Hrant Dink

Between assignments right now which gives me a chance, brief as it is, to throw in my 10 kurus worth on the murder of Hrank Dink, the Armenian-Turkish journalist gunned down in front of his office last week in Istanbul.

I'm a little fractured on this: on the one hand, I know this was an isolated act committed by a violent individual that has no reflection on Turks as a whole. And yet, I have to ask myself - how much of the persistent fascist atmosphere in Turkey, as waning as it is, be attributed to the government and its official policy? I'm referring here to Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, which states:

1. Public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.
2. Public denigration of the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security structures shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.
3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.
4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.

The last qualification notwithsanding, which appears to try and exclude legitimate debate from acts of criminality, the Article overall is so vague that its application has been used to imprison intellectuals, journalists, even writers like Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk (who escaped imprisonment only after a massive international outcry to the charges that were brought against him). What does 'denigration' mean and what contitutes a denigratory act? Turkish courts have been very loose in their interpretations. Hrank Dink, for example, was imprisoned for demanding Turkish authorities own up to Turkey's involvement in the Armenian genocide during World War I.

Did that charge and subsequent conviction make Dink more of a target? That's a tough question to answer. What I think is obvious is that a law like Article 301 creates an atmosphere that legitimizes politically and racially motivated crimes. I'm quite sure the murderer in this most recent case felt he was acting in the best interest of Turkey against a foreign seditionist. Article 301, in a severe form of logic, justifies this murderer's act.

The fact that 301 needs to go is beyond debate. If Turkey plans to join the EU, then this legislation will have to be repealed. Which makes Armenia's response to the murder that much more perplexing. Armenian authorities were brutal in their response to Dink's killing: "Following the murder," said its Speaker of the House, "Turkey should not even dream about joining the European Union." Why? Wouldn't joining the EU make it incumbent upon Turkey to recognize the crimes committed by its Ottoman predecessors (we must remember that, in all fairness to the Turkish Republic, the Armenian genocide was committed under Ottoman rule, before the Republic was founded)?

Armenia's response is even more ridiculous considering the realities of the European Union:

If racially-driven murders are a measure of a country's worthiness for EU membership, then well, France is out...and Britain...probably Germany as well...and lest we forget the EU's newest members - Romania and Bulgaria - where the Roma people are regularly slaughtered. EU member countries are no strangers to racism and racial violence. Armenia's response to Dink's murder is so obviously political that it borders on the grotesque, especially considering that Dink himself was a strong supporter of Turkey's national unity and its membership in the EU. I find it insulting to his memory that Armenian officials would use his murder to further thier own political interests.

In any case, most Turks I know were repulsed by the killing. "Many of us are afraid of going back to the era of racial murders of 15 years ago," one friend, a filmmaker, told me. "Turks are in shock over this. We thought this kind of thing was over and done with."

The problem with this sort of crime is that, philosophically speaking, the signifier (in this case, the murderer) may be insignificant but the signified (i.e. the act itself, the murder) monumental. That's the nature of hate - the minority who succumb to it are by their very natures capable of commiting acts whose repurcussions far out-weigh the act itself. The majority of us, the peaceful minions, are, in contrast, not so robust in our expressions of peace and communal harmony. The same rule applies in the Islamic sphere where a small group of fanatics manage to hijack the spotlight my committing incomprehensible acts.

But there is hope. We can collectively raise our voices, considering our vastly superior numbers, and drown out the fanatics. The response to Dink's murder was a moving example. Tens of thousands of Turks took to the streets. I was fortunate in that the procession during his funeral passed by my apartment (kudos to Christophe in France for giving me the heads up on that). Some shots:

Police lead the way

(they make nice, neat lines, don't they?)

"We are all Hrant Dink"

"The Murderer 301"

Tomorrow: a ney update...