HRANT DINK’S DREAM
By Elif Safak

Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Feb 27 2007

* Imagine a moment in time when there is no chauvinism, xenophobia
or racism. We thousands of Istanbullular saw it happen. So did Hrant.

Imagine an exquisite dinner scene in Istanbul. A long, long table;
at least 30 people. It is kind of breezy outside, the infamous lodos
is blowing incessantly, as if to remind you that life in this city is
far from quiet and orderly. Inside the room, the variety of the food
served reflects the multicultural roots of today’s Turkish cuisine:
Albanian meatballs, Greek seafood, Kurdish spices, Armenian pastries,
Turkish pilaf. People drink and eat and laugh and from time to time,
they toast friends long departed.

Then somebody starts to sing a song. Other guests join in and before
you know it a string of songs follow, most of them sad but none
disheartening. The songs switch almost effortlessly from Armenian to
Kurdish, from Turkish to Greek. Where one stops another one picks up.

Imagine, in short, a cosmopolitan setting where everyone is welcome
no matter what their ethnicity, race or religion. Imagine a country
where we are all equal, friendly and free.

It wasn’t a dream. I saw it happen and not once or twice. I saw it
happen so many times. That is how I know it can and shall be real. I
saw it happen thanks to Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist who
was, on Friday Jan. 19, 2007, gunned down in Istanbul by a Turkish
ultra-nationalist.

Hrant was a dreamer and, as relentlessly as he was misunderstood,
mistreated, and downtrodden because of this dominant aspect of his
personality, by the end he knew very well that dreams are contagious.

He gave us hope and faith, but most of all, he passed on his dreams
to us. He made us believe that we, the citizens of modern Turkey, as
the grandchildren of the multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual
Ottoman Empire, could and should live together without assimilating
differences or erasing the memory of the past.

He wanted to shatter the silence in Turkey on the 1915 deportation
and massacres of Armenians, believing that remembrance was
a responsibility. According to him, only if and when Turks and
Armenians mourned this tragedy together would we be able to start a
new and better future. In a country stamped with collective amnesia,
Hrant struggled for memory.

As an Armenian Istanbullu he had been subject to all sorts of
discrimination ever since he was a kid. And yet he was free of anger
and resentment. After a lifetime’s experience he could have drawn
the conclusion that this country was no place for a minority and
gone abroad, where he would most probably be safer and much more
comfortable. But he did just the opposite. He had uttermost faith in
his fellow citizens and believed that through dialogue and empathy
even the most ossified chauvinisms would melt away.

Hrant wholeheartedly supported Turkey’s membership of the European
Union and was worried that if the ties between Turkey and EU snapped,
the ongoing democratization process would slow down and Turkey would
become a more insular country – a process from which neither Turkey
nor the western world could benefit.

The sweeping generalizations in the West regarding Turkey and Turks
frustrated him. He was equally critical of the Armenian genocide bill
approved in October 2006 by the French Parliament, an equivalent of
which is now being discussed in the United States. "If they pass the
law in France, I will go there, and though I believe the opposite,
I will openly say that there was no genocide." As a true supporter of
freedom of expression, Hrant believed that it should be up to people –
Turks and Armenians together – to develop the means to reconcile and
not for politicians to dictate knowledge of history.

More than 100,000 people marched on Jan. 23, the day of his funeral.

Many in the crowd sang Armenian songs, and carried banners proclaiming:
"Hepimiz Hrant Dink’iz, Hepimiz Ermeniyiz" (We are all Hrant Dink,
we are all Armenians). People of all sorts of ideological, religious
and ethnic backgrounds were there, united in a common spirit and
faith in democracy. At the end of the day Muslims and Christians
buried him together.

Imagine a moment in time when there is no chauvinism, xenophobia or
racism. A moment when we are all united in a common spirit. It wasn’t
a dream. We thousands of Istanbullular saw it happen. So did Hrant.

And most probably he wasn’t the least bit surprised, knowing too well
that dreams are contagious.

This piece by Elif Safak was originally published in "Open Democracy."