LIBERALS AND NATIONALISTS IN TURKEY FACE OFF AGAIN OVER FREEDOM OF SPEECH
by: Nicolas Birch
Eurasianet
September 19, 2006
A prize-winning Turkish novelist is scheduled to stand trial September
21 on charges of belittling Turkishness. The case is the latest in a
string of prosecutions pitting liberals against nationalists in this
European Union candidate country.
Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul <iEnd>has topped Turkish
bestseller lists since it was published in March, winning critical
praise for its portrait of the friendship between two girls, an
Armenian-American and a Turk. But the work’s direct treatment of
the mass murder of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 has also attracted the
attention of Kemal Kerincsiz, the nationalist lawyer whose rise to
prominence as an opponent of free speech has paralleled Turkey’s EU
accession process. Kerincsiz has figured prominently in a number
of high-profile free speech cases, including the prosecution last
December of Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known author. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In Shafak’s case, Kerincsiz’s gripe is not with something she said, but
with comments made by characters in her book. Sitting in his cramped
central Istanbul law office, the soft-spoken Kerincsiz doesn’t take
long to find one of the passages that offended him.
"I am the grandchild of genocide survivors who lost all their relatives
at the hands of Turkish butchers in 1915," he reads, quoting Dikran
Stamboulian, a minor Armenian character. "There’s plenty more where
this came from," he adds. Turkey and Armenia have long disputed the
tragic events of 1915, when over one million Armenians perished amid
the upheaval of World War I. Armenians insist that the actions of
Ottoman Turkish forces constituted genocide.
Turkish leaders steadfastly deny this. [For additional information
see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Shafak is being prosecuted under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal
Code. Facing a possible sentence of three years if convicted, she
is fully aware of the seriousness of her situation. "Until recently,
I took comfort in the fact that nobody had ever been convicted under
[Article] 301," she said. "Then, in June, a higher court confirmed
[the Turkish-Armenian journalist] Hrant Dink’s six-month suspended
sentence. That’s terrible news for him, and it could constitute a
precedent for me."
Shafak gave birth to her first child on September 16 and has yet to
decide whether to attend her trial. "She wants to be there to defend
herself against these ridiculous charges," her husband, Eyup Can, said
on the phone from the Istanbul hospital where his wife is recovering
from a caesarean section. "The doctors are opposed, and so am I,
to be honest."
He hasn’t forgotten the scenes outside the Istanbul courthouse
where Orhan Pamuk was tried last December. Nationalists smashed the
novelist’s car windshield and attacked his supporters as the police
looked on.
A similar welcome could be in store for Shafak. For weeks, a website
belonging to Kerincsiz’s nationalist group has called on "patriots" to
turn out in opposition to the "newly-chosen princess of capitulationist
intellectuals."
"I oppose all violence," Kerincsiz said, "but if you call somebody’s
grandfather a butcher, there is no telling what reactions will be."
"It’s an invitation to a lynching," ripostes newspaper editor Ismet
Berkan, another victim of the nationalist lawyer’s attention. "Let’s
hope the police are prepared."
If the language in the debate over Shafak’s novel is violent, it’s
ultimately because this trial is symbolic of a much deeper struggle
going on in Turkey. For nationalists like Kemal Kerincsiz, the clash
of civilizations is real, and Turkey, a Muslim country, belongs with
the East. What the European Union is trying to do, he claims, is
"strip away our Muslim and Turkish identity."
Those like Shafak who support Turkey’s integration into Western
economic and security structures, Kerincsiz says derisively, are
"world citizens, half-Turks."
Though intended as an insult, Kerincsiz’s comment doesn’t seem to
offend the Strasbourg-born Shafak, who has spent much of her life
outside Turkey. Both in her life and her work, she is an enemy of
easy categorizations. "My ideal is cosmopolitanism, refusing to
belong to either side in this polarized world," she says in her
perfect English. This attitude helped prompt her to agree to serve
as a columnist for a religious newspaper, a move that generated
considerable criticism.
"Too many people see the world in black and white, us and them.
That’s wrong. Ambiguity, synthesis: these are the things that
compose Turkish society, and that is not something to be ashamed of,"
Shafak said.
It remains to be seen which side will win the debate. Few take
Kerincsiz’s claim as the voice of the Turkish people seriously –
even the country’s ultra-nationalist political party has been put
off by the violent actions of his supporters.
But nationalism has traditionally proven a powerful force in Turkish
politics. And a growing sense among Turks that Brussels is just
playing with Ankara over the accession issue has played into the
hands of people like Kerincsiz.
"Turkey has been changing rapidly over the past five years, but it
hasn’t yet reached the point of no return," says political analyst
Umut Ozkirimli. "These are critical times."
NOTES: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.