Commentary: Hrant Dink: A Martyr to His Cause

His message was so powerful that it went beyond the Armenian community; Kurds, Alevis, other minorities and Turkish intellectuals subscribed to the paper, but they also began to contribute to it. It was a historic and critical period when taboos were crumbling down and Turkey, in its bid to join the European Union, appeared ready to make major yet painful compromises.

Hrant Dink promoted a philosophy that saved not only the Armenian cause (which the traditional media served timidly) but also the emancipation of Turkish society. In a way his message went against the traditional thinking; he opted to educate Turkish society instead of blaming it. His position was that Germany came to terms with its past because it is a civilized nation, thus Turkey had to be educated first in order to be able to accept the past more objectively. His ear was to the ground and he could hear the footsteps of the future.

Five years in the making, his message has gained tremendous ground; the Turkish media, scholars and political activists today are discussing freely the issue of the Armenian Genocide as well as a host of historic injustices perpetrated against the minorities. The Genocide issue has become an agenda item for national discourse in Turkey, penal code article 301 not withstanding. At the present time, there is a tug-of-war between the liberal society and a reluctant government, which is resisting the inevitable avalanche of change. Everyday quantitative change is being converted to qualitative change. The thrust of Dink’s message has come to transform the entire Turkish society.

As if Armenians had not given enough martyrs, Hrant Dink came to add one more to the number of the 1.5 million sacrificial lambs, but this has been one sacrifice which is poised to bring justice to all the previous martyrs.

The “deep state” in Turkey was implicated in Dink’s assassination. Right after the journalist’s murder, the police had glorified the 17-year-old gunman, Ogun Samast, snapping photos with him in front of the Turkish flag. That already indicated how deep the “deep state” went. The subsequent trial also demonstrated that they had received tips on the plot to kill Dink long before the deed and had not acted on time. “Five years after the assassination of Hrant Dink, evidence related to the real perpetrators of the crime is still being covered up,” the Dink family lawyer, Fethiye Cetin has said.

The assassin was not a lone gunman; there was certainly an organization behind him, whose tentacles extended into the different agencies of the Turkish government. The fact that the police could not find any phone records between the plotters of the murder, and that it has fallen on the shoulders of the Dink family to discover 14 phone calls with the suspects Mustafa Ozturk and Salih Hacisalihoglu, is an indication that seeking justice is an uphill battle in the Turkish judiciary. Attorney Cetin has also made the accusation that the police “intentionally obscure the evidence.”