkish and Armenian, there she met Hrant.
She said she was always in audience when Hrant used to give speeches,
and now after his assassination, she has taken the podium to continue
her husband’s work.
She and her children are continuing the humanitarian work of Hrant
Dink and the conversation that he started with the people of Turkey by
establishing the International Hrant Dink Foundation. Three days after
the assassination, when all the family was seated sadly at home, one
of her daughters said, " I am feeling 1915 recurring". To that, Rakel
comforted her by saying not to compare with that tragedy because at
that time millions were perished and now they have lost only one
person, however precious to them.
Then she said his son once wrote, "I did not want to uncover the
blanket over my father’s assassinated body in order not to rekindle my
emotions of revenge".
"My second daughter said during the funeral, `Please stop the
bleeding, stop the pain, and stop the hate’".
Mrs. Dink continued by saying that her husband’s death, as painful as
it was, brought a strong message to all people of Turkey, people
started to talk about events, which were never presented to the public
before.
"People that I have never heard of even said that if Hrant Dink would
have known that his death would bring more then 100,000 people to the
streets of Istanbul chanting `we are all Armenians’, he would have
wished to be assassinated earlier".
Rakel Dink will continue Hrant Dink’s Humanitarian efforts in Turkey,
she devotes herself to teaching of the Armenian history and culture
and in 2010, she will organize an event in Europe to focus on
tolerance and discrimination.
Two Years Later, Scholars Reflect on Legacy of Slain Journalist
By Thomas C. Nash, Mirror-Spectator Staff
With the second anniversary of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink’s murder renewing attention across the world about his struggle
for reconciliation of the two sides of his identity, Turkish and
Armenian, his widow and colleagues are continuing their plea for Turks
and Armenians to take up the cause.
"In the moment of his death, he was alone," said Armenian Weekly
editor Khatchig Mouradian, who served as the moderator for a
discussion panel on Dink’s legacy held Sunday at MIT’s Kresge
Auditorium. "But as we observe the sacrifices and legacy of Hrant Dink
‘ and work for truth freedom and justice everywhere ‘ we will become
better versions of ourselves."
The discussion was organized by Friends of Hrant Dink, a newly-created
Cambridge-based non-profit group that aims to promote the journalist’s
legacy.
Dink, who founded and edited the Agos weekly since 1996 before his
murder in January 2007, was remembered by panelists from a range of
academic and national backgrounds as both a daring journalist during
his lifetime and a unifying figure in death.
More than 400 people from the Boston area Armenian and Turkish
communities attended the panel, a display of common interest that many
speakers noted as symbolic of the appeal of Dink’s message.
"Ultimately, Hrant Dink’s legacy showed us that neither Armenians nor
Turks can claim ownership of him," Mouradian said. "He does not belong
to Armenians alone, and he does not belong to Turks alone. He belongs
to humanity."
Hrant’s Dream
Harvard Medical School Lecturer Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a long-time
activist against genocide and totalitarianism, gave introductory
remarks focusing on the search for meaning in the wake of genocide.
"Survivors of the Holocaust are sometimes known as collectors of
justice," Lifton said. "I think many Armenians can well understand
that stance. It wasn’t a call for revenge so much as a need that those
who had perpetrated genocide be brought to some justice or at least
acknowledgment of what they had done and the suffering they had
caused.
"For that cause and for that reason, the life and work of Hrant Dink
¦ all have great importance for Armenians and Turks, but importance
even beyond ‘ for the entire flow of human history."
Speaking in both Turkish and Armenian through a translator, Hrant’s
widow Rakel Dink spoke of the life of persecution she and Hrant
endured as Armenians in Turkey ‘ and the threats that came when Hrant
founded Agos.
In addition to constant threats for his acknowledgment of the Genocide
and calls for increased dialogue between Turks and Armenians, Dink
faced prosecution under the infamous Article 301 of the Turkish Penal
code, which forbade insulting Turkishness.
More than 100,000 demonstrated in solidarity with Dink following his
murder by a young Turkish nationalist.
Rakel Dink recalled the aftermath of her husband’s death, and the
reaction of her children.
"My daughter, she said, `Mother, I feel as if I am in 1915.’ I’m a
mother, and I’m a believer. I was going through the same pain she was
going through," Dink said. "But I had to ask her not to compare (the
murder) with 1915. We were living in the comfort of our home, we were
sitting on our sofa and we had friends supporting us. In 1915, people
did not have everything that we have today. "We do not need to give in
to hatred," she added. "We really do not need to return to the
murder."
Striking on a theme running throughout the event, Dink also noted that
the election of Barack Obama to the presidency holds symbolic meaning
for her.
"The dream of Martin Luther King was realized years later," she
said. "And it is our hope that one day in Turkey all people,
regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, will enjoy equal rights,
justice and freedom. This is Hrant’s dream."
Facing History
Speaking in his new role as a senior manager for educational
non-profit Facing History and Ourselves, former Anti-Defamation League
New England Executive Director Andrew Tarsy stressed the role of the
Boston-area Jewish community in supporting his battle with the
national ADL over Genocide recognition.
Tarsy left his position at the ADL in late 2007 after being fired and
later re-hired as the organization received criticism for its lack of
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
"I was extremely gratified at the time to know that the entire Jewish
community of Greater Boston stood unanimously with me," he said, "and
for those of you who didn’t know that then it’s important you know
that now."
Through Tarsy’s new position, he said he has worked to ensure the
Armenian Genocide is taught to 1.8 million students around the world.
Oktay Ozel, a history professor at Ankara’s Bilkent University working
as a visiting scholar at Harvard, said Dink’s writing inspired him to
encourage other scholars to look more closely at the Armenian Genocide
‘ a plea, which he said, may gain traction in the wake of Dink’s
death.
"For us historians, along with this sense of guilt, I think the bitter
legacy of Hrant’s death is that historians should do better," Ozel
said. They will feel much better when they do (their job) with a
little decency. Then they won’t need to do anything extraordinary `
just do their job properly. That’s the job in front of historians in
Turkey."
Peter Balakian, an English professor at Colgate University who wrote
the bestseller Black Dog of Fate about his quest to find the meaning
in his ancestral roots, spoke of both the discouraging circumstances
surrounding Dink’s death and the hope that the aftermath could create
a new relationship between the historically feuding Armenian and
Turkish communities both at home and abroad.
"The outpouring of commemoration around the world for Hrant Dink
became an opening to something new. In the two years since his death
commemorative events have created civic spaces where some gurglings of
Armenian memory and history have erupted and certainly a dialogue
about the absences of democracy in Turkey are taking place," Balakian
said.
"Armenians need to embrace that sense of complexity of a possibility
for a shared history, certainly for a shared humanity and a deeper
understanding. I think it’s important for Turks and Armenians to
de-ethnicize the past. The idea that this is somehow a debate between
two cultures is a-historical."
Following the discussion, organizers from Friends of Hrant Dink
presented Rakel Dink with $10,000 for her efforts to continue his work
‘ which she began just after he was killed.
"She has so much wisdom," said Armenian International Women’s
Association member Barbara Merguerian of Dink’s work. "I feel that’s
there’s a new breath of air."