ANKARA: The voice of silence

Turkish Daily News, Turkey
Jan 25 2007

What others say
Thursday, January 25, 2007

The voice of silence:

Fehmi KORU, Yeni Şafak

People don’t walk too often in Turkey. We in general don’t like to
walk. We don’t take morning walks for a healthier life, neither do we
march in the streets for a case that we believe in. Only funerals can
make us march; which usually turns into more of an ideological show.

I believe yesterday was exceptional. It is impossible to categorize
the tens of thousands as holders of a single ideology who walked from
the Agos newspaper’s office to Taksim, and then to Yenikapi. The
crowd reflected a very rich spectrum of differences.

Silence does indeed have a voice. If this wasn’t so, could the
message given by the thousands walking in silence have echoed so
loudly? Most probably, none of us in the procession had similar
thoughts in mind. Still, we walked feeling the same anguish for our
loss.

Whoever I am, Dink was a complimentary element of my identity. I
felt "complete" at times when I spent time with him. This might sound
selfish, but those who shot him also took something away from me. As
I walked in the silent procession, I swore that I continuously heard
the same voice saying: no matter how much pain we feel, it can hardly
match the greatness of our loss.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS