E.M.-Well, the dove can fly, but does not want to fly too far, you know. It
flies and then it comes back to the same place because it is accustomed to
that place. That's why there are many doves in yards, around churches,
mosques, etc. It gives the impression that those doves, and not us, own the
place.
So this is a good metaphor for Hrant, because he really owned this place.
He owned it in his heart and in his brain. He cared so much about Turkey,
about the Turkish people and Armenians in Turkey that in this sense he was also
the dove of the yard.
He never wanted to fly away because his life was in danger. Everyone knew
the threat to his life, but every time we were out somewhere in Europe or
in the United States, after two or three days he would say, 'What are we doing
here? We have to go back where we belong.'
 
D.B.-His assassination triggered a very interesting response here in
Istanbul. Many non-Armenians-Turks, Kurds, Christians-demonstrated and had
signs saying 'We are all Armenians, We are all Hrant.' Did that surprise
you?

E.M.-The number of people is what surprised me. Otherwise, I knew that the
sentiment was there because there is a huge change in Turkey. The problem
with the Turkish public is that they change but do not know how to make
this change felt in politics. So you don't hear them as political figures and
you don't see them in the streets. But when you talk to them or you go out to
Anatolia, you see that there is a huge change in the mentality of the
people.
I knew that many millions would mourn and cry for Hrant, but I didn't
expect so many people to gather immediately after his death. When his death was
heard, there were 10,000 people in Taksim.
 
D.B-Do you feel the taboo about speaking about the genocide is gradually
being broken? Many writers, for example the Noble Prize winner Orhan Pamuk,
Elif Shafak and others, are now speaking about it. It's out in the open.

E.M.-Well, everyone knows about Elif Shafak and Pamuk but there are many
people in Turkey, especially historians, who are writing about those
issues.
If we go to the sciences, it's not a taboo anymore. If we go to the people,
it's not a taboo anymore.
When I went to Anatolia 10 years ago, people were irritated and hesitant to
talk about it. Now if you go there, they are eager to tell you stories
about what they heard from their grandfathers. So there is no such taboo anymore
sociologically.
But politically, in regards to what the state or political parties can and
cannot do, there is this pseudo-taboo because of the nationalistic
atmosphere. And the nationalistic atmosphere is using the "Armenian
Question" or the Armenian genocide as a tool. Because the main problem is
the issue of European Union accession. And in a world where Turkey is part
of the EU, those subjects will not be taboo anymore. So the people who
don't want Turkey to be in the European Union are using the Armenian genocide and
the Armenian issue at large to mobilize the nationalistic atmosphere and
stop the accession process.
 
D.B.-So it's become, as we say in American English, "political football."

E.M.-Yes.
 
D.B.-Tell me about this Article 301 of the Turkish penal code.

E.M.-First of all, I have to say it is not the only article [causing
problems]. But it is a very conjectural thing that the state or the
bureaucratic apparatus picks up one of the items in the penal code and
works on it and everyone says, "What is this problem? We need to change it." And
they change it and move to another article. So you cannot change Turkey's
legal atmosphere by abolishing 301. But 301 has its own special problems
because it does not differentiate between an insult and a more normal
argumentation and analysis.
So every time you pick up a topic that is related to Turkishness, loosely
connected to Turkishness, or maybe some historical event that can be
considered as an insult to Turkishness, Article 301 can be used against
you.
This is the problem with 301 and lately all those people that were taken to
court were taken by this article.
But I have to stress again, this is not the only culprit here. The whole
penal code is full of such articles. In fact, one of the NGOs who works on
those problems cited 10 or 12 articles like that-that can be used if the
need arises.
 
D.B.-"Insulting Turkishness" seems like an interesting concept. For
example, if I say that lahmejun or doner kebab is very bad food, would that be
considered insulting Turkish identity?
E.M.-Well, this is I think showing that you are on the edge of insulting
Turkish identity, and you are picking up the soft issues now. So the
reaction would be, "We don't know what you will say tomorrow, so we'd
better keep an eye on you."
 
