There are many things I would like to do this weekend, but if I had the opportunity to travel I would go to Boston to attend the “Armenians and the Left Symposium.”

Edik Baghdasaryan, editor of www.Hetq.am, Jeffrey Tufenkian, president of Armenian Forests NGO, Halil Berktay, history professor from Istanbul, and many others  will most likely generate a fascinating discussion from deforestation to Armenian-Turkish relations.

So those of you have them chance of living in or leaving for Boston, make sure to have a meaningful Saturday.

You can learn more about the symposium by visiting their website at http://www.armeniansandtheleft.com/.

Talin Suciyan, an ethnic Armenian journalist for the liberal Turkish Nokta magazine, has been apparently dismissed for reasons that connect to her background.

I personally suspect that Suciyan’s recent article about the Mardin mass grave (aka collaboration) for Diaspora’s The Armenian Reporter might have been a factor for her dismissal.  Perhaps Nokta would not want to be associated with Armenian groups outside Turkey.

A group e-mail from Suciyan concerning her dismissal, posted below, was received by us in Turkish and then in English.

Those emails concerning my dismissal from Nokta magazine contain remarks about a presumed environment of pressure related to/caused by the news pieces authored by me, rather than attributing it to my “ethnic background”.  I am not aware whether or not such an environment of pressure caused my dismissal, or for that matter, whether or not such an environment existed. The justification of my dismissal as told to me does not point to that direction.   Of course, when a journalist is let go, one is most curious whether the subject matters of the news pieces authored and the quality of the news were ever in question.  There cannot be anything more natural than that.  During my 18 week s of employment at Nokta magazine I had 15 news pieces (including 1 translation), of which 7 were related to the Armenians.  And I believe they were mindful of professional ethics and in accordance with the basic tenets of journalism.    The situation being what it is and the justification of my dismissal as told to me is so unfounded that no one gives credence to it, opening the way to various views and interpretations.

The justification of my dismissal as told to me by Alper Gormus is my having a “negative” attitude and the inability of, especially, my editor Ferda Balancar (in addition to himself and Hasim Akman) to work with me.   I inquired as to why it was not communicated to me earlier, why we had not debated this issue previously, and why Ferda had not openly shared her discomfort with me.  In the same vein, when I mentioned I did not think this was the real reason, I received the answer “let’s not argue any further”.   If he could not work with me in a weekly magazine for 18 months, how could the 15 news pieces/articles be published?

In my opinion, what needs to be debated is the dismissal of a journalist not on the basis of one’s profession but in a capricious and baseless fashion.   When I was being let go, none of the reasons of my continued employment as a journalist in a magazine were mentioned, such as the quality of my work, its contribution to the magazine, what kind of responses my wok elicited, and how my work was received in the national and international press (some of my news pieces were translated to 4-5 other languages and placed in a multitude of newspapers, magazines and internet news sites).   In this case, I was laid off from a media organization without a due consideration of my work, without an objective and professional evaluation, and without prior warning.  On the other hand, there can be no justification for the “negative” attitude displayed towards me because there is no incident that can be described as “quarrel” with my co-workers or with the aforementioned individuals; there is no case of someone insulting somebody else; or there is no case of a disgraceful crime.   If all these are not true but there is still discomfort due to “negativity”, would the appropriate first step be dismissal from work?  Be as it may, if you start laying one off for being “negative” and another for being “positive”, what can we call this?

There is an email issue which is said to be the “last straw” involving my forwarding of a professional invitation for me to visit abroad to Alper Gormus before I forwarded it to Ferda Balancar.   Apparently intimating an action against the ruling hierarchy, I was told by A. Gormus it was a “mistake” and the “last straw”.  We are facing here a non-democratic, non-transparent, non-egalitarian, capricious and unjust practice by the editor-in-chief of a media organization that claims to have adopted the values of democracy, transparency, deliberation, egalitarianism, human rights and freedom of speech.   In my opinion, if there is to be a debate, it should be along those lines.

