Let’s Talk About the Living

Abstract

Three years ago, the Armenian writer Nouritza Matossian began filming a series of conversations with her friend Hrant Dink. They were part of a work in progress and she had not even begun editing them. With Dink’s sudden and shocking murder, the interviews have become a fascinating and moving testament to the man. When Matossian showed extracts to an audience that had gathered in his memory in London on 28 February, they revealed a human, humorous, brave individual and made his passing all the more poignant. The extracts which follow are from a conversation filmed in late October 2005 in his office at the AGOS newspaper in Istanbul. Dink had just been sentenced for ‘insulting Turkishness’ under the infamous Article 301, for words taken out of context and misconstrued from an article, urging diaspora Armenians to give up their hatred of Turks. His six month sentence was suspended and he was receiving innumerable death threats. Two other charges against him were still pending, during which time he was forbidden from speaking and writing about his trial. This exchange adds much to our understanding of what motivated him and what he was hoping to achieve. It is also an intimate conversation between two friends.