Dink: Victim of Deadly Denialism
ArmRadio.am
26.01.2007 10:32
"As several world political, religious and other civic leaders
condemn the January 19, 2007 Turkish premeditated murder of an
innocent Armenian journalist Hrant Dink (1954-2007), many optimists
expressed hope that as a result, a blanket positive change will take
place in what is now Turkey. They believe that Dink’s assassination
will automatically result into a positive change," Appo K. Jabarian,
Managing Editor and Executive Director of the USA Armenian Life
Magazine wrote an article titled "Dink: Victim of Deadly Denialism."
The author goes on to say: "Other observers anticipate that the
original perpetrators and their denialist descendants will continue
their genocidal campaign in denialism with an unpunished deadly
devotion to keeping the loot: the forcibly occupied Armenian lands of
Western Armenia and Cilicia, and the Greek lands of Constantinople,
Smyrna, Troy, Pontus and Northern Cyprus.
Setting my disagreements with the late fellow journalist Dink
aside, I consider him as the newest Armenian martyr of the Armenian
Genocide. Yes, we did have our disagreements, yet we were in complete
harmony with the noble goal of seeing a transformed Turkish society
that would ultimately atone itself by genuinely repenting its 1915-1923
genocidal crime against the Armenian nation; by making honest amends
to the Armenian people.
When this writer had asked him during his October 2006 visit in Los
Angeles about his position on the issue of the Turkish-occupied
Armenian lands, Dink had swiftly replied: "I’m living on these
lands." In my opinion, that is one of the root reasons why the
extremist Turks have encouraged a young Turk to annihilate Dink. The
Turkish "Deep State" is more concerned with losing much more than
their monopoly of power. They are fearful of "losing" their loot from
the Armenians: the historic lands of Western Armenia and Cilicia, and
personal and real properties confiscated from the Armenians.
In a January 22 article titled "A ‘Trabzon Legend’ Gave The Orders To
Kill Hrant Dink," the Turkish daily Hurriet wrote: "Yasin Hayal, the
man now suspected of giving the orders to 17 year old Ogun Samast to
murder journalist Hrant Dink. His ultra-nationalist rhetoric focused
on what he perceived as ‘enemies of the state,’ and he told the
disaffected youth who spent time with him that it was ‘their duty’
to see to the punishment of those who ‘insulted Turkey.’ … Hayal
reportedly admitted ‘I gave the gun and the money to Ogun Samast. I
am angry at the things, which are happening in this country. The
state is doing nothing to the people who are against Turkey. Which
is why I gave Ogun this job. He carried out his duty successfully,
and he helped rescue Turkey’s honor.’"
In a January 23 article titled "Armenia haunts the Turks again,"
Hugh Pope of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Dink, who was repeatedly
threatened by such nationalists, was left unprotected, but not just by
the Turkish police. Bad laws, malevolent prosecutions and a growing
nationalist hysteria helped create a lynch mob atmosphere. What
killed Dink, in short, is the Turkish republic’s inability to deal
with the Armenian issue – the charge that its predecessor state, the
Ottoman Empire, killed 1.2 million Armenian men, women and children
in a genocide that began in 1915."
Even the succeeding and currently ruling Turkish Republic under Mustafa
Kemal continued its predecessor Ottoman Turkey’s genocidal campaign
killing additional hundreds of thousands of innocent Armenians,
Greeks, Assyrians and Arabs, and others.
Pope continued: "Official Turkey is stuck in a rut of
denial. Discussing the great omissions on the subject in Turkey’s
public education remains taboo. Efforts to open archives and to
‘leave it to the historians’ lead to dead ends, partly because a
scholarly debate won’t assuage Diaspora Armenians who demand formal
acknowledgment of the genocide, and partly because of Turkey’s
anti-free-speech laws – most notoriously Penal Code Article 301,
with its catchall penalties for ‘denigrating Turkishness. ‘ "
There is righteous Turkishness embodied by individuals like Orhan
Pamuk, Ahmed Ertegun and others that deserves to be honored. And there
is brut Turkish denialism that needs to be condemned and discouraged.
There are genuine followers of Turkish Holy Islam that are worthy of
our respect, because they are the conscience of humane Turk in the
very footsteps of their forefathers who saved many Armenians from
annihilation, and undoubtedly would have done everything to protect
and save Dink’s life. And there are those Turks who masquerade
as "nationalists", yet they are usurpers of Armenians’ lands, and
desecrators of the Armenian churches and mutilators of the truth, just
like those denialist leaders in Ankara and elsewhere who have been
doing everything to intimidate Dink and others into silence through
acts of repression and deadly denialism – just like it happened on
Friday January 19 in front of Dink’s Agos weekly offices; an act that
cut short an "agos" (water furrow) for truth,democracy and justice."