Taner Akcam’s latest essay has been translated from Turkish and published by the Armenian Reporter. The online version omits the paragraphing and the Turkish accent marks, which makes it difficult to read as it should be read. Below is the corrected version:

Armenian Reporter, Feb. 10, 2006

© 2006 Armenian Reporter

“My Turkishness in Revolt”

By Taner Akçam

EDITOR’S NOTE: Taner Akçam – Turkish intellectual, professor at the University of Minnesota, and the author of A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility – recently became the subject of a formal complaint under Turkey’s Penal Code Article 301: the same “crime” of “insulting Turkishness” for which Hrant Dink was tried and found guilty by the Turkish judiciary. The essay below – originally published as Türklüğümün İsyanı (“The Revolt of My Turkishness”) in the January 24, 2007 edition of the Turkish newspaper, Radikal – is Mr. Akçam’s approved English translation of his original Turkish-language article. It is being reprinted in the Reporter with the author’s permission.

I am a Turk. Hrant was an Armenian. I write for Agos. He was Agos. Hrant, Agos‘s Turkish writers, and Agos itself risked everything for a cause: to cease the hostility between Turks and Armenians; to bring the resentment and hatred to an end. We wanted each group, each nationality, to live together on the common ground of mutual respect.

Hrant and Agos were a single flower blooming on the barren plains of Turkey. That flower was destroyed, torn from the ground. Everyone says, “The bullet fired at Hrant hit Turkey.” That’s true, but we need to ask ourselves in complete and transparent honesty: Who made the target for that bullet? Who targeted Hrant so the bullet would find its mark? Who held him fast so the shot wasn’t wasted?

Hrant wasn’t killed by a lone 17-year-old. He was murdered by those who made him a target and held him in place.

Nor was he killed by a single bullet. It was the targeting, month by month, that murdered him.

“I’m afraid,” he said on January 5. “I’m very afraid, Taner. The attacks on me and on Agos are very systematic. They called me to the Governor’s office, where they started making threats. They said, ‘We’ll make you pay for everything you’ve been doing.’ All the attacks began after I was threatened.”

“2007 is going to be a bad year, Taner,” he continued. “They’re not going to ease off. We’ve been made into a horrible target. Between the press, the politicians, and the lawyers, they’ve created this atmosphere that’s so poisonous, they’ve made us such an obscenity, that we’ve become sitting ducks.

“They’ve opened up hunting season, Taner, and they’ve got us right where they want us.”

Hrant wasn’t killed by a 17-year-old. He was murdered by those who portrayed him as an enemy of Turkey, every single day in the press, to that 17-year-old. He was murdered by those who dragged him to the doors of the courthouse under Article 301. He was murdered by those who aimed Article 301 during their open season on intellectuals, and by those who didn’t have the courage to change Article 301. Hrant was murdered by those who called him to the Governor’s office and then threatened him instead of protecting him.

There’s no point in shedding crocodile tears. Let us bow our heads and look at our hands. Let us ponder how we will clean off the blood. You organs of the press who have expressed shock over Hrant’s death, go read your back issues, look at what you wrote about Hrant. You will see the murderer there. You who used 301 as a weapon to hunt intellectuals, see what you wrote about 301, look at the court decisions. You will see the murderer there.

Dear government officials, spare us your crocodile tears. Tell us what you plan to do to the Lieutenant Governor who called Hrant into his office and, together with an official from the National Intelligence Bureau, proceeded to threaten him. What do you intend to do to them?

Hrant was portrayed as “the Armenian who insulted Turkishness.” For this he was murdered. He was murdered because he said, “Turkey must confront its history.” The hands that pulled the trigger – or caused it to be pulled – in 2007 are the same hands that shot all the Hrants in 1915, the same hands that left all those Armenians to choke in the desert.

Hrant’s killers are sending us a message. They’re saying “Yes! We were behind 1915 and we’ll do it again in 2007!” Hrant’s murderers believe they killed in the name of Turkishness, just like those who killed all the Hrants in 1915.

For them, Turkishness is about committing murder. It means setting someone up as the enemy and then targeting that person for destruction.

Quite the contrary, the murderers are a black stain upon the brow of Turkishness. It is they who have demeaned Turkish identity.

