RACISM IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM
By Ismet Berkan

Turkish Press
Jan 19 2009

RADIKAL- Today is the second anniversary of the murder of Hrant
Dink. Many factors played a role in his slaying, but the Ergenekon
probe or other investigations of the ‘deep state’ shouldn’t make us
forget that this murder was basically a racist one. Dink was killed
because he was Armenian and also a person on the forefront who
went outside the customary psychology of minorities. That’s why we
shouldn’t forget racism and racists in our fight against all sorts of
‘deep state’ or criminal groups.

Racism is again on the rise now. He’s not aware of this, but Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also contributes to this racism. What’s
more, he’s doing this by saying that we don’t favor anti-Semitism. For
example, he said that the people who died in Gaza were killed because
they were Muslim. Let’s question this point of view a little. Were
the children from Gaza exposed to Israeli bombs and bullets just
because they were from Gaza? You may be asking what’s the difference,
because Muslims live in Gaza. Actually, there’s a huge difference.

If these children were killed not because they were unlucky enough
to born in Gaza, but because they have Muslim parents, we’re saying
that those who killed them committed these murders for religious
reasons, that is, to get rid of members of the Islamic religion,
aren’t we? So aren’t we saying that this war isn’t a classical war,
but a ‘war of hatred’? That’s what Erdogan is saying without thinking
about it so much, that is, he means that members of his religion are
being killed by people who hate their faith.

If you bring the issue of religion into this and point to it as the
reason for these murders, you open a door that you shouldn’t. What’s
more, if you’re doing this as a person who is against the idea of the
‘conflict of civilizations’ and wants to end this mentality, it means
you’re quite confused. I don’t think this is what Erdogan wants or
that he’s trying to incite anti-Semitism. But you see that Erdogan’s
innocent words actually incite racism.

Actually, as there’s no real sensitivity about racism in Turkey
and most of us, if we act like racists, don’t face the slightest
criticism, we don’t even realize who we’ve hurt or offended in our
speech or writings.

When a child was being sought to kill Dink, the prospective murderers
were told that they would kill an Armenian. In other words, they were
supposed to kill not a human, but an Armenian. Since this murder
which shook us two years ago, you can see that we haven’t still
come to our senses. We may not be aware of this, but racism is the
greatest problem."