After Dink’s murder, let’s not join its accomplices

New Anatolian, Turkey
Jan 22 2007

Cem Sey

22 January 2007

I cannot call Hrant Dink a friend. I met him just once. But this was
enough for me to recognize how powerful his message was, how sincere
he was.

I was supposed to interview him in Berlin for the German daily Die
Tageszeitung. We sat in a room to the rear of the newspaper morgue.
It was a long conversation filled with emotion.

I asked him why he wouldn’t use the word "genocide." "History
requires an ethical approach," he answered. "Legal concepts which
have a certain international meaning are preventing us from learning
what happened back then."

He was hopeful. He explained that the Turkish stance in the Armenian
question was shifting from denial to acknowledgement. "You can’t
expect deep-rooted denial to change instantly to acknowledge," he
said. "There will be one more stop on the way."

In the two years since I did that interview we saw a backlash in this
issue in Turkey in form of indictments and even — in his own case —
with an embarrassing conviction.

What happened?

In a press release condemning Dink’s murder, the Armenian National
Committee of America (ANCA) calls it "tragic proof that the Turkish
government — through its campaign of denial, threats and intimidation
against the recognition of the Armenian genocide — continues to
fuel the same hatred and intolerance that initially led to this crime
against humanity more than 90 years ago."

Indeed, the murder of this brave journalist makes it obvious that the
form of engaging supporters of recognition of the genocide in Turkey
has opened the door for aggressive assaults and ultimately led to
Dink’s murder. Everybody in Turkey — even those who don’t believe
in the genocide — knows that without the reinvigorated aggressive
social psychology in Turkey, Hrant Dink would still be with us.

The people of Turkey and above all its officials — and I don’t just
mean the government — should now think seriously about changing
their attitude for the sake of the still-fragile democracy in the
country. Everybody has to be ready to go all the way through the
investigations until the last unknown aspect in this case is made
clear, even if it ends with accusations against "sacred" institutions
like the army or other representatives of the state. Turkey shouldn’t
stop investigations, debates or trials against superior officials,
like what happened in the November 2005 Semdinli case, if this
becomes necessary.

But Dink’s death brings a huge responsibility to the Europeans as well,
who, I am afraid, aren’t really aware of this.

In 2005 Dink said in his interview with me that the German
conservatives would misuse this issue to try to block Turkey’s
European Union accession. "As an Armenian I can’t accept this," he
said. "Today I am suffering greatly because the catastrophe of 1915
is being turned into a political triumph."

Two years later his own tragedy may be misused for the same purpose,
if politicians, journalists, and lobbying groups throughout Europe
take advantage of this murder and make it into an argument against
Turkey’s EU bid.

This should be clear to anybody: Even after his death, one can still
become an accomplice to his murderers — in Turkey and elsewhere.

Hrant Dink believed in the power of the emerging democratic movement
in Turkey. And he always saw Turkey’s EU accession process as a strong
supportive element for this movement, but knew this process was just
the result of this movement, not its trigger.

Turkey’s path to modernity up until today has been strewn with blood,
massacres and murder. There is no hope that this will be different
in the future. Even though the country has written a success story
in its addiction to modernity.

Turkey’s next step on this path will be membership in the European
Union. Enemies of this can make the way painful and delay its
success. But they won’t be able to stop it.

Hrant Dink was the first victim, one who paid for his clear views on
the path to the European Union.