Birand Represented Turkish Journalism at Its Best

Mehmet Ali Birand’s funeral Saturday [Jan. 19] was one of the most crowded that Istanbul has seen in the past half-century.

Like many things in Istanbul, the mosques have their symbolism, too. Take, for example, one of the oldest — the Fatih Mosque, built in the Old City on the shores of the Golden Horn by Mehmed the Conqueror, who took the city in the 15th century and is himself buried there. It hosts funeral prayers for people who represent mostly Turkey’s Ottoman traditions and are generally known for their Islamist or conservative profiles. President Turgut Ozal, for instance, was laid to rest after funeral prayers at that mosque in 1993, in one of the most crowded and grandiose ceremonies that Istanbul has ever seen.

The next most spectacular funeral that Istanbul witnessed was the one of Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist, thinker and activist, who was shot dead in broad daylight outside the offices of his newspaper on Jan. 19, 2007. Dink was gunned down on the other side of the Golden Horn, in the center of Republican-era Istanbul. Since he was a Christian, his funeral was not held in a mosque. The ceremonies, which began outside his Agos newspaper, brought life in Istanbul to a halt. A procession of 200,000 people, many carrying banners that read “We are all Hrant” and “We are all Armenian,” marched in silence to the tune of “Blond Bride,” Hrant’s favorite Anatolian folk song. Their march to the Armenian Church across the Golden Horn took several hours, and, despite the silence, became one of the most eloquent, dignified and “meaningful” demonstrations in the history of Turkish democracy.

The 19th-century Tesvikiye Mosque — situated close to where Hrant Dink was killed on the northern shore of the Golden Horn on the city’s European side, the center of Republican Istanbul -- has its own symbolism. It hosts the funeral prayers of the Republican elite, aka the “white Turks,’’ or, in a sense, the ‘’Turkish WASPs.’’