D.B.-You want to advance Agos and to reach a larger audience. How are you
going to do that?

E.M.-Well, we have the online English version now. We have great hopes for
that although the subscriptions are still very low. But we will continue tp
work on that and try and see if the Diaspora is really interested in
Turkey.
Because, of course, to be interested in Agos means to be interested in
Turkey. Otherwise, Agos becomes only a sentimental issue for you.
So this is the main outlet that we have. Otherwise, you have to know
Turkish to understand the paper. Our surveys show that at the kiosks, 70-80 percent
of the paper are bought by Muslim Turks. So in the last year or so, Agos
has become viewed a newspaper promoting democracy, instead of just an Armenian
newspaper. As Hrant would say, we prefer the Armenian democrats
and Turkish democrats to be our subscribers, rather than just the Armenian
community. Because we know, and many Armenians have realized, that without
the democratization of Turkey, it's impossible to solve the problems of the
Armenian community today in Turkey. And it is impossible to solve all the
problems related to history.
 
D.B.-What are those problems in terms of civil rights and human rights?
Does an Armenian citizen of Turkey have the same rights legally as a Turkish
citizen?

E.M.-On paper, most of the rights are the same. But when it comes to
practice, you don't see any public officer who is Armenian, for example.
This is an accepted rule in the bureaucracy. You cannot even become a
postman.
And why? Maybe because he wears a uniform. The ones who wear uniforms, who
are not doing their military service for one year or six months or so
should be ethnic Turks. This is not written anywhere, but this is the practice.
Though if we were to ask the Armenians if they are against this rule or
not, I don't suppose they would be very interested because no one wants to be a
postman or a general. But our main problem is with the properties we have
that were confiscated during the last 30 years by the state, and the state
now does everything not to give them back.
 
D.B.-What properties were these? In Istanbul?

E.M.-Yes, mostly in Istanbul. They belong to Armenian foundations. And one
has to realize that 30-35 percent of the inhabitants of Istanbul were
Armenians. Those properties were mostly in central parts of the city and
were hence very valuable.
Those properties belonged to one or two million Armenians and now, of
course, there are only 60,000. Such wealth belonging to such a small
community. So the state tries to bring new blockades to prevent the
community from making use of those properties, and they use several
tactics.
One of the rules, for example, is that if the foundation does not have a
board of directors then it belongs to the state. But there's another rule
that says that in order to be elected to that board of directors, you have
to live in that district. Now, with 60,000 Armenians all living in
different districts, what about the districts where Armenians no longer
live? What happens after some period of time-10 years for example? It
automatically becomes state property.
The community is now trying to get those properties back, and has filed two
cases with the European Court of Justice.
So as I see it, with these big European processes, the Armenian community
has started to look for its own rights.
 
D.B.-Now if I lived here and were a citizen of Turkey, could I buy a
building or an apartment?

E.M.-As an individual, yes. But in the case of foundations, we are talking
about huge properties. In the old days when there was a church, all the
buildings around the church were called vakfiye, because the church would
live on the income of all those properties. So wherever there is a church,
at least a few hundred kilometers belongs to that community and not only
the church but also the schools, hospitals, cemeteries. All of these are
foundations and all of these have properties that are 5 or 10 times larger
than the land on which they were founded.
 
D. B.-And what about historical places like Ahktamar in Van, Surp Giragos
in Diyarbakir, or Ani?

E.M.- Well, these are simpler problems because they have symbolic value,
but they don't belong to any foundation. They become museums and so on. So they
are not part of the Armenian wealth in Turkey, but are symbols of the
Armenian past.
So there is a political side to it, but it is also an easier problem to
solve because, as I said, those buildings will become museums and would be
governed by the state.
 
D.B.- But are they properly identified as historically Armenian or are they
called "Byzantine" or "ancient"?

