A Tribute To Hrant Dink
For MPs in the House of Commons by Prof Khatchatur Pilikian
30th January 2007

After few seconds of distilled amazement and wordless sorrow, Hrant Dink's tragic departure brought back home, deep in my heart, echoes of verses of wishful desire to refute his final odyssey, just as the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas eloquently sang his pleading verses:
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

But not to be. Hrant's one-way/no-return ticket was cut by the Damoclean sword of rabid intolerance. He was exiled for good 'into that good night'...

Hrand Dink was a maker of words. One time a student of zoology, philosophy and literature, he soon became a distinguished journalist and eventually editor-in-chief of his own bilingual Armenian/Turkish newspaper, AGOS (Furrow). Hrant was a mass producer of words with a difference. He produced words to promote a culture of fairness and tolerance, historical recollection and reconciliation, ethical rehabilitation and compassion, moral reaffirmation and, above all, outright denunciation of terrorism, whether individual, group, private or public, mass or state terrorism, past and present.

Hrant was a renaissance man, not of doubt but of faith in human goodness --the essence of Humanism. He did not believe in the popular appraisal of 'golden silence'. As a genuine democrat, he spoke for, with and to the so-called silent majority, encouraging it to have an informed say, then act upon it to change the status of placid and tacit obedience. But those anti-democratic forces, in his own words "the deep state in Turkey" that kept, or want to keep and are keeping the majority to be unworthy of any meaningful say, finally dared to prosecute him. They did, and they failed. Responding to an interviewer, Hrant Dink explained: "The prosecutions are not a surprise for me. They want to teach me a lesson because I am Armenian. They try to keep me quiet". Naturally, Hrant continued talking and writing. They convicted him. They failed. Hrant continued to believe in and act upon his good words. A Christian Armenian, a devout and proud Turkish citizen, Hrant unwittingly seemed to luxuriate in the beauty of the 'good word' as envisaged in the fragrant Quranic verse of the Divine Unity of a "good word" and a "fruitful tree", majestically delineated, thus:
It is like a fruitful tree ,whose root is firm and whose branches reach into heaven

Obviously his zealot opponents, claiming as if to worship their Holy Book, they, nevertheless, acted mercilessly against its holy verses. They even tried to terrorize him with death threats. They failed again. Though frightened like a dove -his words: "I look around to my left and right, in front and behind me" - Hrant continued producing his words promoting genuine friendship. His apparently vociferous words seemed to be challenging the time-honored advice even of a giant creator of words, namely Aeschylus and his verses in Orestes:
Taught in the school of suffering, I have learnt the times and seasons
When it is right to keep silent, and when to break it.

Although being himself "taught in the school of suffering", started with his childhood-orphan days, Hrant Dink chose to continue 'the breaking of silence'. Eventually, the dark powers of cowardice found a scapegoat from their own zealot minority, to act as their instrument of ultimate intimidation-assassination. Literally a miserable teenager of 17, a zealot young man, gunned down a peaceful man of 52. Hrant's wife, Rachel, his childhood comrade-in-orphanage, now a widowed mother, their three grown-up children, among them his son named Ararat, are now all left as orphans, just because father dared to refuse to be "tongue-tied by authority", as the Bard of all seasons, Shakespeare, put it.

Hrant Dink is now no more. But has become much more, just like his words. He himself became his living words. Ultimately, those behind-curtain plotters and potentates of intolerance who are his real murderers, and, in essence magnum cowards, failed yet again, and miserably so. Hundreds of thousands of the silent majority of the Turkish Republic is now chanting and waiving the placards of their own words: "We are all Hrant Dink", nay even "We are all Armenians", whether they are of Kurdish, Turkish, Armenian, Assyrian, Jewish or Greek descent.

