Newswise — The assassination today of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul was more than a senseless murder, according to Colgate University professor and Armenian Genocide expert Peter Balakian — it was yet another example of how far Turkey is from being a democracy.
Balakian, author of New York Times bestseller and Raphael Lemkin Prize winner The Burning Tigris; the Armenian Genocide and America's Response, is available to comment on Dink's death.
"As editor of Agos, a weekly Armenian newspaper, Dink held a uniquely important place in Turkish society, so his slaying was particularly significant," said Balakian. "If Turkey wishes to go forward as a democracy, it must find a way to embrace Dink's legacy."
Eighteen journalists have been killed in Turkey in the last six years, and 77 are on trial now, he said, but violence toward intellectuals begins, in the modern period, for Turkey with genocide of the Armenians in 1915. "Turkey has a long history of punishing its writers, thinkers, artists, and ethnic minorities," he explained. "On April 24, 1915, at the beginning of the Armenian Genocide which claimed more than a million lives, the Ottoman government rounded up more than 250 Armenian leaders in Constantinople (Istanbul) and transported them out of the city. Most of them were killed, making it easier for the government at that time to carry out its planned extermination and exile of the rest of the Armenian population. Dink now joins those martyrs."
Political violence of this nature increased when Turkey began its accession to the European Union in recent years, said Balakian, and it is definitely not random. "The ruling party's attempts to meet the EU's conditions — among them, more freedom of expression, equal treatment of minorities, and an end to official government denial of the Armenian Genocide — amplified the resistance of extreme nationalists and the military to such reforms," he said.
Because of Dink's standing, Balakian believes the slaying will reverberate beyond Turkey. "His death is emblematic of the struggle for freedom of thought and expression people face under violent and repressive societies and governments all over the world."
Of Dink himself, Balakian commented: "Despite Turkey's penal code — which mandates prison sentences for a long list of offenses that constitute the crime of 'insulting Turkishness' — Dink persisted in publishing articles and speaking openly about subjects that are taboo in Turkey, most notably the Armenian Genocide of 1915 committed by the government of the Ottoman Empire. For doing so he was put on trial last year, and threats against his life had increased dramatically in the last few weeks. Yet no amount of brutality and danger diminished his courage; he continued to work toward his goal, which was to help achieve a peaceful reconciliation between ethnically Armenian and Turkish society."
Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities at Colgate.
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