Elif Shafak on Hrant Dink

Elif Shafak is a Turkish novelist who was charged in her country with insulting Turkishness for remarks about Turkey's history before being acquitted last September. She pays homage to the journalist Hrant Dink who was shot dead by a Turkish ultra-nationalist on Friday, January 19th. "He made us believe that we the citizens of modern Turkey, as the grandchildren of the multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual Ottoman empire, could and should live together without assimilating differences or erasing the memory of the past. He wanted to shatter the silence in Turkey on the 1915 deportation and massacres of Armenians, believing that remembrance was a responsibility. According to him, only if and when Turks and Armenians mourned this tragedy together, would we be able to start a new and better future. In a country stamped with collective amnesia, Hrant struggled for memory. ... He had uttermost faith in his fellow citizens, and believed that through dialogue and empathy even the most ossified chauvinisms would melt away."

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