For this reason, we have stood up and we have decided to take Turkishness out of the assassins’ hands and we have shouted out, “We are all Hrant! We are all Armenian!” We are the resounding cry of Turkishness and Turkey. All of us – Turks, Kurds, Alevites, secularists, and Muslims alike – shout out on behalf of everyone who wants to take Turkishness away from these murderers.

Turkishness is a beautiful thing that should be respected instead of left in the hands of murderers; so is Armenianness.

We can feel proud to be Turkish only if we can acknowledge the murderer for who he is. That is what we are doing today. By declaring, “We are all Armenians,” we know that we honor Turkishness; by identifying the true murderer, we create a Turkishness worth claiming.

Today we declare to the world that murder has nothing to do with Turkishness or Turkey. We are not going to leave Turkishness in the hands of murderers. We will not allow Turkishness to be stained by hate crimes towards Armenians. Either Turkishness belongs to the murderers, or it belongs to us.

Turks cry out that the person who killed Hrant is a murderer. In the wake of his death, Turkishness affirms that we are all Armenians.

This, I say, is what we also need to do for 1915.

If we can affirm that a real Turk is someone who can distance Turkishness from the murder of Hrant Dink, then we ought to be able to do the same thing for the events around 1915. Those who gather in a protective circle around Hrant’s murderer are the same people who protected the murderers of 1915. Those who honored Talaat, Bahaettin Sakir and Dr. Nazim yesterday are doing the same for Hrant’s murderer today.

If we can come out and declare Hrant’s murder a “shameful act,” then we should be able to state the same, as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk did, about the acts that occurred in 1915. Today, hundreds of thousands of us condemn this murder by declaring “We are all Armenian.” In 1915, Turks, Kurds, Moslems and Alevites did the same. We have to choose, not only for today but for yesterday as well.

Whose side are we on? Which “Turkishness” are we defending, the one that defends the murderers or the one that condemns the murderous acts? Do we stand with Kemal, the Mayor of Boğazlıyan, who annihilated Armenians in 1915, or with Abdullahzade Mehmet Efendi, the Mufti of Boğazlıyan, who bore witness against that mayor at the trial that lead to his execution, stating, “I fear the wrath of God”?

Are we going to represent the “Turkishness” that defended the crimes of Talat, Enver, Bahaettin Şakir, Doctor Nâzım, and Governor Resit of Diyarbakır? Or will we oppose them in the name of a Turkishness that condemns such horror?

We need to know that in 1915 we had Mazhar, the governor of Ankara; Celal, the governor of Aleppo; Reşit, the governor of Kastamonu; Cemal, the lieutenant governor of Yozgat; Ali Faik, the mayor of Kütahya; and Ali Fuat, the mayor of Der-Zor. And we had soldiers and army commanders in 1915, men we can embrace with respect, for opposing what happened: Vehip Pasha, Commander of the Third Army; Avni Pasha, Commander of the Trabzon garrison; Colonel Vasfi; and Salim, Major Commandant of the Yozgat post.

Trabzon has its share of murderers like Ogün Samast in 2007 and Governor Cemal Azmi and Unionist “Yenibahçeli” Nail in 1915. But those who opposed the crimes of 1915 and didn’t hesitate to identify the murderers in court included many citizens of Trabzon: Nuri, Chief of Police; businessman, Ahmet Ali Bey; Customs Inspector Nesim Bey, and parliamentarian Hafiz Mehmet Emin Bey, who testified, “I saw with my own eyes that the Armenians were loaded onto boats and taken out and drowned, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

These are just a few of the dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people who opposed the horrible acts committed.

We, Turks and Turkey, have a choice to make. We will affirm either the Turkishness of murderers past and present, or the Turkishness of those who cry out today, “We are all Armenian!” and who yesterday declared, “We will not let our hands be stained with blood.”

The whole world looks upon us with respect because they see us draw a line between Turkishness and barbarism. Today we are building a wall between murderers and Turkishness; we are Turks who know how to point the finger at a murderer.

We must show the same courage in regard to the events of 1915. Hrant wanted us to. When he said, “I love Turks and Turkey, and I consider it a privilege to be living amongst Turks,” that’s what he was asking for. We need to acknowledge the murderers of the Hrants of 1915, and we need to draw a line between them and Turkishness. If we are going to own up to this murder in 2007 then we need to do the same for those of 1915.

