This past summer, Pamuk told a German journalist that he had been advised to watch his words. But it was already too late. In a February 2005 interview with the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger, Pamuk deplored the "more than 30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians" who were killed in Turkey. "Nobody dares to say so. That's why I do it. And that's why they hate me." Protests and book burnings followed. A complaint was brought against Pamuk under Article 301 of the criminal code, which prohibits publicly denigrating Turkey. On December 16, Pamuk is due in court. A four-year prison sentence is a distinct possibility.
Pamuk is indisputably right about "certain nationalistic politicians" in his country. They evidently do not appreciate the public revelation of "life's hidden geometry." But is Pamuk equally justified in criticizing European politicians who oppose Turkey's entry into the E.U.? All he has to say about them is that they lack the imagination and empathy of the writer, and for that reason continue to paint Turkey as a dangerous "other."
Opponents of Turkish entry (who are, incidentally, supported by a large majority of E.U. citizens) not only believe that a non-European country with a completely different culture and only the most shaky beginnings of liberal democracy is ill-suited for E.U. membership. The absorption of a large country like Turkey (with a young and growing population) would also lead to a dramatic shift of power within the E.U., radically advancing the Islamization of Europe. The geopolitical argument, much beloved of American conservatives (Turkey
has been a valued member of NATO since 1952), seems weak in comparison. Arab leaders lately have become more and more positive about Turkey's accession, not only because the present Turkish government is explicitly Islamic, but also because they see strategic advantages in a European Union with Turkey among its most prominent members. They, reasonably, expect the new E.U. to counterbalance U.S. power. It is hardly a failure of imagination to wonder: What if Turkey Islamicizes Europe rather than E.U. membership westernizing Turkey?
IN HIS FRANKFURT ACCEPTANCE SPEECH, Pamuk rightly said that the East-West question is really all about the tension between tradition and modernity. These tensions have not been resolved within Europe either. European secularists, for their part, fear Turkish entry because its culture and therefore politics has clearly not progressed as far as Europe has. Secularism has been imposed on Turkish society by the army, but Islam there is as lively as ever. European conservatives on the other hand are concerned that Turkey's entry, and especially the ideology of post-Christian individualism justifying this entry, will further weaken European identity. In their view, Europe should stay far away from becoming the continent envisaged by Pamuk and his postmodern followers: a continent that is to have, like Turkey, "two souls." Pamuk holds out this double identity as the "shared future" of Europe and Turkey. To that end, "Europe has to reinvent itself as a more democratic, multi-religious society," based upon a "tolerant, antinationalistic vision"--that is, upon the imagination and the empathy of the readers and writers of novels.
In order to realize this shared future, Turkey, of course, must change as well: It must modernize, learn to tolerate its minorities, liberate itself of the persona suppressing its "whispered secrets." But Pamuk himself has spoken about the "essentially non-Western" nature of his country. Turkey is "geographically" a part of Europe, Pamuk said in an interview with Time, but "politically" it is not. The conflict between Western and Islamic values is the source of a continuous confusion about its own identity. And Pamuk the novelist is at odds with Pamuk the political commentator: His novels make abundantly clear that modernization is never a smooth process.
In My Name is Red (1998), a novel about Ottoman miniaturists from the 16th century, Pamuk describes the complexity of the tensions between tradition and modernity with unprecedented precision. Should the miniaturists, in obedience to the Koran, remain faithful to the art of painting of the old Persian masters, or should they be allowed to paint according to the new rules of European art, with its realistic perspective and freedom for individual creativity? Those who choose the European way not only put their own art but also their whole tradition and culture at risk. The "Venetian" perspective flattens everything, placing the high and the low on the same level--and thus does not offer a view of the world as seen by God. At the same time, the miniaturists realize that a continuation of their tradition is no longer possible. And so the book comes to a dead end. The miniaturists cannot stop and cannot go on. The painter who is so disconcerted by all innovations that he joins a sect to escape into the past, meets his death. But the court official who founds a secret studio in order to have the Sultan painted according to Venetian rules is also killed. And the murderer who wants to paint his own portrait at the end of the novel can only come to the conclusion that his painting is a monumental failure. Tradition is no longer a possibility; modernity is inaccessible.
"One day I read a book and my whole life changed": the unforgettable opening sentence of The New Life (1994). But the group of Turkish people who fall under the spell of this book meet their death. Those who turn on the book to salvage the values of old Turkey fall prey to fundamentalism.
In his acceptance speech in Frankfurt, Pamuk said wonderful things about the novel. His own novels, in contrast, eloquently argue that modern Turkey does not have the characteristic skills needed to read imaginatively. Young Turks do not make good novel readers.
Yes, the writer is wiser than the public intellectual. Where the artist Pamuk ends in deadlock, the public man encourages political adventures. The author in him knows that this adventure will lead to enormous difficulties, with an uncertain outcome. To put it another way: The novelist Pamuk is a conservative, the intellectual Pamuk a liberal. Is it possible to fundamentally change a country whose identity is determined by a specific religion solely through conversations, political deals, treaties--can politics change culture? In general, liberals will tend to affirm this proposition while conservatives will have some doubt. This, in the end, is the core conflict between the supporters and opponents of Turkish entry, one of the great questions of contemporary European politics.
If conservative doubts about the plausibility of forging a new cultural identity through politics prove to be correct, the consequences of Turkey's admission to the E.U. would be disastrous: for Europe, for the West, and for the United States. The argument of the "no" camp is not determined by narrow-minded, anti-Islamic nationalism, but by respect for the complexity of reality, including "life's hidden geometry," and by an understanding of the permanence of the tension between tradition and modernity. It has little to do with fear of the unknown. With Pericles, European conservatives merely affirm that "for us more is at stake than for those who do not enjoy these [democratic] prerogatives in the same measure."
Bart J. Spruyt leads the Edmund Burke Stichting, a Dutch conservative think tank. The text of Pamuk's speech is available at www.nrc.nl/redactie/Doc/pamuk.doc.
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