Turkish Daily News, Turkey
Jan 25 2007

Fascism must be fought everywhere
Thursday, January 25, 2007

We are now watching with anger how those that contributed to the
poisonous atmosphere in this country, which culminated in Hrant’s
death, are now shedding crocodile tears over his brutal murder.

Semih İdiz

Hrant Dink was a dear friend of mine, as he was of so many of us – a
fact that alone attests to what a great guy and a lovable human being
he was. Hrant died as he no doubt feared he might. That he feared so
is clear from his last piece in Agos, the bilingual Turkish-Armenian
daily where he was editor.

The article carried the title "The dove-like timidity of my state of
mind" (Ruh halimin guvercin tedirginligi). Having received serious
threats aimed at himself and his family he had a nasty premonition. But
he was the eternal optimist. In that piece he ends up foolishly
believing that "at least no one shoots doves."

Little did he know that they do and will continue to do so unless a
serious change of mind takes hold of the country, stirring it out of
this climate of ethno-centric animosity cultivated for the sake of
petty interests.

As an aside here I would like to honor the memory of Ugur Mumcu,
another brave journalist who was killed in a similarly brutal attack
exactly 14 years ago, on Jan. 24, 1993, in front of his house as he
was getting ready to go to work at his paper.

The supposedly social democratic CHP:

We are now watching with anger how those that contributed to the
poisonous atmosphere in this country, which culminated in Hrant’s
death, are now shedding crocodile tears over his brutal murder. Take
for example the supposedly social democratic Republican People’s Party
(CHP), which I dealt with in this column last week.

It takes some audacity for this party’s leader to now offer condolences
to Hrant’s family and Turkey’s Armenian community when it has members
in executive party positions who were recently calling for the mass
expulsion of up to 70,000 Armenians (from Armenia) who are illegally
employed in this country.

They wanted Turkey to retaliate in this brutal way for the French
law that aims to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide. No
one in the party, including Mr. Deniz Baykal, its leader, had the
sense to understand what such a suggestion does to Turkey’s image,
given the historic backdrop of the mass expulsion of Armenians in 1915.

No one in this party had the courage to say, "Rather than expelling
these people, we should highlight the fact that they are living and
working happily here, thus proving that Turks and Armenians are not
eternal blood enemies, as the pathological nationalists on both sides
would have us believe."

The tens of thousands of Turks who turned up for Hrant’s funeral on
Tuesday are what this country is about. Their tears as they chanted "We
are all Hrant, we are all Armenian" were genuine, not crocodile tears.

As if all this was not enough, we got news of the sad death of
İsmail Cem yesterday. He too was a Turk who reflected this
country’s humane face to the world.

It was this spirit of Cem’s that, when combined with the kindred spirit
of his Greek colleague at the time, Foreign Minister Yorgo Papandreou,
melted the ice between the two countries after years of acrimony. I
have no doubt that Cem’s death has caused sadness across the water too.

Fascism in Europe:

A word of warning here for our European friends before signing off.

Hrant Dink and İsmail Cem were model human beings for Europe
also. We have to remember that the same kind of hate-mongering that
we are complaining about in Turkey also exists in Europe and has
already led to murders and assassinations.

Like our supposed social democrats, there are countless supposedly
"civilized" politicians in Europe today, some vying for the highest
positions in their country, who are contributing to a growing
atmosphere of hate through their racist and supremacist remarks.

Therefore no one should feel complacent and suggest that "these
things are happening in Turkey alone, away from Europe." Fascism is
a pathological state of mind and, like bird flu, can not be stopped
at this border or that.

Only last June Hans van Themsche, 18 and the son of a founding member
of the racist Vlaams Blok (Flemish Bloc), shot and wounded Songul Koc,
a Turkish woman wearing a headscarf, as she sat reading on a bench. He
then killed Oulematou Niangadou from Mali and the white child, 2,
in her care.

If I was a European liberal I would be equally worried about what
is happening in Europe today as I watch these sad events unfold
in Turkey. We have to understand that a stand against fascism and
crypto-fascism is only meaningful if it is universal.