Saturday, February 10, 2007

Imagine a moment in time when there is no chauvinism, xenophobia or racism. We thousands of Istanbullular saw it happen. So did Hrant.

Elif ŞAFAK

  Imagine an exquisite dinner scene in Istanbul. A long, long table; at least 30 people. It is kind of breezy outside, the infamous lodos is blowing incessantly, as if to remind you that life in this city is far from quiet and orderly. Inside the room, the variety of the food served reflects the multicultural roots of today s Turkish cuisine: Albanian meatballs, Greek seafood, Kurdish spices, Armenian pastries, Turkish pilaf. People drink and eat and laugh and from time to time, they toast friends long departed.

  Then somebody starts to sing a song. Other guests join in and before you know it a string of songs follow, most of them sad but none disheartening. The songs switch almost effortlessly from Armenian to Kurdish, from Turkish to Greek. Where one stops another one picks up. Imagine, in short, a cosmopolitan setting where everyone is welcome no matter what their ethnicity, race or religion. Imagine a country where we are all equal, friendly and free.

  It wasn t a dream. I saw it happen and not once or twice. I saw it happen so many times. That is how I know it can and shall be real. I saw it happen thanks to Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist who was, on Friday Jan. 19, 2007, gunned down in Istanbul by a Turkish ultra-nationalist.

  Hrant was a dreamer and, as relentlessly as he was misunderstood, mistreated, and downtrodden because of this dominant aspect of his personality, by the end he knew very well that dreams are contagious. He gave us hope and faith, but most of all, he passed on his dreams to us. He made us believe that we, the citizens of modern Turkey, as the grandchildren of the multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual Ottoman Empire, could and should live together without assimilating differences or erasing the memory of the past.

  He wanted to shatter the silence in Turkey on the 1915 deportation and massacres of Armenians, believing that remembrance was a responsibility. According to him, only if and when Turks and Armenians mourned this tragedy together would we be able to start a new and better future. In a country stamped with collective amnesia, Hrant struggled for memory.

  As an Armenian Istanbullu he had been subject to all sorts of discrimination ever since he was a kid. And yet he was free of anger and resentment. After a lifetime s experience he could have drawn the conclusion that this country was no place for a minority and gone abroad, where he would most probably be safer and much more comfortable. But he did just the opposite. He had uttermost faith in his fellow citizens and believed that through dialogue and empathy even the most ossified chauvinisms would melt away.

  Hrant wholeheartedly supported Turkey s membership of the European Union and was worried that if the ties between Turkey and EU snapped, the ongoing democratization process would slow down and Turkey would become a more insular country – a process from which neither Turkey nor the western world could benefit.

  The sweeping generalizations in the West regarding Turkey and Turks frustrated him. He was equally critical of the Armenian genocide bill approved in October 2006 by the French Parliament, an equivalent of which is now being discussed in the United States. “If they pass the law in France, I will go there, and though I believe the opposite, I will openly say that there was no genocide.” As a true supporter of freedom of expression, Hrant believed that it should be up to people – Turks and Armenians together – to develop the means to reconcile and not for politicians to dictate knowledge of history.

  More than 100,000 people marched on Jan. 23, the day of his funeral. Many in the crowd sang Armenian songs, and carried banners proclaiming: “Hepimiz Hrant Dink iz, Hepimiz Ermeniyiz” (We are all Hrant Dink, we are all Armenians). People of all sorts of ideological, religious and ethnic backgrounds were there, united in a common spirit and faith in democracy. At the end of the day Muslims and Christians buried him together.

  Imagine a moment in time when there is no chauvinism, xenophobia or racism. A moment when we are all united in a common spirit. It wasn t a dream. We thousands of Istanbullular saw it happen. So did Hrant. And most probably he wasn t the least bit surprised, knowing too well that dreams are contagious. This piece by Elif Safak was originally published in “Open Democracy.”