Reality Check

Though I’m not at all surprised at the treatment that the latest hero of Turkey is getting (see the last two logs posted), I sure was not expecting these facts to be revealed so quickly.



News and footage of and about Hrant Dink is quite prominent in Armenia these days. The gathering at the Western Diocese on November 5, 2006 is playing on some channel in Yerevan everyday. All my friends have called to tell me that my mother is on television. She was the mistress of ceremony and as such introduced Hrant.

I’ve listened to Hrant’s speech a couple of times now and I have to tell you, what he was saying, knowing who we know the Turks to be, nothing he says makes sense to me. In short, Hrant was out to get the Turks to come to terms with their past and recognizing 1915 was one of the prominent items in his lesson plan.

Like most in Armenia, I really didn’t know much about Hrant before his death. I will say that I knew a little bit about his first cousin Noubar Yelmian, who also had an agenda to get Turks to come to terms with themselves but Noubar was active back in the days when ASALA was just starting up. Though Noubar was not a member of ASALA, in some ways he was hated more by the Turkish Government for his revolutionary methods and was from the get go in their sites.

Noubar Yelmian was known by the Turkish Government to attend gatherings that Turkish officials would be speaking at and after the officials would finish giving some speech about democracy, freedom of speech, equality and so on, Noubar would raise his hand and ask a question about the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

In November of 1982 in Holland, a place that Noubar and his family had fled to after being run out of Turkey, agents from Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (Turkish Intelligence service) tracked down and assassinated Noubar.

So now almost 25 years later, Noubar’s first cousin Hrant, who was born about the same time as Noubar is assassinated for the same thing and probably by the same people.

It really makes me wonder what Hrant was thinking? He knew what answer the Turks had for people like him. His cousin Noubar got the answer. Did he think 25 years would change the Turk? Was he not paying attention to what and why Noubar was assassinated?

If you ask me, taking everything into consideration, the only way to deal with the Turk is with a strong army and the will to survive. Any relations with Turkey will be as a neighbor with open trading boarders and nothing more. It’s really clear who they are and what they want from us.

I hope someone will prove me wrong, but mark my words. Sadly, my great-great-great-grandchildren will not see a civil Turkey, since the Turks know good and well who and what they are and they have no reason to change their ways for the sake of having good neighbor relations with us. Who the hell are we for them to change? And they certainly are not going to listen to an Armenian trying to teach them anything. Attempting to do that is insane and at very least Hrant proved that such actions bring nothing more than a death sentence that would be carried out by a Turkish hero.