9287313-A-Good-Society-Orhan-Pamuks-Nobel-Win.pdf

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For Mindsandmarkets.com/ Published: October 2006

T H E B A U X I T E D U S Tdescribedonthefirstpageof

V.S.Naipaul's“Guerillas”hassince1975become

the stuffof legend. “Ittells uswhatwe need to

knowaboutthehistoryandsocialorganizationof

the unnamed island on which the action takes

place,” Joan Didion has written. “[It] tells us in

one image who runsthe islandand for whose

profittheislandisrunandatwhatcosttothelife

of the island this profit has historically been

obtained,butallofthisimplicitinformationpales

in the presence of the physical fact, the dust

itself...”2

Naipaul'smostsuspensefulnovel,andsurelyone

i f his best, f inds a man and a woman, two

relativelyunassailablelingoistheroes,comefaceto face with Alan Klima’s‘funeral casino’in an

undisclosed location; a nameless, infecund

Caribbean island rotting with its politics and

British occupied v il lages, and just on the

peripheryofconsumedviolence.ThemanRoche,

a white South‐African and impatient liberal,

spendshistimeprovidingaidandbenefittothe

poorwhileengaginghisnarrativewiththeillicit

punctuations of a mendacious revolutionary,

Jimmy,“thefifties’pimpandsixties’blackpower

leader, [here] the seventies’ guerrilla,”3 as Paul

TherouxputitfortheNewYorkTimes.Didion’s

“oneimage,”atoncetransformedbythemarriage

between Naipaul's descriptions of the woman

Jane, a British Londoner, and the inescapable,

noxious bauxite plant responsible for the degradation sheso unaffectedlymoisturizesher

way through bytrial andfantasy,whenlaidout

on a table,createsthe typical rogueassemblage

so indicative of his writing– both a corrupted

mythologicalzoetrope and hand‐mirror through

which one might look and sea th e ocean

surroundingthem,orfinallyturnandface,inreal

time,thepromiseddisorderofanalltoospastic

ThirdWorld.

Despite the controversy surrounding the Nobel

Laureate for the better part of his career,

specifically the continued arguments over

whetherornotNaipaul’ssocialcriticismdoesin

fact conceal a thinly veiled preoccupation with

promotingpost‐colonialmythologyinthewakeof

Wester n pro secu tion , S ir Vidia dhar has

nevertheless managed, in the best sense, to

deliberatelyeffacehimself from his fiction. The

worst any author can do is brood over their

philosophy, or impair themselves,or opportune

the purification of the motive–as has been so

vividly po rtrayed in th e past (as well asinstructed,to Eliot’s point–warned).Effacement

isa matterof equanimity,if nota poeticof the

self, then a culture of the heart, as belief, or

behavior.Butbehaviorintheformofaliterature

of commitment (or as scripture) similar to

behaviorasaninformedrealityhowever,canbe

natural aswell asunnatural,understoodas well

as misunderstood. The combination of

mannerismanddetachmentbecomesthatquality

or condition of a body in virtue of which it

exhibitsoppositeproperties,inoppositepartsor

directions, as for example , attraction and

repulsionintheoppositepartsofamagnet,orthe

dissimilar phenomena corresponding to the

differentsidesof anincongruent ray oflight. If

taken as a core motives approach to socialpsychology,the potential of Naipaulthe witness

exhibiting discipline and purpose alongside

impulse and devotion becomes a culture of

reaction–tomakethelargestpointpossibleabout

polarity in Wester n li teratu re. That his

uncompromising contempt formany aspects of

l iberal orthodoxy can encompass a parallel

cosmosofmoodsandfeelings,ofsuddendesires

and infinite restraints, absolute joybeyond the

senses,asKrishnaonceurged,ofknowledge,love,

of peoples, oflife, anddeath, withoutsacrificing

the h uman element, o r the radiance of a

contradictory and brutally realized world is a

testamenttothepoweroftheoutsider.Sotoo,the

survivalist.

