The Armenians in Turkey and around the globe are for the eleventh year commemorating Hrant Dink, the assassinated editor-in-chief of the Istanbul-based Armenian weekly Agos.
At the hour symbolizing the tragic moment, activists, intellectuals, journalists or simply ordinary people of Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish descent gathered in Istanbul for a commemoration march to raise the demand for justice in resolving the murder. Members of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, have also joined the public event.
Dink was gunned down by a teenage Turkish ultranationalist, Ogun Samast, outside his editorial office in Istanbul on Janaury 19, 2007. The trial over the assassination has been dragging on for over a decade wihout reachig its logical outcome.
Dear Hrant Dink:
“A Gun Can’t Slay Your Peaceful~Pen”
Condolences to the family of this Armenian journalist *,
who was murdered by an underage Turkish national on January 19, 2007
Condolences are given to all Armenians, and to honest nations
For losing such and such a human.
I say,
“The gun cannot kill an honest pen.”
Gun will soon rust,
The writing implement will remain
Forever, forging new thoughts.
Hrant’s blood is composed
Of frank ink and pen,
Thy blood is blue ink—
Bones are white pens,
Containing most Armenian DNAs—
Sweetness, sincerity, seriousness—
Every genuine cell wanting
To seek no revenge,
Asking truthfulness.
Dink’s DNA will not go in vain
By few slayers trained to spread blood
Wherever they stepped.
Hrant’s honest speeches will echo always
Thru Agos’ rocks and harmless breezes.
Dink’s last article reads,
“Turkish poisons let mix with Armenian kind blood.
I am a dove spinning between Turks and Armenians.
Can slayers shun a dove –
A sign of peaceful shrine?”
I announce to each human who can’t understand,
What does humanity stand for?
Killing anyone, including you, Hrant,
A peace-seeking man?
Dear Dink, you tried your best, did not apply to rest!
You wanted to transfer earth’s hell to safe birthing lay
Before meeting your soulful slaughtered Armenians
Who lived thousands of years before the Ottomans.
You left hell forever to go to seventh heaven,
Leaving your flesh, but you swore on your soul,
Sending a message; hence, saying to your populace,
(Sylva’s feelings on Hrant’s behalf what he wanted to utter …)
“I couldn’t change inhuman to a kind human
Before my death, but being an honest Armenian,
Some fate in me stamped in my genes,
Voices my chants even after three shots in my head ….”
Shooting is their triumph,
Beheading genes for over centuries,
Still praising their own satanic reign.
How can you darn a saint’s suit divine
Even if you’re a dove
Sending peace messages
To a struggling fan …?
Every honest spirit can easily be killed
If surrounded by slayers masked as faces of men.
The gunner stamped the ground with your pink-blood
In a so-called civilized, barbaric, plague land!
Killing innocents existed for millennia,
Nothing has changed since!
(C) Sylva Portoian, M.D
January 22, 2007