Mick Hartley

On the murdered Armenian newspaper editor:

Hrant Dink’s view was that Turkey needs to come to terms with its history, and accept that enormous wrongs were committed in the past.

But he also had Turkish friends and supporters.

In one interview he said the difference between him and Armenians abroad was that he was living with the Turks of today, while they were still living with the Turks of 1915.

In fact there are tens of thousands of Armenians in modern Istanbul – they have their own churches, their own schools.

As long as they do not raise the past too publicly, as Hrant Dink did, they are left to get on with life.

It is in eastern Anatolia, in eastern Turkey, that the Armenians and their culture have all but disappeared.

Where there were more than a million Armenians 100 years ago, there are only a few scattered families left.

Silence has brought a degree of protection to Turkey’s remaining Armenian communities.

But Hrant Dink refused to be silent.

It brought him into constant conflict with the law. And in some eyes it made him a traitor.

In a newspaper column written just this week, Dink said he had received many death threats by e-mail, his computer was full of them, and that he was scared.

Tragically, he was right to be so.

Political leaders in Turkey have been quick to condemn the murder.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it an attack on national unity.

All too late for Hrant Dink, who said he had received no protection from the authorities despite his complaints.

Earlier posts of mine on the Armenian Genocide here and here.