FEEDING THE MONSTER

"This much is crystal clear that those who tried to single me out, render me weak and defenseless succeeded by their own measures. With the wrongful and polluted knowledge they oozed into society, they managed to form a significant segment of the population whose numbers cannot be easily dismissed who view Hrant Dink as someone 'denigrating Turkishness.'"
~ Hrant Dink, last editorial in AGOS, 10 January 2007, courtesy of Blogian.

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has noted four key points about the murder of Hrant Dink. Among them is this one:

U.S. complicity perpetuates Turkey's denial.

The Turkish government is able to maintain its denial - against all evidence and the tide of international opinion - in large part due to the U.S. Administration's refusal to speak with moral clarity about the Armenian Genocide:

-- The State Department remained almost entirely silent on Turkey's prosecution - and persecution - of Hrant Dink.

-- The State Department is blocking the Armenian Genocide Resolution.

-- The State Department fired a U.S. ambassador, John Evans, for speaking the truth about this crime, and is now seeking to send a new ambassador to Armenia, despite his record of having denied the Armenian Genocide.

The State Department's enabling of Turkish denial must be good for business.

I see that the BBC is running an obituary for Hrant Dink. Notice the last couple of lines:

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died or were driven out of Turkey in 1915, in what many Armenians say was a genocide at the hands of Turks.

Ankara denies the allegations, saying the death were a part of World War I in the dying days of the Ottoman empire.

See? Not even the BBC has the has the courage to admit that there was a genocide, but leaves the matter as if it were still to be determined. I guess that's because the UK and Turkey have such "cordial" relations. . . I would be interested in hearing Taner Akcam's opinion of Hrant Dink's murder, especially since he is also a target of the dirty bozkurtlar, the long-time assassins of the Ankara regime. As the Armenian Yekir noted earlier this month:

In an October 6, 2006, newspaper column in the Turkish Armenian journal Agos, Akçam criticized the prosecution of Agos managing editor Hrant Dink for using the term `genocide,' thereby `insulting Turkishness' under the notorious Article 301 of Turkey's penal code. Highlighting the term `genocide,' Akçam declared himself an accessory to the charges against Dink, and urged readers to join in Dink's support.

SwissInfo reports that Erdogan is continuing with this nonsense about the murder of Dink as an attack on "all of us." Shut up, already.

There also appears to be no claim for responsiblity in the murder, which is not unusual. The Ankara regime rarely admits its murders.

Except for the brief imprisonment of a relatively few ultra-nationalists in the wake of the US-backed September 12 coup, throughout the history of the TC, ultra-nationalist groups and individuals have enjoyed unfettered reign. Ultra-nationalists such as Taha Akyol are responsible for flooding the mass media with fascist propaganda to provide a justification for Gray Wolf brutality. Such was the case when Turkish newspapers waged a media attack against Akin Birdal before his attempted murder, and so it is now with the murder of Hrant Dink. From SwissInfo:

Newspapers said racism and nationalism, which is on the rise ahead of elections in May and November, were ultimately to blame for Dink's death.

[ . . . ]

"Those who created nationalist sentiment in Turkey have fed such a monster that there are many youngsters on the streets who do not find the ... state nationalist enough and are ready to take the law into their own hands," wrote Ismet Berkan in his column in Radikal, one of Turkey's main dailies.

"Politicians, journalists and film makers also contributed to the creation of this murderous nationalist atmosphere."

Ismet Berkan is correct. In all the news that I've read on the aftermath of the murder, I have not seen the slightest move toward Hrant Dink's life goal, that of forcing Turkey to come to terms with its past. In all of the media frenzy and the hype about "attack against the state" or sudden feelings of solidarity with Turkey's beleaguered Armenian minority, no one has uttered the G-word. No one has come to terms with anything in the past.

As an example of what this monster looks like, take a look at this video, a portion of System of a Down's documentary on the Armenian Genocide, titled Screamers. Keep in mind that this is part of the monster that the enablers in the US State Department and US Congress have helped to feed for decades:

Will Pelosi have the intestinal fortitude necessary to bring an Armenian Genocide resolution to a successful end? Time will tell and we'll be watching.

iArarat has made several posts on the murder, including a link to Robert Fisk's commentary on Hrant Dink. As a matter of fact, Artyom has the same taste in his mouth from certain reactions to the murder as I do. Commenting on certain Turkish editorials that are crying about the threat to "Turkishness", he says:

Turkishness …? My spellchecker does not even recognize such a word, let alone a concept. It is for the sake of this Turkishness that Hrant was murdered, not in spite of it. Do these people not get it? Is image everything for heaven’s sake? Where is the sense of decency? Do not turn Hrant’s death into a remedial PR campaign!

Seriously, there is no sense of decency, a point which adds to my disgust. Speaking of disgust, it looks like Hadi Elis at KurdishMedia is feeling the same.

Onnik Krikorian is building a collection of news and comments, including his own:

This is a calamity not only for Armenians, but also for every Turk and the country’s aspirations to become a member of the European Union. Actually, this murder is a disgrace and a crime that merits serious action from both within and outside Turkey. If anything, this should now be reason enough for Turkey to own up to its past and to re-evaluate the treatment of its minorities.

Enough is enough.

[ . . . ]

Time will tell if Dink’s death will result in even more hatred, or push Turks to consider what type of country they want to live in. As one Turkish human rights lawyer said to me in London over a decade ago, until Turkey can own up to it’s past, it will never be able to create a democratic future.

And on that, I totally agree.

And I second the agreement. Turkey's owning up to its own past is crucial for the creation of democracy, something which Koma Komalên Kurdistan recognizes as well, and accounts for its demand of a truth commission as part of a political settlement to the Kurdish situation. It also accounts for Ocalan's continuing calls for the same. Even in this regard, Ismet Berkan at Radikal has pinpointed the biggest problem facing any attempt to establish a truth commission, and that is the extreme nationalist atmosphere in Turkey that has been nurtured by the state via the media. Indeed, a monster has been created.

Turkey is its own worst enemy. It continues to oppress its best, even to the point of murder, for the sake of its inability to come to terms with the question of identity. Hrant Dink, Behci Asci, Akin Birdal, Eren Keskin, Ismail Besikci, and Taner Akcam are a few examples of those who have dedicated their lives to the improvement of the human condition in Turkey. I think, too, of all those murdered by the state since it came into existence in 1923, and of those brutalized beyond healing by the state, and I wonder how many of those dead would have been other Hrant Dinks, other Behci Ascis, other Akin Birdals, or Eren Keskins and Ismail Besikcis. How much would those lost ones have accomlished in this battle against the great enforcers of the status quo? And that is the problem with loss; one never realizes the full extent of the meaning of that loss, or of what what might have been.

Funny . . . only one of the hyper-neocon blogs has any reaction to Hrant Dink's murder, LGF. Apparently the only concern of the commenters there is to bolster the position of their beloved Turkish general staff.

And the disgust goes on . . .


Post Script: Notice that I mentioned Taha Akyol. His son, Mustafa, is now blogging, and Mustafa is an interesting guy. He's the director of international relations for the Intercultural Dialogue Platform, a suborganization of The Journalists and Writers Foundation, which is a business concern of Fethullah Gulen. Mustafa has written for The American Enterprise, a propaganda organ of the ultra-neocon AEI. He's also published in The Weekly Standard--start-up funds provided by Lockheed Martin--another neocon propaganda site, as well as for neocon FrontPage Magazine, and the Unification Church's The Washington Times.

In short, Mustafa Akyol is an active player in the Deep State in America.