Financial Times (London, England)
October 13, 2006 Friday
London Edition 2
Award for Turkish writer strikes a blow for freedom of speech
By QUENTIN PEEL
The award of the Nobel Prize for literature to Orhan Pamuk, the
Turkish novelist, is a very good thing for freedom of speech and a
great achievement for Turkey.
It comes at a moment when freedom of speech is under serious attack
around the world: from the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, the
campaigning Russian journalist, in Moscow on Sunday, to the vote in
the French national assembly yesterday seeking to make it a crime for
anyone to deny that Armenians suffered genocide in Turkey during the
first world war.
Free debate about Islam is under fire in Europe, as is free debate
about Israel in the US. Those who would like to see a clash of
civilisations seem equally intent on suppressing open and tolerant
discussion.
Mr Pamuk is a good choice for the Nobel prize because of his writing.
He belongs to a modern Turkish literary tradition – republican,
secular, European-minded – that is deeply embedded in the history of
his country. He shines a light on the tensions between past and
present, secularism and Islam, and the "clash and interlacing of
cultures", as the citation says. His novels make a uniquely Turkish
contribution to world literature.
Yet his choice is also political, because he was charged last
December in Istanbul under article 301 of the Turkish penal code with
insulting "Turkishness, the republic and state institutions": he
dared to criticise his country for denying its historical
responsibility in the massacre of Armenians and Kurds. The case was
dropped, but the absurd and archaic law remains.
Turkey fails to face up to the systematic persecution and massacre of
the Armenians that began in 1915. The subject is glossed over in
Turkish debate and in Turkish history books. For the Armenian
diaspora it is seen as a fundamental historical injustice. It is a
real political question in many parts of Europe (especially France)
and America that will not simply disappear by being ignored. But the
idea of seeking to criminalise "denial" of a genocide, as the French
parliamentarians would do, is itself intolerant and a denial of free
speech.
Catherine Colonna, the French minister for Europe, said yesterday it
was for historians, not legislators, to "illuminate history". You
cannot rewrite history books by law, she said.
The French assembly’s vote on the Armenian resolution was feeble,
even if few dared oppose it. The overwhelming majority stayed away,
apparently out of fear at being seen to vote either way. If the
Senate acts responsibly, it will simply kill the bill.
There is a danger that popular reaction in Turkey, stoked by
nationalists, will see both the French vote, and the Nobel Prize for
Mr Pamuk, as all part of some international conspiracy. That is quite
wrong.
Mr Pamuk and fellow writers and intellectuals in Turkey have spoken
out against the French bill. They are as appalled by the idea of
criminalising genocide denial as they are by article 301 in their own
country’s penal code, criminalising anyone who dares use the word.
They also warn against another possible European reaction: to use
article 301, and its exploitation by a small group of Turkish
nationalists, as a reason to postpone or block Ankara’s EU membership
application. That is precisely what the nationalists want. Indeed,
the real conspiracy may be between Turkish and Armenian nationalists,
both of whom want to preserve the old enmity, and keep Turkey out of
the EU, rather than heal the wounds of history.