OKTAY EKSI: A TURK IN STOCKHOLM

Hurriyet, Turkey
Dec 7 2006

These days in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, there is an event
taking place which has occured only in the dreams of our generation,
not to mention those of many generations before us: a Turk is
receiving, for the first time ever, a Nobel prize.

And no one can diminish this, no one can insult it, no one can say
"I wish we hadn’t gotten this." Which is why an experienced cadre
of Turkish journalists has gone off to Stockholm to stand by author
Orhan Pamuk when he received his award.

I wish that all of us here in Turkey, and in fact every Turk all over
the world, could experience the great pleasure of this extraordinary
event, a process which begins today, and ends on December 10, with
a dinner given by the Swedish King.

If only we could all celebrate, some with champagne, others with
whatever they liked….

But that’s not going to happen….

The writer of these lines you are reading now has been deeply angry,
ever since the publication of Orhan Pamuk’s statement that "Turkey
has killed 1 million Armenians and 30 thousand Kurds," a statement to
which he added the opinion that "no one but him would be able to say
these facts." Because it is difficult not to think that this award
was given to Pamuk precisely for those words.

In recent news reports, we have read that Pamuk has declined to answer
politically-oriented questions posed to him by reporters. Why?

Whatever "history" and proof Pamuk based his comments on originally,
he could have later added "I am not a historian. I have no real ideas
on these subjects."

But he didn’t. Let me say this clearly:

As far as we can understand, these political questions do not sit well
with his conscience. He somehow can’t escape from the doubt that he
got the award more for his own political comments than for the books
he has written.

A friend of mine noted, right after the news of Pamuk’s Nobel, that
"Those sentences he spoke will be forgotten, but 30 years later,
the fact that Pamuk won the Nobel will remain."

Brutus also thought that those plotting against Caesar were actually
doing Rome a favor. But how do we remember Brutus now?