Patrice Riemens on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 01:58:22 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Hayko Bagdat on: "We Should Have Shared Our Grief Like The |
Hayko Bagdat is, after the assassination of Hrant Dink in front of his newspaper's office, a powerful and influential voice for the repressed/suppressed Armenian minority community in Turkey. There are 60.000 Armenians left in Turkey, mostly in Istanbul, but there are something like 2 million Turks of Armenian descent, whose forebears somehow survived the genocide of 1915, usually by being taken away by of given for adoption to Muslim families. Thus they officially became ethnic Turks and proper Muslims, even though all, to this day, know the background facts - but never ask nor tell. Some thaw is taking place, however slowly. Former Turkish PM, now president Erdogan, made a good start three years ago, but has reversed to the angry denial mode, even adding some nonsense of his own. Alas. The official centenary commemoration date of the Armenian genocide is April 24 this year. original to: http://www.ipek.edu.tr/en-US/Pages/events/Hayko-Bagdat.aspx (there is a lot on/by Hayko Bagdat online, but it's all in Turkish - this is the only English I could find) "We Should Have Shared Our Grief Like The Dolphins" Hayko Bagdat The writer/journalist Hayko Bagdat met with students at Ipek University. During the discussion session organized by the Ipek University Media and Politics Club, Mr. Bagdat commented on Turkey's current agenda and answered questions from the students. Emphasizing the sufferings experienced in recent history, Bagdat stated that the largest community in Turkey was "the community groups that have shared many sorrows but seem unable to come together". Regarding the current tension in the community, Mr. Bagdat said, "There is a situation where individuals respond to their experience of grief by offering the same to others". Mentioning that many events, from the murder of Hrant Dink to the helicopter incident involving Muhsin Yazicioglu had not yet been elucidated, Mr. Bagdat went on to say that, "all identities in this country have accrued grief. Why are we concentrating our efforts on finding reasons for these crimes instead of trying to solve them? When students asked questions such as "Why can't we get together? Why can't we display a united community?" Mr. Bagdat argued that human communities should follow the example of dolphins: "When faced with a shark attack, dolphins produce a sound at a frequency that can only be heard by other dolphins. Those dolphins that hear this sound head straight towards their friends to rescue them. If their friend is still alive, they help; if it is dead, they start to cry out loud. Upon hearing this cry, all the other fish gather around them. This is what we should have achieved". At the end of the session, Mr. Bagdat was thanked and presented with various gifts by the students of the club. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org