A real hero for our time
31 January 2007
Metro Times
Jack Lessenberry letters@metrotimes.com
Here's a name you likely never heard of: Hrant Dink. Frankly, I am ashamed to say I had never heard of him before he was murdered less than two weeks ago. He wasn't American, and as far as I know he never visited this country. Matter of fact, I'm not sure he ever left his native Turkey. Yet he symbolized what our First Amendment is supposed to be about far more than nearly anyone who ever practiced the profession of journalism.
He believed in telling the truth. And, more than that, he believed anybody has the right to say whatever they believe — and that no government has the right to shut any free citizen up. Though you can't tell by his name, Dink was of Armenian blood. Ninety years ago, the Ottoman Turks tried to carry out the first mass genocide, murdering something like a million and a half Armenians.
To this day they haven't admitted it. Worse, it is essentially illegal in Turkey, a country that is supposedly a democracy, to say that this happened!
Dink made a point of telling the truth, not in spite of the law that makes it a crime to utter "insults to Turkishness," but because of it. He did so though he knew it meant risking his life. But here's something more incredible that my friend George Costaris, the distinguished Canadian diplomat, brought to my attention: France has been discussing making it against the law to deny that the Armenian holocaust occurred. Last fall, Dink declared that if France did so, he would rush to that country — and openly deny that the Armenian holocaust happened!
"Then we can watch both the Turkish Republic and the French government race against each other to condemn me. We can watch to see which will throw me into jail first," Dink said, adding, "What the peoples of these two countries [Turkey and Armenia] need is dialogue, and all these laws do is harm such dialogue."
Then on Jan. 19, Dink, who was 52, was shot in the back of the head by a 17-year-old dropout who, police said, was told to do it by an ultra-nationalist.
Dink's wife and two children and 100,000 others showed up at his funeral. Many wore buttons saying, "We are all Hrant Dink." They aren't, of course. Nor am I worthy of such a button. But think of what a better world this would be if it had just a few more journalists who were as truly American as was he.
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.
Metro Times
Jack Lessenberry letters@metrotimes.com
Here's a name you likely never heard of: Hrant Dink. Frankly, I am ashamed to say I had never heard of him before he was murdered less than two weeks ago. He wasn't American, and as far as I know he never visited this country. Matter of fact, I'm not sure he ever left his native Turkey. Yet he symbolized what our First Amendment is supposed to be about far more than nearly anyone who ever practiced the profession of journalism.
He believed in telling the truth. And, more than that, he believed anybody has the right to say whatever they believe — and that no government has the right to shut any free citizen up. Though you can't tell by his name, Dink was of Armenian blood. Ninety years ago, the Ottoman Turks tried to carry out the first mass genocide, murdering something like a million and a half Armenians.
To this day they haven't admitted it. Worse, it is essentially illegal in Turkey, a country that is supposedly a democracy, to say that this happened!
Dink made a point of telling the truth, not in spite of the law that makes it a crime to utter "insults to Turkishness," but because of it. He did so though he knew it meant risking his life. But here's something more incredible that my friend George Costaris, the distinguished Canadian diplomat, brought to my attention: France has been discussing making it against the law to deny that the Armenian holocaust occurred. Last fall, Dink declared that if France did so, he would rush to that country — and openly deny that the Armenian holocaust happened!
"Then we can watch both the Turkish Republic and the French government race against each other to condemn me. We can watch to see which will throw me into jail first," Dink said, adding, "What the peoples of these two countries [Turkey and Armenia] need is dialogue, and all these laws do is harm such dialogue."
Then on Jan. 19, Dink, who was 52, was shot in the back of the head by a 17-year-old dropout who, police said, was told to do it by an ultra-nationalist.
Dink's wife and two children and 100,000 others showed up at his funeral. Many wore buttons saying, "We are all Hrant Dink." They aren't, of course. Nor am I worthy of such a button. But think of what a better world this would be if it had just a few more journalists who were as truly American as was he.
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.
Labels: Hrant Dink
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 8:50 AM
1 Comments:
He was in the United States.
I met him in Philadelphia in 2006 at a meeting of the Armenian Bar Association.
He addressed the meeting and explained the Turkish penal code under which he was prosecuted, the pending law before the French Parliament and his concerns for his own safety.
It was a priviledge to be in the same room with him.
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