TRABZON, HOMETOWN OF HRANT DINK'S KILLER, A HOTBED OF TURKISH NATIONALISM

Below, we reprint a March 1st BBC report from the city of Trabzon, Turkey, the hometown of Ogun Samast (Hrant Dink's killer), and eight other accomplices charged with plotting to kill Mr. Dink. The report contends that this Black Sea coast city, to a greater degree that other Turkish towns, has given rise to a strain of blind Turkish nationalism that is virulently intolerant of others. The report cites issues such as unemployment and alienation of the young people as prime motivating factors behind this phenomenon. It fails, however, to explain why Trabzon is the focus of such ultra-nationalism and not other areas of Turkey where the same socio-economic problems are present. Then again, that's not to say such nationalist sentiments are indeed limited to Trabzon.

On match days Trabzon turns claret and blue as thousands of football fans stream towards their stadium.

The Black Sea port city was always famous for its football. The only team outside Istanbul ever to win the league title, Trabzonspor, is the pride of this place - its identity.

But the city is now notorious as home to the teenage boy and eight accomplices charged with plotting to kill ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot dead in Istanbul last month.
Some here seem proud of that connection.

When Dink was murdered, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Istanbul and declared themselves Armenian in solidarity.

In public people will say it is bad that [Hrant Dink] was killed, but to most Trabzon people he was not an intellectual - he was just an Armenian.


"People here are proud to be Turks, without thinking about what it really means. There is a blind nationalism here. Racism has flourished," says local political activist Zeynep Erdugul.

Two years ago she and her friends were beaten in the streets of Trabzon by a furious mob that mistook them for supporters of the Kurdish separatists, the PKK.

Ms Erdugul fears nationalist feeling is now climbing to dangerous new heights.
In public people will say it is bad that Hrant Dink was killed, but to most Trabzon people he was not an intellectual - he was just an Armenian," she says.

(Read the entire BBC article)