NOBEL PRIZE WAS VICTORY FOR OUTSPOKEN NOVELIST
By Laura T. Ryan – Staff writer
Syracuse Post Standard, NY
Oct 18 2006
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk’s prize was a win for intellectual
freedom, says Colgate professor.
The awarding of a Nobel Prize to Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk
constitutes a victory to those who seek the freedom to acknowledge
Turkey’s bloody past, according to a Colgate University professor.
Last year, Pamuk was put on criminal trial for "insulting" Turkey,
by telling a Swiss newspaper his country needed to acknowledge its
role in the deaths of 1 million Armenians in 1915 and the more recent
killing of 30,000 Kurds in the 1980s.
The case eventually was thrown out.
"First andforemost, one gets a Nobel Prize for one’s art, but . . . I
think (Pamuk’s case) became a manifestation of Turkey’s struggle
with intellectual freedom and issues surrounding democracy and human
rights," said Peter Balakian, director of Colgate’s Center for Ethics
and World Societies and the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor
of the Humanities.
Balakian, a New Jersey native of Armenian descent, also is the author
of "The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response"
(2003) and "Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian
Past" (1997), which won a PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir.
Pamuk becamea lightning rod for those issues, Balakian said, and
his trial "became a cause celebre because it embodied the issues of
democracy which Turkey is failing to fully embrace, in its refusal
to acknowledge the past and its intimidation and punishment of those
who do, like Pamuk and others."
Fellow Turkish novelist Elif Shafak faced similar charges for
statements made by a fictional character in her novel "The Bastard
of Istanbul." She was acquitted last month.
Turkish publisher Zagip Zarakolu, meanwhile, faces up to 13 years in
prison for publishing books that deal with the Armenian genocide. He
published Balakian’s "Burning Tigris" in Turkey last year.
"Pamuk is part of a larger intellectual moment in Turkish culture,
a more forceful challenging of state taboos," Balakian said. "And
(writers like Pamuk and Shafak) are the hope for the future. So much
of this has been amplified by the Turks’ desire to join the European
Union, and Europe is making it clear, unless there’s intellectual
freedom, joining Europe is not going to be possible."
Arpena Mesrobian,former director of Syracuse University Press
and author of the 2000 book, "Like One Family: The Armenians of
Syracuse," said she, too, was pleased the Nobel committee chose to
honor Pamuk’s contributions at a time when his comments had landed
him in controversy.
"I think it’s delightful they reached out and chose something that
most people might not encounter," Mesrobian said.