Who are the Turks and who are Armenians?

Yerkir.am
January 26, 2007

The Turkish handwriting is the same everywhere ` it is written in red
and you read it in black. Does the Turkish people’s and intellectuals’
massive participation in Hrant Dink’s funeral mean that they realize
and accept the unquestionable truth of the Armenian Genocide? This does
not reflect Ankara’s official position.

Wasn’t Hrant Dink’s murder another act of Genocide? Wasn’t the Turkish
people’s participation in the funeral an affirmation of this fact? One
thing is clear ` in the context of the Armenian question Turkey’s
nature does not change, it remains the same when killing, it is the
same when mourning, it changes neither when laughing nor when crying.

Who are the Turks? Who are we? They are `special’, they can even call
themselves `Armenian’. But you cannot become Armenian simply by
shouting and applauding.

You can only be born Armenian. And if you consider yourselves Armenian,
can you manage to live with it? We couldn’t live with you. Dink
couldn’t live with you because he lived in a country where he was
hated. How long can you live with self-denial when there is nothing to
deny?

But this is an issue of identity for the Turks: they are Turks but they
consider themselves `Armenian’, they call themselves `Armenian’ but
continue thinking like Turks, they officially deny the Genocide but
follow the funeral procession mourning, they kill with one hand and put
flowers with the other. This is the peculiarity of the Turkish
identity.

Turkey, stop living with recirculation of your historical poison! Tell
your people the truth! You have been lying for ninety years and they
believed you. Do not be afraid and tell the truth and they will believe
you again.

Wasn’t Hrant Dink a citizen of Turkey? He was a citizen but he was an
ethnic Armenian. He was a citizen but his views did not coincide with
the historical and political perspective of the government. So what?

Does this mean that he should be murdered because he lived in an
environment that falsifies the reality and reinvents history? `We are
all Armenians, we are all Dink,’ the Turkish public shouted. Was this a
revolution in the Turkish society? Listen, Hrant Dink, they are ready
to even reject their nationality if only they can avoid recognizing the
Genocide, and this is your victory.

Hrant Dink is the only bright trace in Turkey’s modern history. If
official Ankara is smart enough, it will not lose this trace, it will
re-examine its past and present and not build the future of the Turkish
people on Genocides. Let Ankara cry out loud as much as it wants `
every tear will burn with the fate of an Armenian family, and the red
color will be reflected in these tears so vividly as the blood on the
ground.

The Armenian question was raised and solved in Istanbul in 1915 ` the
Genocide of 1.5 million Armenians was organized. In 2007 the same
continues in Istanbul in a more `civilized’ manner.

Didn’t Turkey understand that the problem is not the Armenian question
but Turkey itself? Didn’t it understand that the struggle is not about
exterminating the Armenian identity but re-evaluation and recreation of
its own identity? Is it too difficult to understand that we are more
interested in your Europeanization than you yourselves since if you get
civilized you might realize that what you did was a Genocide.

Tell the truth with the same enthusiasm with which you are knocking on
Europe’s doors. Turkey is looking for its salvation in Europe ` the
latter does not promise any miracles but state it cannot save someone
whose problem lies in his identity, in his genetic inferiority complex
and barbarism, in the inherited capacity to commit genocides.

By Areg SAVGULIAN