That’s what confronting one’s history is about. Today, by saying to Hrant’s murderer, “You don’t represent me as a Turk: you are simply a murderer,” we have begun the process of confronting and acknowledging our history. We must do the same with the murderers of 1915 by drawing a line between their acts and our Turkishness. We must condemn these murderers as having smeared our brows with the dark stain of their crimes. Then, and only then, can we Turks go about the world with our heads held high.

I cry out in the name of Turkishness. I cry out as a Turk, as a friend who lost Hrant, my beloved Armenian brother. Let’s take back Turkishness from the murderous hands of those who wish to smear us with their dark deeds. Let’s shout in one voice, “WE ARE ALL HRANT! WE ARE ALL ARMENIANS!”

Radikal (Turkey)

January 24, 2007

Cem Ozdemir, a columnist with the Turkish Zaman, has published a surprising yet very welcoming entry about Armenian and Turkish relations. He asks important questions, and I think his column is the essence of a Turkey that the world wants to see.

Everybody — journalists, party leaders, the president of the republic, the chief of general staff — found harsh words to condemn the murder of Hrant Dink. But don’t they see that there is a link between what they are writing, saying and preaching in their daily professional lives and what happened to Hrant? How can one condemn his murder and still argue for the absurd Article 301, which brought him to court multiple times for nothing but his opinion?
How can one continue to argue that the border to Armenia should remain closed? Some are against opening the border because of the Armenian occupation of Azeri territory. But that’s all the more reason to take the initiative and establish good relations with your neighbors, thereby becoming the good broker in the process to negotiate a fair and just solution.
Those who continue to oppose the recent legislation on foundations don’t understand that treating Armenians and other Christians as second-class citizens was exactly what Hrant was fighting against.
How can one still be against Christians becoming officers, generals and members of parliament?
How can one still continue to declare as an enemy everybody who has another opinion than the official one on the events of 1915?
Just before Hrant was murdered, Sylvester Stallone became the new enemy. What did he do wrong? He supported the views of the majority of historians and experts in the world and described the events of 1915 as genocide. Even if one doesn’t agree with him, has anyone bothered to read the script of the movie he is planning? How many people have actually read Franz Werfel’s book about the 40 days of Musa Dag? Or does the fact that Werfel and Stallone don’t share the official views of the state automatically make them enemies? And if so, is it treason if I watch Stallone’s new film, “Rocky Balboa”? Recent commentaries on TV and in the papers that say this film too is now bad, even though it has nothing to do with his announced movie about Werfel’s book, are incredibly shortsighted.
In case it matters: I am still a fan of Stallone and his movies (OK, except for the Rambo series) and I look forward to seeing “Rocky Balboa,” just as I was looking forward to it only a couple of weeks ago. The difference now, of course, is that since last Friday, I don’t feel much like going to the movies?.
There is enough sadness in Hrant’s death. But it increases my pain even more to watch people talk about him and his heritage who never understood Hrant while he was alive. For all the talk about Hrant’s legacy let’s not overlook Agos, his Turkish-Armenian newspaper, which should persevere. Hrant’s death should not be used to make arguments in favor of or against Turkey’s accession to the European Union. Obviously, Turkey’s EU prospects were for Hrant — and remain for other people of different origins in Turkey — a chance to improve their rights. Nor should the death be employed in the debate surrounding the events of 1915. Hrant did not insist on recognizing the genocide as a precondition for a dialogue as some people in the diaspora do. But remember his words when he said that the Armenians know what happened to them.
One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss
U2 sang this song for Martin Luther King, Jr. I would like to dedicate it to my brother Hrant Dink.
Do they who betrayed him with a kiss know what they did?
Turkey produced both Hrant Dink and the 17-year-old boy who killed him. And let’s not forget the thousands of people who marched in solidarity and chanted, “We are all Hrant Dink! We are all Armenians!”
This is Turkey, and its future depends on whether it produces more Hrant Dinks — who live in the name of love — or more 17-year-old boys who kill in the name of hate.

