When the Turkish flag becomes a cross!

An interesting article by Orhan Kemal CENGIZ

Flags are everywhere. On balconies, in shop windows, on taxis, some of them in huge sizes hanging from huge flagpoles and seen from everywhere. What is this symbolism all about? It is not a celebration, it is not a gesture of joy; there are some elements in it involving protest against terror, we can understand that. However, terror and the armed uprising have been routine parts of our lives for quite some time. This “flag love” is a very new phenomenon though. It was not like that before. The Turkish flag has become a symbol like the cross; every Turkish person should have and put it on a visible place in which they reside or where they work. It is the Turkish cross that will be put forward against evil forces! But who are they? Against whom did we take out our crosses? Is this country under invasion? Is this a protest against the “invaders?” Who are they? It is like in protest against an occupation people are showing their patriotism and their determination to resist!

Then our camera captures another scene in a completely different environment. A coffee house in the bus terminal in Samsun. Ogun Samast, the murderer of Hrant Dink, is in the tiny police station in the bus terminal, he is about to be transferred somewhere else. There is hectic activity in the police station. Gendarmerie and police officers are in a queue, they are in competition, and they want to get a good pose with Samast, who holds a Turkish flag in his outstretched hand! Later on we learnt that the flag he was holding was in his pocket when he fired in the neck of Dink from behind and it was given to him by one of the conspirators. Anyway, police and gendarmerie officers are satisfied because they were able to take a photo with Samast, the killer of the “Armenian.”
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