Hrant Dink: “The Armenians are the Turks’ doctors, and the Turks are the Armenians’ doctors.”
On April 25 2006, a year before his murder by a Gülenist gang of imperialist hitman, Armenian writer and activist Hrant Dink drew attention to the plans of imperialists on Anatolian soil in a speech to business people.
The messages of ‘reconciliation’ in his speeches are gaining further acceptance as the reason why Armenian journalist and public figure Hrant Dink was gunned down in Şişli, İstanbul, on 19 January 2007. Prior to his death, Dink had been publicising the view that the same game was being played in the Kurdish issue today was played between Turks and Armenians 100 years ago, and advocated that current issues could be solved with unity and solidarity.
In a speech made at the Malatya Business Peoples Association on the 25 April 2006, Dink held the light for the Kurdish issue, declaring, “Whatever role was played in the past by the British, French, Russians, and Germans on this soil, today it is being repeated identically. In the past, the Armenian people trusted them; they thought they would save them from the oppression of the Ottomans. But they were mistaken. Because they came, and they did their own work, made their own calculations. They withdrew and left, and left brothers to kill one another. And today the Kurds are experiencing the same thing. America came and are about to create a Kurdish state in northern Iraq. Did that place become a gravitational field for our Kurdish siblings, what happened, did it become something else? Did hope appear? This is a very dangerous process. This is America. It comes, is makes its own calculations, goes about its own work, and when its job ends, it retreats and goes. After this people are left to their own strife.”
Dink additionally made important statements on the ‘Armenian’ draft proposals of the West accusing Turkey of genocide, with the late journalist announcing, “We are two sick masses, Turks and Armenians. Armenians are experiencing a great trauma. Directed at Turks. Turks too are experiencing a huge paranoia oriented at Armenians. We are both certifiably insane. Who will cure us? The decision of the French senate, the ruling of the American senate? Who will give the prescription? Who is our doctor? The Armenians are the Turks’ doctor, the Turks too are the Armenians’ doctor.”
Of the European Union, Dink said “No government, saying my people have a problem, have moved a muscle to review their suggestions and shall solve it. But when it became the work of the European Union, a country, a state which is this fond of its honour began to deal with the solutions of the problems of its own citizens. I am ashamed of this. When though it is necessary for a state to address the issues of its citizens through the conscience of citizenship and its responsibility, that state starts solving the problem at the request of someone else, I would rather that problem were inextricable! That is why when Europeans come to me and ask about this, I ask them ‘What have our virtues or faults got to do with you?'”
On Sunday, thousands of people came out into the streets of the district of Şişli, İstanbul, where Dink was shot dead to commemorate the famous journalist and activist, and to make a call for justice for the slain man. With one of the key suspects in the murder claiming that men working for the police were behind the attack, the pressure on the government to fully investigate the killing continues to grow.
Bizim Anadolu / January-February 2014
