FETHIYE, Turkey
The ridiculous headline, "Hepimiz Keviniz " (We are all Kevin), used by
Turkey's Star News to report Hollywood actor Kevin Costner's starring role in
an ad for Turkish Airlines' new first-class service, seems a gross
misappropriation of a phrase born to symbolize the Turkish peoples' empathy for
persecuted people locally and across the globe.
The phrase Hepimiz (All of us) was made popular after the assassination
of the journalist Hrant Dink in January 2007. Dink was a talented Armenian
writer who had great faith in the Turkish people. He spent most of his life
working to create a tolerant
environment for people like himself who do not fit into the narrow state
definition of "Turkishness".
When his 16-year-old killer, Ogun Samast, ran from the scene shouting: "I have
killed the gavur" (foreigner or non-Muslim), the nation responded with
an outpouring of shame. Streets were flooded with people and placards all
defiantly proclaiming, "Hepimiz Hrant'iz, hepimiz Ermeniyiz" (We are all
Hrant, we are all Armenian).
The phrase has since become a rallying cry for anyone defending human rights,
free speech, equality, women's rights and racial diversity.
In 2008, when the Italian peace campaigner Pippa Bacca was raped and murdered
while hitchhiking across Turkey wearing a bridal gown to symbolize her desire
to spread a message of "marriage between different peoples and nations", her
death was commemorated by supporters and women's groups with the words "Hepimiz
Pippa'yiz".
Another example of the phrase has been in response to the savage attacks on
Gaza, which have prompted marches in Turkey under the banner "Hepimiz
Filistinliyiz" (We are all Palestinians).
The slogan made its first appearance in 2009, at the opening night party of the
film The Queen at the Factory. In the movie, Hande Yener, the oft-touted
Madonna of Turkish pop, plays the lead in the film which revolves around a
brother's inability to accept his sister's homosexuality. Yener started the
film's party by proclaiming Hepimiz Gay'iz.
When it first arrived the phrase was all encompassing, it seemed on a par with
John F Kennedy's Ich bin ein Berliner, or the French response to the
September 11, 2001 attacks, Nous Sommes tous Americains. After
well-documented generations of distrust and dislike between Turks and
Armenians, some felt it was an important watershed of language and symbolism
between the two ethnic groups - something Dink himself would have applauded.
Indeed, the phrase was born in the spirit of fighting racial discrimination.
The journalist Alaz Kuseyri, who was responsible for first running the headline
on the front page of the widely read Nokta news magazine, was inspired by
something he had seen two weeks earlier. At a soccer match in Istanbul, he had
watched fans of Besiktas player Pascal Nouma hang signs around the stadium that
said "Hepimiz zenciyiz" (We are all black).
The Hepimiz movement is an encouraging small sign in a country which has no
national specialized body to combat racism and no nongovernmental organizations
to fill the gap. Conservatives say Turkey has no race, but only economic,
political or social problems; liberals think differently, and recent
legislation put in place under the watchful eye of the ECRI (European
Commission against Racism and Intolerance) is a step in the right direction.
School textbooks are being evaluated to remove negative views of some minority
groups, especially Armenians. Judges and prosecutors have, since 2003,
undergone special training on the European Convention of Human Rights. The new
criminal code, adopted in 2004, stipulates a jail sentence of up to one year
for anyone who discriminates on the grounds of language, race, color or
religion in employment or access to public services.
There have also been modifications to the notorious Associations Act, which
banned organizations formed to assert differences in class, race, language or
religion. The same act now prohibits associations whose purpose is to "create
forms of discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, sect or region",
however, it still maintains the oppressive ban on those who "create minorities
on these grounds and destroy the unitary structure of the Republic of Turkey".
But how is one to truly differentiate an organization that claims a minority
exists with one whose purpose is to create a minority?
Optimists, as Hrant Dink was, like to believe that the citizens of modern
Turkey are the inheritors of the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual
rainbow that was the Ottoman Empire. They think that each separate ethnic group
can be a tributary flowing into the broad fluid stream of Turkish
consciousness, yet this seems unlikely in the short- to middle-term. Only weeks
after Hrant's killing the "Hepimiz" that surrounded his death were divided; and
once the initial shock had passed, it seemed most people were happy to be
Hrant, but not Armenian. The head of the right-wing Milliyetci Hareket Partisi
party echoed many people's thoughts when after Hrant's funeral he said; "What
does that mean? We are all Turks, we are all Mehmets (Turkish
soldiers)."
In the 2005 ECRI report on Turkey, the most common complaint was that while
Turkey talked the talk - ie, passed the legislation - it failed to walk the
walk. Although the report recognized that "changing attitudes is a much slower
process than changing the law", it made specific comment that there had been
delays in implementing the reforms and that administrative and judicial
authorities often deliberately expressed a contrary attitude to new
anti-discriminatory provisions.
Television companies like Star, instead of belittling a hopeful idea of unity
by appending it to a Hollywood has-been, would do well to promote it and the
multicultural ideas that lie behind it. Turkey's future depends on new
definitions of inclusiveness, and Hepimiz is as good a place to start as any.
Fazile Zahir is of Turkish descent, born and brought up in London. She
moved to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been writing full time since then.
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