TURKS THREATEN TARAF DAILY COLUMNIST FOR HUMANISTIC ADAPTATION OF ATATURK’S "ADDRESS TO TURKISH YOUTH"

PanARMENIAN.Net
13.11.2009 17:49 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Turkish Taraf Daily’s columnist, Sevan Nishanyan,
who wrote a humanistic adaptation of Ataturk’s "Address to Turkish
Youth," a patriotic speech calling on young people to protect
their country at all costs, published e-mails received from irate
nationalists and filled with threats and vulgar language in his column.

In his adaptation, Nishanyan replaced the first sentence of the
address, "Your first duty is to preserve and to defend Turkish
Independence and the Turkish Republic forever," with "Your first duty
is to be a human being." The sentences: "This is the very foundation
of your existence and your future. This foundation is your most
precious treasure. In the future, too, there may be malevolent people
at home and abroad, who will wish to deprive you of this treasure"
in the original were changed to: "The very foundation of being human
is love toward other human beings. All through your life, you shall
consider it a duty for yourself to teach beauty, reason and justice
to people. If you have knowledge, you will share it without expecting
anything in return." The rest of Nishanyan’s adaptation was a treatise
on the equality of all human beings.

However, the backlash from some among the Turkish youth was
spine-chilling. "We will make you write the correct version of the
‘Address to Youth’ with your own blood. … I’ll kill you like that
Hrant Dink dog," said one of the messages, most of whose text was
not suitable for replication, Asbarez.com reported.