BY ISMET BERKAN
RADIKAL- Today is the second anniversary of the murder of Hrant Dink. Many factors played a role in his slaying, but the Ergenekon probe or other investigations of the 'deep state' shouldn't make us forget that this murder was basically a racist one. Dink was killed because he was Armenian and also a person on the forefront who went outside the customary psychology of minorities. That's why we shouldn't forget racism and racists in our fight against all sorts of 'deep state' or criminal groups.
Racism is again on the rise now. He's not aware of this, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also contributes to this racism. What's more, he's doing this by saying that we don't favor anti-Semitism. For example, he said that the people who died in Gaza were killed because they were Muslim. Let's question this point of view a little. Were the children from Gaza exposed to Israeli bombs and bullets just because they were from Gaza? You may be asking what's the difference, because Muslims live in Gaza. Actually, there's a huge difference.
If these children were killed not because they were unlucky enough to born in Gaza, but because they have Muslim parents, we're saying that those who killed them committed these murders for religious reasons, that is, to get rid of members of the Islamic religion, aren't we? So aren't we saying that this war isn't a classical war, but a 'war of hatred'? That's what Erdogan is saying without thinking about it so much, that is, he means that members of his religion are being killed by people who hate their faith.
If you bring the issue of religion into this and point to it as the reason for these murders, you open a door that you shouldn't. What's more, if you're doing this as a person who is against the idea of the 'conflict of civilizations' and wants to end this mentality, it means you're quite confused. I don't think this is what Erdogan wants or that he's trying to incite anti-Semitism. But you see that Erdogan's innocent words actually incite racism.
Actually, as there's no real sensitivity about racism in Turkey and most of us, if we act like racists, don't face the slightest criticism, we don't even realize who we've hurt or offended in our speech or writings.
When a child was being sought to kill Dink, the prospective murderers were told that they would kill an Armenian. In other words, they were supposed to kill not a human, but an Armenian. Since this murder which shook us two years ago, you can see that we haven't still come to our senses. We may not be aware of this, but racism is the greatest problem."