The colour of blood is snow

The trial of Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Laureate for Literature this year, was also a trial of his native Turkey, a country unwilling to face its hoary past

Prasenjit Chowdhury Kolkata

Orhan Pamuk’s trial was, to the larger world, also a trial of the progressiveness of the entire nation of Turkey. Did Pamuk become a Nobel Laureate at the expense of exposing his own country’s culture of silence and oppression, genocidal record and state assault on constitutional freedom to the whole world?

The most famous author from Turkey and Literature Nobel Laureate for 2006 spoke in February 2005 to the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger about the Turkish genocide of Armenians. He has met with unmitigated hatred ever since. His books were burned at a nationalist demonstration in Bilecik; a district administrator ordered them to be removed from libraries; and his photo was ripped apart at a rally in Isparta province. Hürriyet, Turkey’s largest newspaper, called Pamuk an “abject creature”. He was initially forced to flee Turkey because of the hate campaign being waged against him. But, then, there was an international outcry, with Amnesty International, PEN (the worldwide association of writers) and a collection of renowned authors (including Gabriel García Márquez, John Updike, Gunter Grass, Salman Rushdie and Umberto Eco) denouncing Turkey’s actions to curtail Pamuk’s right to free speech. Pamuk was able to return to his country, possibly because of this international outcry, as Turkey was afraid muzzling Pamuk would undermine its chances for becoming a member of the European Union (EU).

Somehow, the trial of Pamuk has become more symbolic than the literary oeuvre of a man who brought to light the traditionalist core of a society covered over with a thin layer of ill-seated modernity. Many commentators have stressed on the politics of the Nobel—Pamuk being among the first writers to be put on trial for mentioning the Armenian massacres of 1915, etc. Although Pamuk’s literary excellence is indubitable, his trial got more attention than what he does best—writing.

Pamuk’s writings focus on the religiosity and backwardness of Turkey and its Ottoman roots, mixed with a harking back to lost Islamic glory. They speak, too, of Ataturk’s legacy—without his élan and vision—that tries to disown its past of the Kurd and Armenian massacres, but is keen to be seen as a forward-looking nation-state built on the remnants of a decadent empire. One gets most of this in his eight novels, the most notable being My Name Is Red, The Black Book, The New Life, The White Castle and Istanbul.