Once upon a time an arch racist, Dr. Goebbels, boasted his blatant inhumanity saying: "Whenever I hear the word culture, I release the safety catch of my pistol". The question remains, why the all-powerful Nazi cult leader was terrorized by the mere utterance of the word culture. I would like to pose the following, that the Goebbels of this world, wherever they are, whatever nationality they claim to belong to, whichever religion or deity they claim to worship, and finally, whichever political party they are member of, should also be seen equally responsible for the murder of Hrant Dinks of this world, the makers of words of culture of human dignity, fairness, truth and compassion.

Yes, the Welsh poet was right. The good man Hrant's seemingly frail political clout or deeds, but overwhelmingly potent words of humanism 'danced in a green bay', as his beloved multi-ethnic silent majority raged in serene dignity 'against the dying of the light' in their own country. How fascinating indeed is the power of words. Not long ago, in February 2005, a Turkish art student turned a renowned novelist, soon to become a Nobel Laureate, uttered few words and a hell broke in his own country. Orhan Pamuk confided to a Swiss journalist the following: "Thirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands and no one but me dares to talk about it."

I was puzzled. Orhan's comrade-in-words Hrant was, for at least a decade not only uttering similar historic facts, but also acting upon them daily to disseminate truth for reconciliation. Hrant adamantly was eulogizing the common, shared history of all the peoples of Pamuk's 'these lands', namely Anatolia, which predicament the talented novelist was himself depicting in his labyrinthine tales.

The official denials and obscurantist atmosphere scrupulously engineered in the Republic of Turkey, since its inception, does play its derailing tricks even among the neo illuminati, the vanguard intellectuals of the day. The prestigious man of letters Orhan Pamuk could not afford at least to remember that more than half a century ago another Turkish writer, a world-renowned revolutionary poet, just released from years of imprisonment in his own beloved country, had "dared to talk about it", albeit partially, but poetically and contextually. He was Nazim Hikmet, the proud Turkish poet. This magnum poet of the Turkish culture lamented the massacres of the Armenians as "a shame brought on the Turkish People".

It was Hrant Dink's journalistic panache, which prompted him to respond with eclectic candour to widely publicize the 2002 UNESCO Laureate poet, Nazim Hikmet's 100th Birth Anniversary. It was an exemplary response, unlike most of the Diaspora Armenian newspapers. His harbinger, AGOS, particularly highlighted the London celebration of the poet's 100th Anniversary Concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, on January 8th, 2002. AGOS relished with genuine pride my own participation as the sole British Armenian musician to that historic and auspicious event. Both, the concert and its echo in AGOS, will remain, at least for me, as humbling and graceful mementoes.

Oh, yes. The outlandish murder of Hrant Dink, the truth-loving Turkish Armenian pacifist journalist, overwhelmed us all. My Turkish musician colleague who led the musical accompaniment to my Hikmet song performance at the Anniversary concert, Cahit Baylav, was literally devastated. Still we all are.

I have not met Hrant. Knowing his work and being acquainted with his ideas, I enjoyed his words. His ideas were sometimes in tune and other times in discord with mine, as for example his gentle 'advice' to separate history from politics when dealing with the reality of Genocide. I remain in tune with the Scottish historian John Seeley's powerfully distinct notion that "History is past politics, and politics present history".

No matter. Hrant always left an impression of a visionary pacifist stance vis-à-vis historical veracity, data interpretation and conflict evaluation, all tackled for an eventual reconciliation and a lasting friendship. That proved lethal to his zealot opponents, who finally sealed his fate. It is a historical fact that Fascism, of all hews and colors though mostly wolfish gray, has learnt, by shear 'trial and error', its most cost effective lesson, which is: to physically eliminate the individual who persists playing a fair and a tolerant game in society at large; the individual who enlivens the awareness of reality, acting upon it with an intellectual balancing stance. Fascism, hoping to terrorize the masses already tolerantly attracted towards the fair play of such individuals, aims at inducing terror to nourish state terrorism - the life-blood of post-modern Fascism too. Subduing Humanism is its ultimate goal. Yet again No Paseran! Post-modern Fascism too will fail, and abysmally so. But alas after many more victims like Hrant. So it seems. Unless of course, humanity at large will 'rage against the dying of the light' of humanism in our turbulent yet still our one and only green world. Let us share the joy of that light as Hrant did. So did his English soul-mate, William Blake, writing for us all:
He who bends to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.