An unseen footage of Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist whose funeral was attended by over 100,000 people in Turkey, shows the journalist saying in November of 2006 he would rather die on feet than in bed.  He smiled while talking about his possible death.

Prof. Levon Marashlian has prepared a short video, posted at YouTube, in Dink’s memory.

Some of the video (seems has not been shown anywhere before) is from November, 2006 in Glendale, California.  As Prof. Marashlian likes videodocumenting almost everything, I believe this was shot by him.

Dink speaks Armenian, but there is English subtitle too.  With his wonderful smile, Dink adds, “If something is going to happen, I’d rather struggle on feet, and die on feet, and not in bed.”

Interestingly, Dink doesn’t pronounce the word “death/die” but Marashlian still puts it in the subtitle, because no other word could fit in the sentence.

Dink didn’t fear death and smiled while talking about it.

Rest in peace, Dink pasha.

Translated from Turkisb by Fatma Gocek (received in e-mail communication):

Below and attached please find my translation of the eulogy Hrant Dink’s wife Rakel Dink delivered in front of his coffin today, on 23 January 2007, in Osmanbey, Istanbul in front of a very large crowd. I have used the text that was printed in the Yeni Safak newspaper.

Muge [Fatma Gocek]

“Letter to My Beloved” by Rakel Dink

“I am here today full of immense grief and dignity. We are all here today with our sorrow. This silence creates within us a sorrowful contentment.

Today we send off half of my soul, my beloved, the father of my children. We are going to actualize a march without any slogans and without any disrespect. Today we are going to generate immense sound through our silence.

Whoever the assasin may be, either 17 or 27 years’ old, I know myself that he too was once a baby. One cannot accomplish anything without questioning first how an assasasin was created from such a baby.

It was Hrant’s honesty, transparency and love that brought him here. They say “he was a great man.” I ask you, Was he born great? No, he too was born just like us. He did not come from the skies, he too came from soil [like us]. It was what he did, the style he chose, the love in his heart that made him great. He became a great man because he thought great things and pronounced great words.

And you too are great for being here today. But do not let this suffice, do not be content with this act alone! One cannot accomplish a great future through hatred, through offense, through holding one blood superior to another. One can only rise through respect for the other.

My beloved!

You departed without having your body age, without getting sick, without spending enough time with those you loved. We too will join you there, my beloved, in that matchless heaven… Only love can enter that domain. We shall live there together forever with true love.

A love that is not jealous of anyone, a love that does not murder, belittle, hold grudges; a love that forgives, respects one’s brothers; a love found in the Messiah….

My beloved, which darkness is capable of erasing your words and your deeds? Could it be fear? Life? Injustice? The temptations of the world? Or death, my beloved?

I too wrote you a love letter, my beloved! It was very hard to write these [words] my beloved!

You departed from those you loved, from your children, your grandchildren, from us, from my lap, but you did not depart from your country, my beloved!”

UPDATE: The suspect is arrested.  

UPDATE: Turkish TVs are saying the name of the murderer is OGUN SANMAZ from Trabzon.

via ArmenNews The photo of Dink’s possible murderer has been released. In contrary to earlier reports, the assasin doesn’t look like a teenager, but his outfit does.

The first Turkish professor to recognize the Armenian genocide as such has been charged for “insulting Turkishness” in Turkey for a newspaper article where Taner Akcam mentioned “the Armenian genocide.”

Taner Akcam, who teaches at the University of Minnesota, has been in exile for many years. Although he has spent youth years in a Turkish jail, this is the first incident when the famous historian is charged for referring to the Armenian Genocide in a Turkish newspaper.

Akcam’s new “Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of the Turkish Responibility” book has made news from The New York Times to local newspapers around America.

I hope he will not have to go to Turkey for his trial in mid-April because he has been announced as our speaker on the Armenian Genocide at the Jewish Mizel Museum of Denver, Colorado, on April 15, 2007.

The Republic of Turkey denies that its ancestor Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Armenian citizens during and after WWI. To say the genocide did place is a federal crime in Turkey.
Thanks to Lou Ann Matossian for forwarding the news item from Groong.