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WINTER OF DISCONTENT
Today's Zaman
Jan 20 2012
Turkey
It was a beautiful winter day in Ä°stanbul. The sun was shining onto
the city, the sky was clear. Given the -12 degrees I experienced the
night before at Ankara EsenboÄ~_a Airport it was an agreeable day.
The reason for my journey to the majestic city was of course to pay
respect to the memory of Hrant Dink and express my disgust with
the recent verdict which demonstrated in no uncertain terms that
Turkeyâ~@~Ys deep state is unwilling to surrender.
I met up with Yavuz Baydar and Abdülhamit Bilici and marched together
the Agos daily where Dink was murdered in broad daylight five years
ago. There were a number of observations I need to mention here. The
crowd was less than I expected, but other than the quantity the quality
of the crowd was very impressive. A good number of high profile Turks
were there. Turks of very divergent political persuasions filled
the crowd, politicians, artists, journalists, Muslims, Christians,
atheists, young and old, men and women, with and without headscarves,
they were all there to express their outrage at the mockery displayed
in the Hrant Dink murder trial.
The primary message which the rally should have been based on is the
slogan, â~@~\This case cannot be closed as suchâ~@¦â~@~] This should
have been the uniting message around which all the various groups
could have come together. It is, after all, the desire to see justice
prevail and the links inside the state apparatus exposed that these
crowds shared. I agree with Markar Esayan that no one becomes Armenian
by chanting, "We are all Hrant -- we are all Armenians," but
unfortunately decades of republican nation-state building has made
such messages problematic for ordinary Turks and thus unnecessarily
alienates people. From a strategic perspective I would focus on other
messages that would broaden the coalition of people who will continue
to raise their voices against the attempts to cover the murder up. That
said, it is up to the family and the Agos newspaper to decide what
sort of messages they wish to convey -- mine is friendly advice.
The Hrant Dink case has revealed considerable pessimism over the
continued strength of the deep state. The Kurdish issue remains in
the minds of all of us and there are very few answers that offer hope.
There is substantial soul searching and disillusion among intellectual
circles. Most seem to have concluded that the current Parliament will
not be able to draft a proper constitution. If the economy worsens as
is expected this year, not to mention the complications we face in the
foreign policy arena there is little reason to be optimistic about
the coming months. One wishes to be wrong about these predictions,
but there is no doubt that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
is likely to face more challenges in the public domain.
Hrant's murder has become a test case for instituting a normal
democracy and the upholding of the rule of law in this country. It
constitutes a prime case that will determine whether the optimism
of recent years was real or whether we simply experienced partial
and incomplete victories that can easily be reversed. Is the deep
state still alive and kicking or have we seen only a rare anomaly? The
handling of the Supreme Court of Appeals will be critical in answering
these questions. This is the case and this is the time to expose the
cancer deep inside the state. Unless we are willing to go until the
very end and hold these people accountable we will live under the
risk of being targeted by this entity every day.
Today's Zaman
Jan 20 2012
Turkey
It was a beautiful winter day in Ä°stanbul. The sun was shining onto
the city, the sky was clear. Given the -12 degrees I experienced the
night before at Ankara EsenboÄ~_a Airport it was an agreeable day.
The reason for my journey to the majestic city was of course to pay
respect to the memory of Hrant Dink and express my disgust with
the recent verdict which demonstrated in no uncertain terms that
Turkeyâ~@~Ys deep state is unwilling to surrender.
I met up with Yavuz Baydar and Abdülhamit Bilici and marched together
the Agos daily where Dink was murdered in broad daylight five years
ago. There were a number of observations I need to mention here. The
crowd was less than I expected, but other than the quantity the quality
of the crowd was very impressive. A good number of high profile Turks
were there. Turks of very divergent political persuasions filled
the crowd, politicians, artists, journalists, Muslims, Christians,
atheists, young and old, men and women, with and without headscarves,
they were all there to express their outrage at the mockery displayed
in the Hrant Dink murder trial.
The primary message which the rally should have been based on is the
slogan, â~@~\This case cannot be closed as suchâ~@¦â~@~] This should
have been the uniting message around which all the various groups
could have come together. It is, after all, the desire to see justice
prevail and the links inside the state apparatus exposed that these
crowds shared. I agree with Markar Esayan that no one becomes Armenian
by chanting, "We are all Hrant -- we are all Armenians," but
unfortunately decades of republican nation-state building has made
such messages problematic for ordinary Turks and thus unnecessarily
alienates people. From a strategic perspective I would focus on other
messages that would broaden the coalition of people who will continue
to raise their voices against the attempts to cover the murder up. That
said, it is up to the family and the Agos newspaper to decide what
sort of messages they wish to convey -- mine is friendly advice.
The Hrant Dink case has revealed considerable pessimism over the
continued strength of the deep state. The Kurdish issue remains in
the minds of all of us and there are very few answers that offer hope.
There is substantial soul searching and disillusion among intellectual
circles. Most seem to have concluded that the current Parliament will
not be able to draft a proper constitution. If the economy worsens as
is expected this year, not to mention the complications we face in the
foreign policy arena there is little reason to be optimistic about
the coming months. One wishes to be wrong about these predictions,
but there is no doubt that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
is likely to face more challenges in the public domain.
Hrant's murder has become a test case for instituting a normal
democracy and the upholding of the rule of law in this country. It
constitutes a prime case that will determine whether the optimism
of recent years was real or whether we simply experienced partial
and incomplete victories that can easily be reversed. Is the deep
state still alive and kicking or have we seen only a rare anomaly? The
handling of the Supreme Court of Appeals will be critical in answering
these questions. This is the case and this is the time to expose the
cancer deep inside the state. Unless we are willing to go until the
very end and hold these people accountable we will live under the
risk of being targeted by this entity every day.