Governments have come and gone, prime ministers were elected and hanged, military juntas have overthrown governments and so many other things happened but the fundamentals of the political and legal order remained unchanged. The big crime needed to be sealed away; it should have never been revealed.
Starting with 1915, we created a dual identity for Turkish society. The real “self” was buried with all other memories in the collective subconscious and an “ideal image” was created and put in its place. According to this “ideal image,” we were supposedly a brand new nation that had created itself from the ravages of the Ottoman Empire.
However, nothing was new about this “new” nation. Murders, assassinations and massacres simply continued. For this alienated self, the numbers of “others” have increased with every passing day. Non-Muslims, Kurds, leftists, devout Muslims and Alevis were all turned into “others,” while this alienation from the “self” has ever deepened. Who were the citizens of this country, who were the enemies? Why did we have so many enemies?
To maintain this identity, we continued to scare away non-Muslims; Alevis were massacred to prepare the ground for military interventions; thousands and thousands of Kurdish villages were set on fire; devout Muslims were oppressed; intellectuals were killed one by one. None of the perpetrators of these crimes have ever been held accountable for what they did. Like the perpetrators of the big crime, the perpetrators of these crimes have enjoyed absolute impunity.
Regular readers of this column know that I attach much importance to the deep state cases that started in 2007. On various occasions, I also tried to explain why these cases were unable to progress and why they are incapable of uncovering the crimes committed against non-Muslims and Kurds. These cases have the potential to bring an end to the monolithic structure of the Turkish (deep) state, thus, we live in a relatively peaceful atmosphere now on the one hand, but because of the political nature of these cases (they’re focused on alleged coup plans only) they do not entail a real cleansing of the system.
If we understand all of these things, we can also understand both why Hrant Dink was killed and why, in spite of all the evidence, the trial of his murderers has not gone anywhere. Dink, as an outspoken Armenian, had always been a target for the murder machine of the deep state. However, in my opinion, there was one particular statement that made him an immediate target. He said that Sabiha Gökçen, the adopted daughter of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was actually an Armenian orphan. This statement was a real threat to our “dual” world. Dink’s statement was a devastating attack on the heart of the taboo; he was forcing us to confront our past on an emotional level, which is the only way you can start to come to terms with the content of your subconscious. With a single statement he reminded us of our artificial identity and of the real self lurking beneath it.
From the day of his murder, we have all known that he was killed by this dark shadow that has been haunting this country since 1915. The hitmen were employed; one wing of the state security forces prepared everything for the killing, while the other part knew all this was going to happen and remained silent as they watched each step being taken. Today, as fresh evidence is leaked, we have more details, more pieces of the puzzle. Today we know that the lawyer who brought a case against Dink on so-called grounds of denigrating Turkishness had very close contacts with gendarmerie, talking to them over the phone before and after doing anything about Dink. The lawyer is one of the main accused standing trial in the Ergenekon case. We have just learnt that the gendarmerie commander of Trabzon, who hid intelligence reports that indicated that Dink would be killed, was in very close contact with Veli Küçük, who is a central figure in the Ergenekon gang.
And there are so many other pieces of evidence that show us the big picture more clearly. Hrant Dink was killed by the system in Turkey. This murder will remain unsolved until the day we confront the system in which all these murders took place. If we solve the Hrant Dink murder, to which all the evidence and links are there, we will bring an end to the system established in this country in 1915. Everything is crystal clear, yet everything is invisible. We will see it all when we are ready!
