By YAVUZ BAYDAR, Todays Zaman, 18.1.2015 ’Eight years have become a hundred’ Only days after this newspaper was launched with great hopes of advancing Turkeys sui generis glasnost and democratization -- the date was Jan. 19, 2007 -- we all found ourselves in the worst kind of nightmare ever imaginable. On Jan. 19, the news hit us like a thunderbolt that Hrant Dink, our dear colleague and a main driving force for taking Turkey gently by the hand to face its dark past, was assassinated by a gunman in broad daylight, in front of the newspaper, Agos, he had built. The price he paid for his many messages urging Turks and Armenians to listen to each other, to build bridges by taking huge risks, as it were, was to make himself a target of all the indocibility and sheer enmity of those who either do not want to heed his advice or simply get doves like him out of the way. Eight years of unbearable pain and grief have passed since that dark, grey day. The judicial process launched was slowly left to rot, while those who were behind this apparently premeditated organized crime were emboldened, decision after decision in the courts, and encouraged to believe they could enjoy the same sort of impunity others in the state apparatus had. (Have no illusions and make no mistake: In all of the court cases launched during the Justice and Development Party [AKP] rule, the number of those found guilty of crimes against humanity, say summary executions or others, was zero.) Meanwhile, the Dink family was left to face one humiliation after another. As a result of a typically a la Turka black-out, every day that has passed since then, every single day, Hrant was murdered again, and again. And again. This was what I feared the most. When I attended the first court hearing of the murder, I had enough data to lose all faith that any outcome would reflect justice. I have absolutely none today, either. Why? Because the lawyer of the Dink family tells us that we are facing a murder that is the result of a joint agreement between various elements of the state apparatus. The state of Turkey has never, ever, allowed its staff to be held accountable for wrongs committed, however horrible they may be. Eight years ago, this newspaper was launched in the general mood that it would change things, but today when the AKP embraces the role of being a party at one with the state, this trial will simply be more leverage in manipulating infighting and never satisfy the conscience of the public. Otherwise, this year would be a perfect opportunity, as optimists have said, to honor Hrant and his legacy. It would be a year for Turkey to rise with the image of a new country, where justice, at last, has an impact. Not only eight years have passed, but a hundred, wrote Dinks beloved Agos in an editorial the other day. Jan. 19, 2015 is the eighth anniversary of Hrant Dinks assassination. But for us, this is also the beginning of the centennial anniversary of the death march the Armenian intellectuals were forced to take from İstanbul on April 24, 1915. That year is the history of the annihilation of the Anatolian Armenians and, in some areas, their Assyrian, Chaldean neighbors. As of today the fact of the matter is that the mood of Armenians in Turkey about 2015 is only gloom. The process of bringing closer two nations -- and the diaspora -- is left only to tiny pockets of civil society, while Ankara is busy distributing funds to some of its pro-government think tanks to find ways not to deliver a proper message of remorse for the horror of 1915. Neither central nor local authorities seem to be engaged in activities of reconciliation. One example is utterly telling: An exhibition organized by the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality on the centennial of World War I depicts Ottoman Armenians as traitors and Greeks as draft dodgers. Whats worse than anything else, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğans recent invitation to his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, to commemorate World War I in Gallipoli on the very day of April 24 -- he added that we should all mind the significance of the date -- will not only deepen Turkeys precious solitude but also have a contagious effect at home: the continuation of denial by copycat behavior and further demonization of all the peaceful efforts against it. todayszaman/columnist/yavuz-baydar/eight-years-have-become-a-hundred_370191.html
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:22:48 +0000
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