To solve Turkey's culture clash, old elite must yield to free speech

This young bourgeoisie studied in Paris, went to nightclubs, danced and drank the night away, had premartial sex, wore mini-skirts and held big gatherings such as engagement parties or weddings in the Hilton Hotel, outpost of all things Western.

The politics in those days were within a secular discourse – communists versus nationalists. Islamism was not a political issue, but the private practice of servants, workers and provincials.

Today, that modernizing elite of the center has been displaced by the "a la Turc" Muslim middle classes from the periphery. An Islamist-rooted political party rules.

How has this displacement of the center by the periphery altered the whole project of modernization in Turkey today?

Pamuk: The fashionable Istanbul bourgeoisie is clashing with the upcoming Anatolian bourgeoisie – this is the cliche by which Turkish intellectuals try to understand what is happening. There is some truth in this, but I look at it more ethically than sociologically.

For me, the old Istanbul money and the new Anatolian money are the same class.

What is happening is that a freer, more open, more fully democratic and egalitarian society is clashing with old-fashioned conservative modernism. To solve its problems, the old, conservative Westernized elite must yield to more free speech and more democracy for the aspirations of the whole country, not just the elites.

My problem in Turkey is the intolerant political culture, whether old guard or new. This is not only true of the secularists at the center but also in rural Anatolia, Islamists as well. On crucial issues they embrace each other's intolerance.

Gardels: I was surprised to hear you say in a conversation with the Japanese Nobel laureate, Kenzaburo Oe, that you thought Japan was more Western than Turkey because it is more tolerant!

Pamuk: That's true. For me Westernization is not about consuming fanciful goods; it's about a system of free speech, democracy, egalitarianism, and respect for the people's rights and dignity.

I don't much care whether rural Anatolians or Istanbul secularists take power. I'm not close to any of them. What I care about is respect for the individual.

Gardels: Recently, the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes and I were talking about your identification with Dostoevsky, who, in his time, was angry at the West and the Westernizers in his own country who looked down on ordinary Russians. You admired him for "waging war against shallow Occidentalists, didactic writers who were always extolling the wonders of the West."

When I said this to Fuentes, he expressed surprise. "So you think Pamuk is a non-Western writer?" he asked

Are you a Western writer or a non-Western writer?

Pamuk: For 35 years I have tried to avoid this categorization. Dostoevsky was both a Western and a non-Western writer. He just despised Occidentalists who despised their own people. Dostoevsky believed, like I do, that Westernization, or now globalization, is inevitable, but it must not lead to the repression of the past, of ordinary people and their culture.

The problem with Westernization from above, as we had in both Russia and Turkey, is that is becomes a symbol of distinction among people – "a la Franc" is fashionable and glamorous, "a la Turc" is backward and pedestrian. The upper classes are so happy they are the first to have the new electric shaver because that means they are Westernized and better than everyone else! I give so many examples of this in my novel.

Like my other novels, such as "White Castle" and "My Name is Red," this novel too is of the genre we call the "East-West novel," which emerged from Turkey's identity over the past 200 years.

All these novels share the same tensions of a culture of belonging and tradition clashing with modernity coming from above and outside. Some of these books trash the West through characters such as the girl who wants to dance and ends up being a prostitute, or the other way around, who embraces the West as the girl becomes confident, independent and equal.

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