Hrant Dink
Friday, November 8, 2024Hrant Dink was a Turkish-Armenian intellectual, editor-in-chief of Agos, journalist and columnist.
As editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, Dink was a prominent member of the Armenian minority in Turkey. Dink was best known for advocating Turkish–Armenian reconciliation and human and minority rights in Turkey; he was often critical of both Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide, and of the Armenian diaspora's campaign for its international recognition. Dink was prosecuted three times for denigrating Turkishness, while receiving numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists.
Dink was assassinated in Istanbul on January 19, 2007 by Ogün Samast, a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist. Dink was shot three times in the head and died instantly. Photographs of the assassin flanked by smiling Turkish police and gendarmerie, posing with the killer side by side in front of the Turkish flag, surfaced. The photos sparked a scandal in Turkey, prompting a spate of investigations and the removal from office of those involved.Samast was later sentenced to 22 years in prison by a Turkish court; he remains incarcerated.
At Dink's funeral, over one hundred thousand mourners marched in protest of the assassination, chanting, "We are all Armenians" and "We are all Hrant Dink". Criticism of Article 301 became increasingly vocal after his death, leading to parliamentary proposals for repeal. The 2007–2008 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.
Hrant Dink was born in Malatya on 15 September 1954, the eldest of three sons to Sarkis Dink (known as Haşim Kalfa), a tailor from Gürün, Sivas, and Gülvart Dink, from Kangal, Sivas. His father's gambling debts led to the family's move to Istanbul in 1960, where they sought a new beginning. Sarkis Dink's gambling continued in İstanbul, however, and one year after their move, Dink's parents separated, leaving the seven-year-old Dink and his brothers without a place to live. Dink's grandmother enrolled the boys at the Gedikpaşa Armenian Orphanage; Dink often noted his grandfather, who spoke seven languages and read constantly, as the role model and father figure who inspired his love of letters.
The Gedikpaşa Armenian Orphanage, an institution run by the Armenian Evangelical Community, was to be home to Hrant Dink for the next ten years. The orphanage children spent their summers at the Tuzla Armenian Children's Camp, on the Marmara beachfront in a suburb of İstanbul, building and improving the summer camp during their stay.The Tuzla Armenian Children's Camp played a significant role in Hrant Dink's life, both personally, as he met his future wife as a child and later married her at the Camp, and professionally, as the government-led closing of the Camp in 1984 was one of the factors that raised Dink's awareness of the issues of the Armenian community and eventually led to his becoming an activist.
Dink received his primary education at the Hay Avedaranagan İncirdibi Protestant Armenian Primary School and Bezciyan School and his secondary education at the Üsküdar Surp Haç Armenian High School, working as a tutor at the same time.
During his senior year, he was expelled from the Üsküdar Surp Haç, and completed his high school degree at the Şişli Public High School. Hrant Dink continued his education at Istanbul University, where he studied zoology and became a sympathizer of TİKKO, the armed faction of the Maoist TKP-ML. Around this time, in 1972, he legally changed his name (to Fırat Dink), along with two Armenian friends, Armanek and İstepan, to disassociate their factional activities from the Armenian community.His friend Armanek Bakırcıyan, who changed his name to Orhan Bakır, later rose in TİKKO to membership of the central committee, took part in armed struggle in Eastern Turkey and was killed during fighting in 1978. Having fallen in love, Hrant Dink parted ways with his friends and remained at the sympathizer level, completing his bachelor's degree in Zoology and enrolling in the Philosophy Department for a second bachelor's degree, which he did not complete.
Dink was baptized and married within the Armenian Apostolic Church, but was educated and sheltered at Armenian Protestant institutions and received his introduction to religion within the Protestant sphere. Dink was a member of the Armenian Evangelical Church of Gedikpaşa, Istanbul, as well as a member by birth in the Armenian Apostolic Church. He regarded both churches as part of his culture and said that he was not someone who dealt heavily with religious rituals. Keeping the duality to the end, his funeral service was held in the Apostolic Church, by Patriarch Mutafyan, with Protestant ministers delivering eulogies at the burial.
Dink hoped his questioning would pave the way for peace between the two peoples:
"If I write about the [Armenian] genocide it angers the Turkish generals. I want to write and ask how we can change this historical conflict into peace. They don't know how to solve the Armenian problem."
He defended his constant challenge of established notions:
"I challenge the accepted version of history because I do not write about things in black and white. People here are used to black and white; that's why they are astonished that there are other shades, too."
Dink was one of Turkey's most prominent Armenian voices and, despite threats on his life, he refused to remain silent. He always said his aim was to improve the difficult relationship between Turks and Armenians. Active in various democratic platforms and civil society organizations, Hrant Dink emphasized the need for democratization in Turkey and focused on the issues of free speech, minority rights, civic rights and issues pertaining to the Armenian community in Turkey. He was a very important peace activist. In his public speeches, which were often intensely emotional, he never refrained from using the word genocide when talking about the Armenian Genocide, a term fiercely rejected by Turkey.
