REHABILITATING PAMUK
By Suat Kiniklioglu

Turkish Daily News
December 13, 2006 Wednesday

It first started with interviews conducted by Hadi Uluengin and then
Yasemin Congar in the U.S. Then, most of our media followed suit.

These days not a day passes by without a news piece about Pamuk.

Pamuk arriving in Turkey; Pamuk waiting for his luggage at the airport
or Pamuk leaving Turkey for Sweden. Even Pamuk paying his airport
exit tax (just like every Turkish citizen has to) became worthy of
the news. It appeared as if someone pushed on a button and asked our
media to facilitate the rehabilitation of Orhan Pamuk in Turkish public
opinion. With the exception of Hurriyet’s Oktay Eksi I could not see
any comment that exhibited some honesty about what was going on.

Regardless of how hard Turkey’s dominant media outlets try; in the
eyes of most Turks Pamuk remains suspect. That is rightly so.

Because, as Pamuk himself knows as well, his infamous comments to the
Swiss Tagesanzeiger damaged Turkey’s reputation considerably. I think
Pamuk is a very creative writer. I have read some of his books and
found them extremely good. The New Life was truly breathtaking for
me. I remained under its influence for weeks. There is no doubt that
his more recent books have helped attract more international interest
in Istanbul and Turkey. He is also very successful in conveying the
tensions felt by many Turkish intellectuals the vagaries of a dual
life between East and West. For all of these I have great respect
for the man.

Yet, since his infamous remarks there is a shadow upon him, his work
and his intellectual honesty. A shadow I most felt when he was on
CNN Turk where he in a most apologetic manner repeatedly noted that
he was "misunderstood". I could not understand what he was trying to
explain. After all, he claimed to be one of the few people in Turkey
who "dared" to say that we killed one million Armenians and thirty
thousand Kurds. I was truly perplexed. Admittedly, I would have had
more respect for him if he had dared to tell us Turks as well what
he had said to the Tagesanzeiger. Although I do not agree with him,
at least he would have had exhibited some intellectual honesty and
consistency.

I criticized Article 301 when it put the kinds of Elif Safak and
Orhan Pamuk in front of a court for what they said or wrote. To this
day, such cases remain incompatible with our democracy and constitute
embarrassing road blocks for our EU ambitions. Furthermore, we do not
need court cases or articles in the penal code to win the argument
on the Armenian issue. We will win this debate intellectually, not
through court cases. We will continue to argue that the unfortunate
events of 1915 can only be understood by putting them into a proper
context. We will provide the intellectual evidence for the case that
the losses were common during those existential days in the eastern
front of World War I. Our own intellectual honesty will undoubtedly
appreciate the tragic losses suffered by the Ottoman Armenians. We
acknowledge that Anatolia’s social fabric has yet to recover from the
relocation of them to the southern provinces of the Empire. However,
we also commemorate the losses of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman
Muslims while defending their homeland against invading Russians and
nationalist Armenians who genuinely believed they could set up an
independent Armenia just like the Serbs and Bulgarians managed to do.

What is most distasteful about Pamuk is that to this day he does
not seem to understand that his irresponsible comments did not help
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. On the contrary, they embellished the
Armenian narrative and are being effectively used by those Armenians
who believe that the only way to further their nationalist agendas is
to force Turkey to recognize what they define as "genocide". This is
what is so offensive to us Turks. To those hundreds of thousands who
have lost their loved ones in the eastern front. To those hundreds
of thousands who were pushed out from every corner of the Ottoman
Empire. To those who had to leave their lives, memories and properties
in the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle East. To those who were
ruthlessly cleansed in Greece, Crete, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Albania,
Macedonia, the Caucasus and could only find refuge in impoverished
Anatolia. True, we were not able to narrate our tragic experiences
effectively. We also failed to articulate the context and events
of 1915 in a proper manner. Yet, that does not mean we have not
experienced them.

What troubles me most is that Pamuk had no illusions about what
his words meant and how controversial they could be. Watching his
performance at the Nobel Academy he seems to have finally understood
he has no place and credibility to talk about the Armenian issue. His
repeated comments that he "belongs to Turkey" or "does not want to
talk about politics" surely reflect newly acquired wisdom. It has
dawned on him that when the dust settles he will dwell among millions
of deeply offended Turks. No wonder he wants to bring his human side
to the fore and is distancing himself from his infamous comments.

However, the damage has been done and it will be extremely difficult
for him to recover from this. Pamuk may have conquered the world
of literature but in the eyes of the Turkish nation he will remain
tainted with the shadow of his comments. In his Nobel lecture Pamuk
referred to "patiently discovering our secret wounds". While leaving
him alone with his conscience it might be best for him to recognize
the true extent of "our common wounds".