Itislegend,theapplicationandusageofmemory

puttothetestagainsttheshiftingamplificationof

pol it ical controversy and the ignominy of

particularly secretive cultural histories that

hoistedNaipaulontothepodiumattheSwedish

AcademyonDecember7,2001,anditisprimarily

forthesamereasonsthat,nearlyfiveyearslater,under a similar gauze,we see this year's Nobel

PrizeawardedtotheMiddleEast'smostcomplex

andathleticchallengerofpostmodernculpability,

the very talented, and very disturbed Orhan

Pamuk.Itisimportantforthisreportertoremind

the reader that the Nobel Foundation, i t's

programs and awards are still exceedingly

relevantto(andconsciousof)ourtimes,however

remoteandforeign“ourtimes”mayseemtothe

everydayAmerican.



A G O O D S O C I E T Y M I C H A E L L O B B A N

2

Todeepenhistoricalconsequenceinthemindof

westernreaders,especiallyinacountryasyoung

astheUnitedStates,mightbeanarguablecause

for the invariably hasty translation of Pamuk’s

novels into English. Upon meeting Orhan the

narrator of Pamuk's seventh novel “Kar,” or

“Snow” (2002, Faber & Faber Ltd.), thenovel's

hero‐poet“Ka”entreatshisfriend,“Ifyouwritea

booksetinKarsandputmeinit,I'dliketotell

your readers not to believe anything you say

aboutme[...]noonecouldunderstandusfromso

faraway.”ThatPamukinoureyes,amanunder

publicinvestigationinhishomecountryjustten

months prior to the Academy's announcement

twoweeksago,alsoappearsstrangelydistantin

the shade of his own transcendiary, fairy‐tale

quality of storytelling should not lessen the

urgency of the matter in question: that the

dampeningofpoliticalstatement,thefreedomofexpressionsorichinourhistoryandthevisibility

of social justice in contemporary politics have

becomeintheirownwayakindofunifiedtaboo,

and that in this regard, a triumph such as

Pamuk’s,in abroadersense, maynotin fact be

enough for the West to now re‐investigate the

conditionsofpublicpolicyinTurkeyanditsstill

ambiguouslyovercrowdedaccessionnegotiations

acrosstheRubiconoftheEuropeanCommission.

“Thecomedy of publicevents,”John Updikehas

written,“whereprotestandproclamationrapidly

age into melodramatic cliché, overlays certain

tragic realities of contemporary Turkey: the

poverty of opportunity that leads unemployed

men to sit endlessly in teahouses watching

television; the tension between the secularism

established by Kermal Atatürk in the nineteen‐

twentiesandtherecentriseofpoliticalIslam;the

burning issue of women's headscarves; the

cultural dividebetweena Westernizedélite and

thetheisticmasses[...]”4

Setinthelate1990s,andatmosphericallysimilar

to thesecluded, illusory microcosm of Naipaul's

“Guerilla's,”“Snow” compelsits modernist heart

of darkness toward more than one of these

indiscretions,embracingtheimpulsivequalityof

memory(thetruenatureofstorytelling)withthespectral confidence of itspondering heroKerim

Alakusoglu,“Ka”asheinsistsuponbeingcalled,a

politicalexilenowlivinginGermanywhoreturns

toIstanbulforthefirsttimein overa decadeto

buryhismother.Atthesuggestionofauniversity

friend, Ka then travels to the northeastern

Anatolian city of Kars, taken from the word

“karsu,”meaning“snow‐water,”toreportonthe

pro‐Islamist municipal elections there and

investigate an epidemic of young women's

suicides for a pro‐secular Cumhuriyet

(“Republic”)newspaper.

“Snow” is suspense‐drama,experimentalfiction,

andessentiallyaworkforthetheater,unfolding

overaperiodofthreedaysduringwhichKarsis

isolatedfromtherestoftheworldbyaperennial

snowstorm. The result is extremely cinematic,

and often quite brilliant in its physicality– in

whichchaosandperceptionintermingletoform,

despite certain literary judgments, a kind of

compulsivelyreadable,poeticvisualuniverse.

