Bay Area ANC Hosts Publishers Hrant Dink And Ragip Zarakolu

03-11-2006
Habergazete

SAN FRANCISCO--The Bay Area Armenian National Committee (ANC) hosted its annual "Hye Tad Evening" at Treasure Island, with special guests including Turkey's Agos Armenian Weekly editor, Hrant Dink and Belge Publishing House owner, Ragip Zarakolu.
[...]
Dink grew up in Malatia, attended Armenian school in Istanbul, and studied Philosophy and Zoology at Istanbul University. Through his writings, publications, and public statements, Dink has been an outspoken advocate for the democratization of Turkish society and for the need to break the silence about the Armenian genocide.
[...]
"People are starting to defend their rights," said Dink, hoping for "great changes."

"The activities of the diaspora, the Genocide resolutions passed by other countries every year, have contributed to the growing consciousness in Turkey," said Dink, who also attributed much of the growing recognition of the Armenian genocide in Turkey to the Kurdish struggle for national rights there.
[...]
Dink said that the process of democratization in Turkey can no longer be turned back. "There is a movement to talk about the past and a desire to know what happened to Armenians, " he said. One of the unexpected consequences of this movement was that many people in Turkey are now revealing that their ancestors were Armenian.

"On the other hand, the Turkish government has responded with more propaganda," said Dink, citing the fact that four years ago, new textbooks were distributed to all the schools which claim that Armenians massacred the Turks.
[...]
[...] Dink described a new ideological movement within Turkey which brings together the Turkish and the Islamic identities to form one unifying identity. He also pointed out that the nationalist groups and Islamist groups are competing with one another and as a result attacks against Armenians have increased.
[...]
Nevertheless, Dink expressed optimism about Armenian genocide recognition. "One day they will recognize that the Armenian genocide has to be addressed. But they will try to delay it and water it down as much as possible."
[...]
Ragip Zarakolu is the owner of Belge Publishing House. Through the publication of books deemed subversive by the Turkish authorities, Zarakolu has given voice to countless victims of injustice whose stories have been silenced, denied, and banned by successive Turkish regimes. The first book on the Armenian genocide which he published in Turkish was Yves Ternon's, Le Genocide des Armeniens, under the title, Armenian Taboo, in 1994. Later came Vahakn Dadrian's Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law. When Zarakolu was acquitted of charges against him for that publication, the possibility of more free discussion about the Armenian genocide in Turkey increased.
[...]
Zarakolu spoke about his first exposure to the Armenian genocide, when his mother, a witness to the deportations, told him about being kept in the house, while hearing Armenians being taken away outside.

"My mother said, 'The Armenians were crying outside, and we were crying inside,'" said Zarakolu. Referring to Turkey's involvement in WWI as a "stupid, adventurous war of the Ittihadists," Zarakolu said his mother lost both her parents. She was also able to save two Armenian girls from deportation, but the government later removed those girls from their home.

Zarakolu also spoke admiringly of Sarkis Cherkezian, an Armenian genocide survivor born in a Syrian refugee camp who just passed away at 90 years of age.
"We learned many things about the realities of what happened to the Armenians," he said of his close relationship to Cherkezian. He said it was because of people like Cherkezian that he is able to write.
[...]
Since then he has withstood a constant barrage of criminal charges, further imprisonment, confiscation and destruction of books, the bombing of his publishing house, and heavy government fines and taxes. His publishing house has endured more than 40 criminal indictments. Zarakolu is currently being tried for publishing George Jerjian's History Will Set Us Free, and Dora Sakayan's An Armenian Doctor in Turkey: Garabed Hatcherian: My Smyrna Ordeal in 1922.

Economic means permitting, Zarakolu hopes to publish the Turkish editions of the Blue Book from the United Kingdom, Armin Wegner's testimonies, Captanian's testimonies, and a selection of Zabel Yeseyan's works, as well as a photographic documentation of the Armenian deportation to the Syrian Desert.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.