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Hrant Dink
Alan Whitehorn
In the fields of Anatolia,
another,
more recent victim of genocide
joins his ancestors.
As we did before,
we mourn the loss.
January 20, 2007
Remembering Hrant Dink
Alan Whitehorn
Almost a century ago,
amidst the crumbling Ottoman Empire,
Turkish militants slaughtered over a million Christian Armenians,
piercing forever the heart and soul of the Armenian nation.
These Young Turk revolutionaries ruthlessly grabbed
the victims’ ancestral lands and possessions.
Today,
the Turkish government denies that its predecessors
even committed a genocide.
And yet,
this state is ever so fearful that the beam of truth will pierce the cloud of lies.
The government in Ankara prosecutes the few brave writers and activists
who dare to question the regime’s repeated lies.
Meanwhile,
fanatics try to finish the deeds of long ago.
An assassin’s bullets
rip through yet another Armenian.
The mindless brutality continues to shock.But the spirit of one special man and a nation survive.
An empathetic chorus cries out:
“We remember. We do not forget.
Truth will prevail.”
And so, we raise our voice in peaceful protest.
We remember the multitude of dead, as if it were yesterday,
and the ever so brave man who died today.
If need be,
we will even mourn tomorrow’s dead.
But we will no longer be silent victims.
No more.
Never again.
We say ‘Never again’.
We remember
that piercing pain.
We remember.
And we are resolute.
Hrant,
we remember
your brave resistance.
Hrant Dink,
another victim of genocide,
but not a silent one.
Your voice inspires us still.
We remember.
January 19-20, 2007
Alan Whitehorn is an Armenian-Canadian author and academic. He is a grandson of an orphan of the Armenian genocide. Dr. Whitehorn is Professor of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. He is also a cross-appointed professor at Queen’s University in Kingston and an Associate of the Institute for Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver/Burnaby. He received his BA from York University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Carleton University. While at Carleton University, he was research director on David Lewis's memoirs The Good Fight.
For almost three decades Professor Whitehorn has taught at RMC in the areas of Canadian political parties, public opinion, comparative politics and political theory. Dr. Whitehorn was the first holder of the J.S. Woodsworth chair in Humanities at Simon Fraser University. During 1997/1998 he was a visiting associate at McGill University and adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University. In 2005, he was a visiting professor at Carleton University.
Amongst his publications are a number of articles, chapters and poems on the Armenian genocide, including the book The Armenian Genocide: Resisting the Inertia of Indifference (co-author with Lorne Shirinian). Professor Whitehorn has published a number of writings on the former Yugoslavia. He has written extensively on Canadian politics both in scholarly books and in newspapers and magazines. He is the author of Canadian Socialism: Essays on the CCF-NDP, Political Activists: The NDP in Convention (co-author with Keith Archer), and co-editor (with Hugh G. Thorburn) of Party Politics in Canada (8th). His earlier book with Hybrid Press was Poems: Political and Philosophical.
Professor Whitehorn has written a number of entries for The Canadian Encyclopedia, Oxford Companion to Canadian History, and The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan. He has chapters in the following books: Party Politics in Canada, Party Democracy in Canada, The Canadian General Election of 1988, Leaders and Leadership in Canadian Politics, The Canadian General Election of 1993, Gender and Contemporary Canadian Politics, The Canadian General Election of 1997, The Canadian General Election of 2000, Mapping Canadian Federalism for India, The Canadian General Election of 2004, The Canadian Federal Election of 2006, Canadian Parties in Transition and Yearbook on International Communist Affairs .
Ancestral Voices:
Identity, Ethnic Roots and a Genocide Remembered
- by Alan Whitehorn
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