The sunny Istanbul of yesterday

[can uludag]

 The sunny Istanbul of yesterday was cloudy and sunny together today.  The weather reflected our hope and sadness. Changed every second. 
Last Friday we lost one of Turkey’s symbols of tolerance, patriotism, freedom of speech, courage and democracy. The Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered by a racist who’s under the age of 18.  Today people were shouting at the funeral saying we are  all “Hrant” “we are all Armenians” but maybe we had to shout like “we are all Ogün Samasts” the murderer, that child!  Sorry for this. 
 
I grew up in Izmir Turkey... with my Jewish and Armenian friends at school. My family was Albanian. I can pray that i don’t remember any tiny discussion with my friends about our religion or roots. We were never afraid of each other. But racism is still alive here as everywhere around the globe.
 
2007 is the year of Peace and Tolerance in Turkey, Unesco supports some of the events for peace and it will also be a year of Rumi, the great sufi poet.  
 
 Now this funeral is just at the beginning of a year which is celebrated as “Tolerance” and “Rumi” year.  
 Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, who was a fountain of love, was buried by muslims jews and christians together in Konya.

 
It seems it will rain now.  I remember the only song i love from Sting : Fragile .. “How fragile we ARE” 
I hope the rain will wash our hearts. 
 
Dink was telling people that he lives like a dove...  The world shoots the doves sometimes, and today i feel i am Ogün Samast more than Hrant. 

 
I had a meeting in the morning, i wanted to go to the funeral but  i could only watch the end of the ceremony -which was at an Armenian church- on tv, 
when  it was over, the tv channel, which is one of the best here,  without giving a break, started to broadcast the Oscar nominees live.
 
I hope millions are really decisive about peace today.  I hope this will bring us real transformation, transformation for peace.
 
Today i oftenthink about my friend Aris, we collaborate with my Armenian friend since a couple of months. I try to help him for a movie festival named Dance Camera in Istanbul (www.dancecameraistanbul.com) and he'll assists us on a “peace” project gathering dance, movies for peace, OST, kite production and music.  We are waiting for the sponsor to reply. They seem to accept the project but they will reply after the 2nd of Feb.  If they say ok, we will start working for organizing  a series of 3 day events for peace in some of the universities in Istanbul.  There’s a lot more to do now...  we need love. 
We need a lot of help from this community.  And thanks a lot for everything. 
 
can uludag
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