Bangkok Post, Thailand
Jan 27 2007

Old wounds incite fresh killing

Hopes for ethnic reconciliation between Turks and Armenians fade
following the funeral of slain Armenian journalist Hrant Dink

By SELCAN HACAOGLU

Ankara _ As waves of mourners rolled through the streets of Istanbul
this week in honour of slain ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink,
many liberal Turks were swept up in a sense that an unprecedented
chance for ethnic reconciliation was at hand. But just two days
later, a darker reality was setting in. Many Turks are rejecting the
appeals for solidarity and democratic reform, as ultra-nationalists
inspired by hardcore Islam become ever more strident and daring. A
large proportion of the tens of thousands who joined Dink’s funeral
procession were urban intellectuals, hardly representative of a
nation of more than 70 million people where conservative Islamic
values are deep-seated and the military is the most trusted
institution.

In fact, many Turks support the views of nationalists who are
becoming increasingly vocal in their condemnation of Western values
they feel are being imposed on them by the European Union, which is
considering Turkey’s membership bid.

Dink had been forced to stand trial by nationalists angered by his
calls to recognise the killings of Armenians in the waning days of
the Ottoman Empire as genocide. He was gunned down on Jan 19 in front
of the offices of his bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper.

During his funeral procession on Tuesday, mourners chanted ”We are
all Armenians”, urged liberal reform and called for the repeal of
the law used to convict Dink on charges of ”insulting Turkishness”.
However, most Turks interviewed by the Associated Press on Thursday
said the marchers did not represent the country and said they were
against making concessions to Armenians on the sensitive issue of the
killings. ”They should speak for themselves, they cannot speak on
behalf of Turks,” said Filiz Un, 32. ”I am sorry for him as a human
but they cannot pretend that all the Turkish public is behind them.”

A headline in the right-wing newspaper Tercuman said that those who
aren’t proud to be Turkish ”should clear off and leave”. The
article ran a day after a threat against Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk
by a handcuffed suspect.

Turkey’s expulsion and killings of Armenians in 1915 during World War
I _ which Armenians say claimed 1.5 million lives _ is a dark chapter
rarely discussed publicly in Turkey or taught in its schools.

But despite the fact that the Armenian-Turkish border has been sealed
since 1993 and diplomatic relations severed, Armenia sent a deputy
foreign minister to the funeral, and the archbishop of the Armenian
Church of America also accepted the government’s invitation.

Earlier, the Armenian defence minister Serzh Sarkisyan called for
improved relations so that Armenia could ”establish ties with Turkey
with no preconditions”.

Diplomatic ties were severed in a dispute over territory, but the
heart of the conflict is the mass killings of Armenians. Turkey calls
the loss of life a consequence of a war in which both sides suffered
casualties, and has suggested that a group of envoys from each
country analyse the history. Armenia has expressed willingness to
participate, but insists that the border must first be reopened to
trade.

But many Armenians living abroad hold a much harder line and are
lobbying the United States and European governments to deny Turkish
entrance into the European Union until Ankara recognises the killings
as genocide.

Norman Stone, professor of history at Koc University in Istanbul,
said Dink was killed at a time when Turkey was clearly reacting to
pressure to respond to the Armenian issue. ”There are a lot of
balanced people here who say, ‘Look, the genocide issue is unclear,
but if you just leave it as a matter of massacres, then we can start
making progress’,” he said.

”Public opinion in both countries, weary of the years-long conflict,
had reached a point of explosion,” said Kaan Soyak, director of the
only bilateral trade council of Turkish and Armenian executives.
”That’s what lies behind the massive outpouring for Dink.”

Turkey’s largest nationalist party responded to the mourners’ chants
on Tuesday by posting its own slogan _ ”We are all Turks” _ on a
digital display outside a local party branch in the Mediterranean
resort of Antalya. And in a chilling sign that the suspects have
their supporters, a fake bomb was left outside the Turkish parliament
building saying they should be set free, CNN-Turk reported Thursday.

The defiant nationalist stand was alarming mainstream politicians.

”You don’t recognise any laws, you go and kill defenceless people?
That’s not nationalism,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
”If you do that you are murderers and monsters. No one but God can
take a life.”

Prosecutors on Wednesday charged 17-year-old Ogun Samast with
carrying out the murder while charging four others with inciting the
assassination.

”There is a fault line passing right through the middle of
society,” wrote Turker Alkan, a columnist for the centre-left
Radikal newspaper. ”Those who cannot reconcile Hrant Dink’s murder
with humanity, consciousness and moral values are on the one side;
those who don’t really oppose the murder because of their nationalist
sentiments and their religious beliefs are on the other.”

Selami Ince, news editor of the Istanbul-based Alawite television, Su
TV, explained that few of the marchers at the funeral were Turks with
roots in the Anatolian heartland. ”Unfortunately, they do not
represent the Turkish public,” Mr Ince said. ”The Turkish public
has not filled the streets with demands of democracy and freedom.
They were leftists, Armenians, Kurds and those intellectuals who
favour multiculturalism.”

The suspects Ogun Samast and Yasin Hayal were members of the youth
wing of the right-wing nationalist and deeply religious Great Unity
Party in the Black Sea port of Trabzon. They left the party two years
ago, allegedly criticising it for being too soft and inactive.

”Despite all [Dink’s] efforts, he could not help prevent feelings of
vengeance by Turkish nationalists who operated under a venomous
climate to bully Turkey’s liberals and democratic elements or those
who feel committed to stop Turkey’s march to the European Union,”
wrote Cengiz Candar of Turkish Daily News.

Yasin Hayal, handcuffed and escorted by police, shouted ”Orhan Pamuk
should be careful” as he was taken to an Istanbul court house
Wednesday.

Hayal, a known nationalist militant, served 11 months in jail for the
2004 bombing of a McDonald’s restaurant in his hometown Trabzon. He
admitted to giving money and a gun to his friend Samast, 17, to kill
Dink. Samast confessed to killing Dink for ”insulting” Turks over
his writings and statements on the massacre of Armenians during WWI.

The murder of Dink, who worked for reconciliation between Christian
Armenians and Muslim Turks, has triggered a heated debate in Turkey
about the impact of extreme nationalism.

”This murder revealed some truths which we undoubtedly all have to
think about,” said Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. ”We have to think
about how we are bringing up our youth.”

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