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

Gardels: So you are an "in-between" writer?

Pamuk: I take this as a compliment. But I didn't choose this role. It happened to me.

Gardels: Since Europe has for all intents and purposes shut the door on Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has instead projected Turkey as a neo-Ottoman regional power in the Muslim Middle East instead of a mere NATO appendage or European supplicant.

Recently, Turkey cancelled some military exercises with Israel because of the Gaza war and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself has embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's suspect election victory in Iran.

This has begun to worry some in the West these days who are concerned that Turkey is turning from "West to the East," toward the Muslim world. Is Turkey "turning East," or is it just getting bigger and more influential in the middle, proud of itself and its own unique identity?

As for Turkey's part, a top AKP diplomat reassured me in Istanbul recently, "Without its Western orientation, Turkey would be just another Muslim country."

Pamuk: I don't think Turkey can change the political path of the past eight years that easily. Erdogan enjoys power because he dangles the carrot of Europe, which paves the way for more democracy in Turkey. But, certainly, the situation between Turkey and Europe is not so sunny as it was in 2005. Then, I was more optimistic. Turkish papers talked in those days about joining Europe within 10 years! Nothing of that sort will happen. Conservatives in both Europe and Turkey have successfully, unfortunately, blocked the process. I'm sad about that.

Gardels: Ironically, while the modernizing elites in Turkey who looked West were characterized as "a la Franc," it is President Nicolas Sarkozy of France today who is the main opponent of Turkey entering the European Union!

Pamuk: Hah. Yes. You are right. It is ironic. Sarkozy gathers he can get some votes from this position. But if Sarkozy didn't exist, Europe would invent him. He happens to be the most agitated and voluble, so they let him do the talking.

Gardels: Your novels have been all about your life in Turkey. Since winning the Nobel Prize in 2006, you are as likely to show up in Tokyo or New York as on the shores of the Bosporous. Has this affected your writing?

Pamuk: I'm sure it will. Until the age of 33, I only left Turkey once. I had never seen an actual Western painting. At that time there were only reproductions in Turkey. But I read Western books and studied Monet reproductions with more intensity than a European strolling through the Louvre.

I'm teaching a course at Columbia and traveling the world, writing in airplanes. But my happiness goes with me wherever I write. And, since my books have been translated into 57 languages, I have a responsibility now to all those readers.

© 2009 Global Viewpoint/Tribune Media Services. Hosted online by the Christian Science Monitor

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