E.M.-The bureaucracy does everything not to call them Armenian. They change
the words, the letters, etc., trying to make it sound like a Turkish word
and so on. But it is getting more and more difficult.
On the other end, we have to realize that in 1915 there were about 400 or
500 churches on this land, and today we only have around 35. Many are in
ruins now, and perhaps we cannot do much with those, but there are around
300 that can be renovated.
This is a huge job for the state, and it is very hard for a nationalist
Turk to accept that those ruins belong to the Armenians because that would be
accepting that all those people once lived here. And then one would ask,
"What happened to those people?"
So the renovation is going very, very slowly. What makes one optimistic,
however, is the initiative taken by some Muslim Turks in Anatolia who have
gotten together and said, "There's a church here. It's an Armenian church.
We want to keep that church. We want to renovate that church."
In many places, the Muslim Turks are trying to at least allow that
historical land site to be recovered and used again.
 
D.B.- What did Hrant Dink think and what do you think about some diaspora
Armenians who may have very sharp opinions about what you should be doing
here inside Turkey?

E.M.-It shows that people are still maintaining their identity as a
community when they are thinking and saying what the others should do. I
think one must understand the feelings and sentiments of those people, but
we always thought that politically they are not doing the right thing.
 
D.B.-Explain how.

E.M.-Politically, if the genocide is the main thing and Turkey has to
accept the Armenian genocide, it's obvious that a Turkey that's in the European
Union would be in a position to accept the Armenian genocide more than a
Turkey that is out of the EU. So one would expect the diaspora to be for
Turkey's EU membership. But what we see in some circles of the diaspora is
an approach to punish Turkey. Of course they are right, and I understand
those feelings, but punishment of the state means the punishment of the
society as well. But the society has changed and is no longer the society
of 1915. There are parts that haven't changed, of course, like those people
who killed Hrant, but the majority is different.
And you cannot defend the Armenian Cause by punishing another society. The
state is something else. You can go against the state because it's a
deliberate actor. If the state is acting unethically-and most states are
always acting unethically-then there is a point there, and you can do
politics on that level. But as soon as you divert your energy and try to
punish the society as well, it brings a backlash, and it's absurd, and it
makes the lives of Armenians here much more difficult and much more
meaningless.
 
D.B.-So it's easier for someone sitting in New York or Los Angeles to talk.

E.M.-Always! Just as it's easier for us here to talk about New York. We
know that the diaspora had a difficult life in those lands because they went
from Turkey, and in Turkey the community was based on a religious authoritarian
understanding. There was a patriarch, and the patriarch still in Turkey is
supposed to be the leader of community. But when you go to Europe and to
the States, you are in a very secular country. Of course, there are still
patriarchs, but they don't have the same influence on the public anymore.
So you need something else to keep the community together. So the Armenian
genocide is a workable tool in that respect. Also we have to realize that
if you build the community on a secular historical issue like this, then you
create a power relation within the community. You create a hierarchy within
the community.
And that power relation and that hierarchy takes the community farther away
from being a democratic community. And what Hrant was after was forming
democratic Armenian communities all over the world.
 
D.B.-And what are your relations with the Republic of Armenia, beyond
language and culture?

E.M.-In our daily lives, we don't have much of a relation really. But all
Armenians are becoming more and more interested in what is happening in
Armenia. Of course, with Armenia so close to us, we have a feeling of.
 
D.B.-Comfort?

E.M.-Confidence maybe. It is very difficult to pinpoint those feelings
because there are no surveys on that. But as far as I see from Agos, the
Turkish-Armenian community is really interested in the news items
concerning Armenia.
I think that with the EU process and the relations that were established in
2006 between the EU and Armenia, everyone is realizing that in 10 or 15
years, we will have Armenia and Turkey in the same package. This may
happen.
If Turkey is a bit late in the accession, the probability of such a scenario becomes higher. So, what is happening in Armenia will be very important for
the Armenian community here, just as what is happening in Turkey is
important.
 
D.B.-Right now, the border is closed, isn't it?

E.M.-The border is closed if you go by car. But if you want to fly, it's
open. There are several flights every week. I think the Turkish government
wants to solve that problem, but with the election this year and the
nationalists, it seems they are waiting for the right conjuncture to take
that step.
 
David Barsamian is the founder and director of Alternative Radio
( www.alternativeradio.org ).