Hrant Dink too, kissed the joy as it flew.

Prof. Khatchatur I. Pilikian

Tribute to Hrant Dink in the House of Commons,
the UK Parliament. London

Armenians and Kurds gathered with Turkish intellectuals in a vigil outside the House of Commons, London on Tuesday, 30th January to honour Hrant Dink and to call on the UK government to help the process of reconciliation between our peoples by the recognition of the truth of the Armenian Genocide. . The vigil was led by Lord Avebury, and included the singing of the "Hair Mer" by Seta Cox.

Later, inside the House of Commons the Tribute to Hrant Dink was held. A message from the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation was read, followed by an eloquent oration on Hrant's significance from Prof. Khatchatur Pilikian. Seta Cox read her poem of tribute to Hrant "Without You". This was followed by an insight into Hrant's personality and a masterly analysis of the Armenian Genocide by Prof. Hovannes Pilikian.

Eilian Williams of Armenia Solidarity made the point that Turkish democracy at present is based on the lie that there was no Genocide of Armenians, and appealed for all to strive for a multi-cultural Turkey where the Human rights of minorities are respected.

Messages of solidarity were given by Kurdish and Turkish supporters, including Dr Fariudin Hilmi, a former minister in the government of Iraqi Kurdistan and also by Turkish journalists. The Kurdistan National Congress and other Kurdish groups as well as the Turkish-Kurdish Centre in London were represented.

The meeting was sponsored by Ms Nia Griffith MP, who has also put down a motion in parliament noting that Hrant Dink was a campaigner for the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide. She closed the meeting giving encouragement to all.

Present were several parliamentarians including Mr Paddy Tipping MP of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Armenia, and David Howard MP of the Liberal Democrats, as well as Lord Rea. Amongst other distinguished guests were the Turkish journalist Koray Duzgoran and the authors Mr Martin Short, and Ms Edwina Charles.

The vigil was organised by Armenia Solidarity supported by Nor Serount Cultural Association and individual members of the Armenian community .

From the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
In Memory of Hrant Dink

More than a million Armenians were killed in the genocide of 1915. The Turks seized great tracts of Armenian land that have never been returned. Now, Hrant Dink's murder in Istanbul serves to remind us of this first holocaust of the Twentieth Century, even as the BBC repeatedly remarked on the "alleged mass killings" of Armenians by Turks, notwithstanding the abundant evidence of that genocide that has been presented over the years. But Mr Dink stood for a different and higher standard of journalism. When we received news of his murder, Ayse Berktay, a Turkish friend of the Russell Foundation who lives in Istanbul, put it this way: Our dear friend Hrant Dink, one of the endorsers of the World Tribunal on Iraq, a peace and truth-loving Armenian journalist, founder and editor-in-chief of the journal AGOS, a foremost, courageous and most outspoken voice of the Armenian community in Turkey, was murdered in broad daylight in front of the journal building yesterday. He was a staunch but very human and very convincing defender of brotherhood between peoples and put his life at stake to build such genuine brotherhood because he believed that to be genuine, this brotherhood had to base itself on truth and acknowledgement of the identity and plight of one another, on getting rid of prejudices, on recognising the potential richness of the variety of cultures that exist in our land.

Hrant Dink will clearly be missed by many people in Turkey as well as in Armenia, but we should join them in honouring him ourselves.

As Robert Fisk has pointed out, one of the sobering lessons of the Armenian genocide is that some of those Germans who went on to perpetrate the Nazi genocide of the Jews witnessed first-hand the slaughter of 1915 in eastern Anatolia. It is vital that the whole truth is told about these events, which are still more often denied than one would think possible. That is the best tribute we can pay to Hrant Dink’s memory.

Ken Coates, Tony Simpson, on behalf of the Bertrand Russel Peace Foundation