Instead of hate,
try understanding and tolerance

The killing of our colleague Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, on January 19th 2007, which shook us as human beings and as fellow journalists, was rightfully reported in the international media and widely condemned.

While we wholeheartedly approve most of these condemnations, we are also trying to show understanding towards others (especially those coming from circles that breed hatred towards Turkish people and have based their entire existence on this hatred).

But what we cannot comprehend, in a multicultural nation such as Canada, is that a media organization, regrouping various media outlets run by groups coming from different corners of the world, and its president could harbour such blatant feelings of hatred toward Turkish people as a whole.

The fact that our colleague Hrant Dink was brutally murdered received more condemnation in Turkey than anywhere else in the world and hundreds of thousands of Turks took to the streets to chant "We are all Armenian, we are all Hrant Dink".

Aren't the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada and its president, who, apparently disregarding any notion of professional ethics seems to use the organization as his own personal tool to spread his own personal feelings of hatred among the population, sowing the seeds of hatred instead of tolerance and understanding?

We question how an organization that has hundreds of members in Canada and whose duty is to raise the problems faced by its member-media groups in front of governments and find solutions to these problems, can rightfully spread feelings of hatred toward an entire nation of people.

We also wonder how the president of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, who has used his own media outlet to get signatures in North America for a petition to prohibit people of Turkish origin who are living in his country from being allowed to speak in their native tongue could really speak in the name of the citizens of another country.

We believe that in the world in general as well as in Canada, our country, we need more than ever to show greater understanding and tolerance toward one another.

This cannot be achieved through the spread of hatred, but through working together in a real effort to understand one another, without sowing the seeds of animosity toward people of different nationalities.

Considering all of this, while we do condemn the brutal murder of our dear colleague Hrant Dink, we have no choice but to also condemn a mentality that spreads felling of hatred toward an entire nation of people.

Bizim Anadolu

February 2007

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