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Dink: Victim of Deadly Denialism

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  • Dink: Victim of Deadly Denialism

    Dink: Victim of Deadly Denialism

    ArmRadio.am
    26.01.2007 10:32

    "As several world political, religious and other civic leaders
    condemn the January 19, 2007 Turkish premeditated murder of an
    innocent Armenian journalist Hrant Dink (1954-2007), many optimists
    expressed hope that as a result, a blanket positive change will take
    place in what is now Turkey. They believe that Dink's assassination
    will automatically result into a positive change," Appo K. Jabarian,
    Managing Editor and Executive Director of the USA Armenian Life
    Magazine wrote an article titled "Dink: Victim of Deadly Denialism."

    The author goes on to say: "Other observers anticipate that the
    original perpetrators and their denialist descendants will continue
    their genocidal campaign in denialism with an unpunished deadly
    devotion to keeping the loot: the forcibly occupied Armenian lands of
    Western Armenia and Cilicia, and the Greek lands of Constantinople,
    Smyrna, Troy, Pontus and Northern Cyprus.

    Setting my disagreements with the late fellow journalist Dink
    aside, I consider him as the newest Armenian martyr of the Armenian
    Genocide. Yes, we did have our disagreements, yet we were in complete
    harmony with the noble goal of seeing a transformed Turkish society
    that would ultimately atone itself by genuinely repenting its 1915-1923
    genocidal crime against the Armenian nation; by making honest amends
    to the Armenian people.

    When this writer had asked him during his October 2006 visit in Los
    Angeles about his position on the issue of the Turkish-occupied
    Armenian lands, Dink had swiftly replied: "I'm living on these
    lands." In my opinion, that is one of the root reasons why the
    extremist Turks have encouraged a young Turk to annihilate Dink. The
    Turkish "Deep State" is more concerned with losing much more than
    their monopoly of power. They are fearful of "losing" their loot from
    the Armenians: the historic lands of Western Armenia and Cilicia, and
    personal and real properties confiscated from the Armenians.

    In a January 22 article titled "A 'Trabzon Legend' Gave The Orders To
    Kill Hrant Dink," the Turkish daily Hurriet wrote: "Yasin Hayal, the
    man now suspected of giving the orders to 17 year old Ogun Samast to
    murder journalist Hrant Dink. His ultra-nationalist rhetoric focused
    on what he perceived as 'enemies of the state,' and he told the
    disaffected youth who spent time with him that it was 'their duty'
    to see to the punishment of those who 'insulted Turkey.' ... Hayal
    reportedly admitted 'I gave the gun and the money to Ogun Samast. I
    am angry at the things, which are happening in this country. The
    state is doing nothing to the people who are against Turkey. Which
    is why I gave Ogun this job. He carried out his duty successfully,
    and he helped rescue Turkey's honor.'"

    In a January 23 article titled "Armenia haunts the Turks again,"
    Hugh Pope of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Dink, who was repeatedly
    threatened by such nationalists, was left unprotected, but not just by
    the Turkish police. Bad laws, malevolent prosecutions and a growing
    nationalist hysteria helped create a lynch mob atmosphere. What
    killed Dink, in short, is the Turkish republic's inability to deal
    with the Armenian issue - the charge that its predecessor state, the
    Ottoman Empire, killed 1.2 million Armenian men, women and children
    in a genocide that began in 1915."

    Even the succeeding and currently ruling Turkish Republic under Mustafa
    Kemal continued its predecessor Ottoman Turkey's genocidal campaign
    killing additional hundreds of thousands of innocent Armenians,
    Greeks, Assyrians and Arabs, and others.

    Pope continued: "Official Turkey is stuck in a rut of
    denial. Discussing the great omissions on the subject in Turkey's
    public education remains taboo. Efforts to open archives and to
    'leave it to the historians' lead to dead ends, partly because a
    scholarly debate won't assuage Diaspora Armenians who demand formal
    acknowledgment of the genocide, and partly because of Turkey's
    anti-free-speech laws - most notoriously Penal Code Article 301,
    with its catchall penalties for 'denigrating Turkishness. ' "

    There is righteous Turkishness embodied by individuals like Orhan
    Pamuk, Ahmed Ertegun and others that deserves to be honored. And there
    is brut Turkish denialism that needs to be condemned and discouraged.

    There are genuine followers of Turkish Holy Islam that are worthy of
    our respect, because they are the conscience of humane Turk in the
    very footsteps of their forefathers who saved many Armenians from
    annihilation, and undoubtedly would have done everything to protect
    and save Dink's life. And there are those Turks who masquerade
    as "nationalists", yet they are usurpers of Armenians' lands, and
    desecrators of the Armenian churches and mutilators of the truth, just
    like those denialist leaders in Ankara and elsewhere who have been
    doing everything to intimidate Dink and others into silence through
    acts of repression and deadly denialism - just like it happened on
    Friday January 19 in front of Dink's Agos weekly offices; an act that
    cut short an "agos" (water furrow) for truth,democracy and justice."
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