The Challenge of Hrant Dink’s Legacy

In his opening greetings, Bishop Serovpé Isakhanyan, Primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Germany, lamented the fact that, even 16 years later, the case of Dink’s death is still murky, and reconciliation based on justice remains distant. Reconciliation has been further undermined by the Nagorno-Karabakh war and its aftermath as well as by pervasive silence on the continuing crisis. In this connection Bishop Isakhanyan stressed the importance of “courageous voices,” like that of Hrant Dink, voices that speak out against injustice and fight for peace and reconciliation.

Among others, journalist Can Dündar offered brief remarks, noting two dimensions to Hrant Dink’s death. On the personal level, Dink belonged to both Armenian and Turkish society, and his death brought the two social layers together. On the political level, the case again demonstrated the problem of the untouchable State.

The ‘Foreigners’

The round table discussion, titled, “From Exclusion to Violence: What We Can Do Against Hate and Rightwing Extremism,” considered current events in Germany and Europe, but also in Turkey, where Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and cultural patron Osman Kavala and their associates are facing political persecution, despite intervention by the European Court of Human Rights.

When acts of violence against foreigners occur in Germany, one often hears complaints about the “failure of integration,” a cliché implying that newcomers don’t want to be integrated — without considering whether or not it might be the integration programs that are at fault. Similarly, when a suspect is arrested for a violent act, often the first question raised in the media is the person’s ethnic identity: what is his first name?

Aymaz dubbed this pure populism, pointing out that in many cases, like the 2020 racist shooting of nine victims in Hanau, the assailants are native-born Germans. By the same token, Kantian added, there are the xenophobic foreigners, the most notorious being the Turkish terrorist organization Grey Wolves. In 2018, the Bundestag (Parliament) debated its status, and passed a resolution which, however, was watered down out of foreign policy considerations. France has forbidden the group; for Aymaz, the Grey Wolves, being the biggest extremist, racist organization in Germany, one that targets Kurds, Armenians, and Jews, can’t be allowed. The “fight against racism has priority over foreign policy issues.”