East Starts Here

Orhan Pamuk, the great Turkish novelist, has seen both his share of critical acclaim and nationalist persecution. His troubles started after a remark about the Armenian genocide. A over-zealous prosecutor and a jumpy state has made his case a cause-celebré [you know you have arrived when either Bono or Rushdie takes up your case].

I have followed the case through the excellent blog [verbal privilege] of Elizabeth, who has written with great insight into this matter from Istanbul: See here and here, esp.

In this weekend's Guardian, is the text of a speech given by Pamuk at the occasion of accepting the 2005 Friedenspreis, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. It is essential reading - covering nationalist shame and pride, the power of a novelists imagination and the connective tissue between East and West.

We've arrived at a point where we must choose between the power of a novelist's imagination and the sort of nationalism that condones burning his books. Over the past few years, I have spoken a great deal about Turkey and its EU bid, and often I've been met with grimaces and suspicious questions. So let me answer them here and now. The most important thing that Turkey and the Turkish people have to offer Europe and Germany is, without a doubt, peace; it is the security and strength that will come from a Muslim country's desire to join Europe, and this peaceful desire's ratification. The great novelists I read as a child and a young man did not define Europe by its Christian faith but by its individuals. It was because they described Europe through heroes who were struggling to free themselves, express their creativity and make their dreams come true, that their novels spoke to my heart. Europe has gained the respect of the non-western world for the ideals it has done so much to nurture: liberty, equality and fraternity. If Europe's soul is enlightenment, equality and democracy, if it is to be a union predicated on peace, then Turkey has a place in it. A Europe defining itself on narrow Christian terms will, like a Turkey that tries to derive its strength only from its religion, be an inward-looking place divorced from reality, and more bound to the past than to the future.