At the same time, he felt the term genocide had a political meaning, rather than a historical one, and he was critical of Armenian diaspora campaigning governments for official recognition of the genocide. In 2005, he accused Germany of using the genocide to block Turkey's entry to the European Union, stating that he was ashamed, as an Armenian, that such manner of drama and political maneuvering should continue into the present day, and stating that he shared from the heart the pain of the Turkish families and Muslim families as part of the process he called yüzleşme or Turkey's confronting its past.
Dink featured prominently in the 2006 genocide documentary film Screamers in which he explains:
"There are Turks who don't admit that their ancestors committed genocide. If you look at it though, they seem to be nice people... So why don't they admit it? Because they think that genocide is a bad thing which they would never want to commit, and because they can't believe their ancestors would do such a thing either."
Dink believed that diaspora Armenians should be able to live free of the weight of historical memory (the "residues of the past"), considering first and foremost the needs of the living majority (he said "eyes of the other side").
Indicating that a show of empathy would have nothing to do with accepting or refusing the genocide, Dink called for dialogue:
"Turkish-Armenian relations should be taken out of a 1915 meters-deep well."
By pointing out issues of rhetorical discourse that hampered Armenian-Turkish dialogue, he believed these obstacles could be overcome to the benefit of Turkish Armenians.
He was opposed to the French law that makes denial of Armenian Genocide a crime. He was planning to go to France to commit this 'crime', when the law came into effect.
According to Dink, Agos helped the development of the Armenian community such that it helped triple the participation in the last Patriarchal elections, trained many journalists, became the community's face to Turkish society and cultivated many friends. He voiced his intention for an "Institute of Armenian Studies" in Istanbul. He tried to make it the democratic, opposition voice of Turkey, a voice used to inform the public of the injustices committed against the Armenian community. One of the major aims of the newspaper was to contribute to a dialog between the Turkish and Armenian communities, as well as between Turkey and Armenia.
Dink hoped his questioning would pave the way for peace between the two peoples:
"If I write about the [Armenian] genocide it angers the Turkish generals. I want to write and ask how we can change this historical conflict into peace. They don't know how to solve the Armenian problem."
He defended his constant challenge of established notions:
"I challenge the accepted version of history because I do not write about things in black and white. People here are used to black and white; that's why they are astonished that there are other shades, too."
Dink was one of Turkey's most prominent Armenian voices and, despite threats on his life, he refused to remain silent. He always said his aim was to improve the difficult relationship between Turks and Armenians. Active in various democratic platforms and civil society organizations, Hrant Dink emphasized the need for democratization in Turkey and focused on the issues of free speech, minority rights, civic rights and issues pertaining to the Armenian community in Turkey. He was a very important peace activist. In his public speeches, which were often intensely emotional, he never refrained from using the word genocide when talking about the Armenian Genocide, a term fiercely rejected by Turkey.
At the same time, he felt the term genocide had a political meaning, rather than a historical one, and he was critical of Armenian diaspora campaigning governments for official recognition of the genocide. In 2005, he accused Germany of using the genocide to block Turkey's entry to the European Union, stating that he was ashamed, as an Armenian, that such manner of drama and political maneuvering should continue into the present day, and stating that he shared from the heart the pain of the Turkish families and Muslim families as part of the process he called yüzleşme or Turkey's confronting its past.
Dink featured prominently in the 2006 genocide documentary film Screamers in which he explains:
"There are Turks who don't admit that their ancestors committed genocide. If you look at it though, they seem to be nice people... So why don't they admit it? Because they think that genocide is a bad thing which they would never want to commit, and because they can't believe their ancestors would do such a thing either."
Dink believed that diaspora Armenians should be able to live free of the weight of historical memory (the "residues of the past"), considering first and foremost the needs of the living majority (he said "eyes of the other side").
Indicating that a show of empathy would have nothing to do with accepting or refusing the genocide, Dink called for dialogue:
"Turkish-Armenian relations should be taken out of a 1915 meters-deep well."By pointing out issues of rhetorical discourse that hampered Armenian-Turkish dialogue, he believed these obstacles could be overcome to the benefit of Turkish Armenians.
He was opposed to the French law that makes denial of Armenian Genocide a crime. He was planning to go to France to commit this 'crime', when the law came into effect.
According to Dink, Agos helped the development of the Armenian community such that it helped triple the participation in the last Patriarchal elections, trained many journalists, became the community's face to Turkish society and cultivated many friends. He voiced his intention for an "Institute of Armenian Studies" in Istanbul. He tried to make it the democratic, opposition voice of Turkey, a voice used to inform the public of the injustices committed against the Armenian community. One of the major aims of the newspaper was to contribute to a dialog between the Turkish and Armenian communities, as well as between Turkey and Armenia.