The sunny Istanbul of yesterday

[Stanley Park]

OS friends,

Deep sorrow for the great man, Turkish-Armenian joiurnalist Hrant Dink, and
Ogün Samasts, the young murderer.

Reminding me of what great Gandhi said amid bloody killing carnivals of
humans against fellow humans, I am with Can Uludag on what was expressed on
this sad, yet revealing incident of our times...

park 

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of can uludag
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 3:48 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: The sunny Istanbul of yesterday

            
            


 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
<http://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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