How Turkey went back to square one 10 years after murder of Armenian intellectual

Cengiz Çandar

For the past 10 years, Jan. 19 has been an unforgettable date for some Turks. But this year was more meaningful because it was the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink. As founder and editor-in-chief of bilingual weekly Agos, Dink was a renowned intellectual who was gunned down in daylight on Jan. 19, 2007, on the sidewalk near the entrance to his office located in one of the most crowded districts of Istanbul.

In a rapidly changing country like Turkey, Dink's name has become a symbol for taboo-breaking developments. His funeral on Jan. 23, 2007, was a revolt against the religious nationalism embedded in Turkish society's psyche that had blinded it for generations.

First street protest by Turkey's Armenians

Sibel Hurtas

Translated by Timur Göksel

Armenian youths in Turkey have launched a protest campaign against the demolition of Camp Armen, the Armenian orphanage that housed hundreds of Armenian children in summer sessions. The Armenian community demands the orphanage be preserved and handed over to it. This does not sound likely, but it is significant as being the first street protest by Turkey's Armenians to express their demands in recent times.

Camp Armen symbolizes the long saga of the deportation and massacres Armenians suffered on Anatolian soil. Its history starts with the purchase of a plot of land by Gedikpasa Armenian Protestant Church from a private party to house Armenian orphans who lived in Anatolia and were labeled as "sword leftovers" by the Armenians. The orphanage camp was built in 1962 by the orphans themselves under supervision of a master builder.

Conference on Turkey-Armenia Border Takes Place in Ankara

Rupen Janbazian

 

Nearly 200 participants filled an auditorium at the Faculty of Political Science at Ankara University from Nov. 22-23, for a two-day conference entitled, “The Sealed Gate: Prospects of the Turkey-Armenia Border.” Organized by the Hrant Dink Foundation, the conference aimed to address the policy of closed borders and its political, economic, social, environmental, humanitarian, and regional aspects, along with prospects for peace-building in the Caucasus.

Opening remarks were made on behalf of the foundation by Rakel Dink, wife of the late Hrank Dink, and Cengiz Aktar, who for the first time announced the formation of an Armenian Research Center that will be launched in the coming months by the Hrant Dink Foundation. Dr. Onur Ozsoy, chair of the department of economics, welcomed participants on behalf of Ankara University, and reiterated his belief that the border between Turkey and Armenia should eventually be opened in order to ensure peace, stability, and cooperation in the region.

"Bastards of the Infidels"

Eric Nazarian

 



“Bastards,” “infidels,” “remains of the sword” were the derogatory words directed at Armenian survivors of the genocide in Turkey as well as their offspring. Under this same umbrella was another set of “bastards” who were Christian Armenians forcibly or willingly converted to Islam in the wake of the genocide.

This was one of the many topics covered over the course of three eye-opening days at the Hrant Dink Foundation’s Conference on “Islamized Armenians” on the Bogazici University campus in Istanbul. We heard lectures and panels comprised of international scholars presenting a myriad of oral and academic histories about forcibly Islamized Armenians, as well as the histories of the willingly converted that bridge and divide these communities. The conference was a platform for these unofficial minorities, a sort of “People’s History of Islamized Armenians,” to borrow half of Howard Zinn’s title. This percentage of the Turkish population is the resurfacing “remains of the sword.”

Islamized Armenians in Turkey Represent Age-Long Assimilation Policy

The Islamization of Armenians in Turkey is the product of a long-term and systematic political strategy of assimilating and Turkifying the Armenian community, according to documents from the late Ottoman era, said Taner Akçam, a Turkish-German historian and sociologist, at the Conference on Islamized Armenians held in Istanbul over the weekend, Today’s Zaman reports.