TURKEY’S TRUE COLORS

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10/16/2008

Turkey is "guest of honor" at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair but
top novelists, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, are not just
publicizing their books. They are shining a spotlight on their
country’s murky human rights’ record.

Under the motto "Turkey in all its colors," this was meant to be the
moment the country flaunted its creative diversity to the world. But
the opening ceremony at the most important event in the book-publishing
year was a far cry from the literary love-in organizers had hoped for.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul with his wife and Nobel Laureate Orhan
Pamuk at the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

When Orhan Pamuk took to the stage at the Frankfurt Book Fair
earlier this week, addressing an influential audience including
Turkish President Abdullah Gul, he was quick to list some of the less
attractive "colors" of his homeland. "A century of banning and burning
books, of throwing writers into prison or killing them or branding them
as traitors and sending them into exile, and continuously denigrating
them in the press — none of this has enriched Turkish literature,"
Pamuk said. "It has only made it poorer."

"The state’s habit of penalizing writers and their books is still
very much alive," he told the crowd.

The winner the 2006 Nobel Prize fo r literature was speaking partly
from personal experience. He has had his own clashes with the
government. Pamuk was accused of "insulting Turkishness" after an
interview published in 2005 voiced his condemnation of the genocide
against Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I and the killing
of Kurds by Turkey in the 1980s. The charges were eventually dropped,
but many nationalists retain a grudge against the famous novelist.

In his speech, Pamuk highlighted how the controversial Article 301
(which forbids insulting Turkishness) "…continues to be used to
silence and suppress many other writers, in the same way it was
used against me. There are at this moment hundreds of writers and
journalists being prosecuted and found guilty under this article."

He also criticized the censorship of information in his
homeland. During research for his latest work, "Museum of Innocence,"
he used YouTube to research Turkish films and songs. But now YouTube,
along with a host of domestic and international Web sites, are not
accessible in Turkey "for political reasons."

When Gul took to the stage at the opening ceremony he did not directly
respond to Pamuk’s complaints. Instead he said Turkey was "really
proud" of the Nobel Prize and the fact that Turkish literature was
gaining recognition. Sticking to generalizations, he expressed his
happiness that Turkey had "gradually" brought about political and
economic reforms, but admitted20that there was "a lot yet to be done."

And observers said Pamuk had kick-started a long overdue debate. "His
every word should be translated into Turkish and made loud and clear
in Turkey — his statement conveys an important message," said Claus
Schönig, a professor at the Turkish Institute in Berlin.

Turkish Writers Shun Book Fair

And the Nobel Laureate was not alone in using the world’s biggest
book fair to focus the public gaze on freedom of expression. While
international editors ink deals and readers peruse the stands, around
20 Turkish authors are notable for their absence. Literary critic
Fusun Akatli explained the mass-boycott as a protest against the
ruling conservative AKP government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. In her view, the government is ill suited as an ambassador
for Turkish culture. She believes Erdogan’s party wants to overturn
80 years of progress and modernity in Turkey.

"Participation at the Frankfurt Book Fair goes against my world view
and my political convictions," she wrote in a declaration published
in the daily Milliyet, adding that she did not want to assist the
government in presenting its "culture veneer."

And the international defender of human rights, Amnesty International,
has also repeatedly underlined Turkey’s failure to guarantee free
speech. In its 2008 report on the country it concluded that the
"peaceful expression of opinion" continued to be restricted in l
aw and practice. "Lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders and
others were harassed, threatened, unjustly prosecuted and physically
attacked," it found.

In particular it noted that tensions had increased in the wake of the
fatal shooting of journalist and human rights defender Hrant Dink in
January 2007.

Dink was one of the most prominent voices of Turkey’s shrinking
Armenian community. Like dozens of writers including Pamuk, he had
been charged under the controversial laws for insulting Turkishness.

And some say the controversial law is counterproductive, given
its impact on Turkey’s international reputation. "There is a broad
range of people in Turkey using the "insulting turkishness" laws in
such a way that they themselves could be seen to be insulting the
country — after all they are making Turkey into a laughing stock
internationally," Schönig said.

Meanwhile, within Turkey, the pressure is on to clean up its rights’
record, to support the AKP government’s longstanding European Union
aspirations.

And in the massive halls of the Frankfurt trade fair, political
hot potatoes remain part of the program. On the schedule are podium
discussions on women’s rights, freedom of speech and Islam in Turkey:
maybe all Turkey’s "colors" will be on show after all.

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