Bekir Coskun: Filled with hope today

Hurriyet, Turkey
Jan 23 2007

Today I am filled with hope, even if it’s only a bit. From inside,
what I really want to do is run to the windows of my room and yell down
"Thank you…." to the people passing on the boulevard below.

"Thank you to everyone…women and men, the educated and uneducated,
adult and child, everyone….Thank you." Yes, that tiny phrase wants
to come spilling off my lips, and it’s a phrase I have not been able
to say for years: "Thank you Turkey."

I might even sing. I love to sing while crying.

*

Are you aware that a very important thing has happened? The people
of this country are crying after the murder of one of our Armenian
citizens, saying "A bullet has pierced us all."

A women who never even knew Hrant Dink cries on television, saying
"It’s like I was shot."

Almost all the newspapers ran headlines saying "The bullet hit us all."

Newscasters on TV read the news of Hrant Dink’s death with tears in
their eyes.

Can you imagine? This country is screaming "Our child has been killed"
for the Armenian, while labeling the nationalist (!) who shot him a
"traitor to the nation."

*

Thank you Turkey…..

Despite all of the primitive taboos that exist, you have proclaimed
loud and clear that what is most important is just being human.

People who don’t even know eachother are holding signs saying "We
are all Armenians……"

What better response can there be than this to the fanaticism that
turns people against one another?

The funeral today will be crowded. And while, under all the accusations
of a genocide, politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, and academics
writhed, trying to find an answer, ordinary people from all over Turkey
gathered on the bloody Sisli sidewalk to give their answer in unison:

"Our child has been shot….."

*

Thank you Turkey, thank you. This has been one great step towards
showing that the most important thing is just being human. And
everything else just falls away.