Pamuk’s plot, guided by a sincere hand and a

convincing, near‐twin first‐person, occasionally

omniscient nar rative, swings o n Rich ard

Schechner’s “entertainment‐efficacy braid”

between a series of mini‐coup's , s taged as

televised public performances by a secularist

group at theKars National Theater(one might

briefly consider, with closed eyes, scenes from

PeterSellars2003 A.R.T.productionof the“The

ChildrenofHerakles”inimaginingtheseevents),

and the complex involvement of a stable of

characters, including Ka’s sympathetic love‐

interest Ipek,with the eruptionof suicidesby a

group of female students prohibited from

attending local schools because of a chivvied

refusal to remove their headscarves– an inflammatory symbol, insisted upon by pro‐

secularTurkey,ofIslamicmilitancy.

In his BookerPrize‐winning novel,“The English

Patient,”MichaelOndaatjewrites,“Thereis,after

Herodotus, little interest bythe Western world

towardsthedesertfor hundredsof years.From

425B.C.tothebeginningofthetwentiethcentury

thereisanavertingofeyes.Silence.”Turkey,still

a strategic bedrock of development for both

Europe andAsia, thoughhistoricallynot inany

wayrelative to theEnglish‐occupied deserts of

the 1920s, has long since the days of Kemal

Atatürk’sReformmovementmaintainedaquality

of th at silence f rom one gallery of Euro ‐

skepticismto another, seeking its own form of

Europeanesswithastringentrelianceonprotocol

andastartlingcommitmentto thevaluesofthe

liberal Europethat surfaced inthe wake of the

secondThirtyYearsWar.

Thissilencehowever,isapublicproto‐nationalist

“mum,” both profoundly clever and extremely

real,composedofanaxislinkingtheinternational

aggravation of Greco‐Turkish relations and the

Cyprus dispute with the problem of Turkey's

socio‐political fault‐line’s: Kurdish/Turkish,

Alevi‐Sunni, Islamist/Secular, and of course,

Rich/Poor.Thesefault‐linesaretheplaitsoffire

that weave and su ccor Pa muk's poli tical

extremisttapestry“Snow”intodaedallyarranged

frozen imagesjust asironically opposed toone

anotherascontemporaryTurkishidentityistoits

agingEuropeanaspirations.




3

“Thisplayfulnessorironymaybearesponsetoa

literarydilemma,”JamesBuchanhaswritten.“To

useaEuropeanliteraryformsuchasthenovelin

Turkey is,inan importantsense,to allyoneself

with European notionsof individualism,liberty

anddemocracy,thatevenwhentheyareupheld(rather than breached) are meaningless to

traditionalMuslims.LibertyinIslamistheliberty

to be a Muslim, democracy likewise,

individualismlikewise.”5

We spoil our lovers. We spoil ourselves. To

understand Turkey’s European vocation andthe

consideratio n that an ind ividual, liberal

democratic orderis themost assured guarantee

of the state's unity, as well as i ts futu re

prosperity, is to first understand the flaws in

those basic assumptions advising economic

theory toward modernization, and secondly, to

re‐evaluate its relationship with Germany and

America.

WhiletheUnitedStatesis nota memberof the

European Union, it has close bilateral ties to

Turkey and has been a strong advocate of

Turkey's membership in the EU. Washington

viewsthecontinuingdecisionaboutaccessionas

a strategic choice which will affect the future

politicalorientationofTurkeyandtheEUaswell

as broader , more immediate U.S . s trategic

interestsintheGreaterMiddleEastandBlackSea

region– suggestionsthatthedebate may infact

stillhaveanaudiencelargerthanjustAnkaraand

Copenhagen, in addition to a seat at Angela

Merkel’stable.

Turkey’s political evolutionary history since

September11isjustascomplicatedasanyother.

The anomaly of Recep TayyipErdoğan'sJustice

and Development Party (AKP) since the 2002

elections have kept both Washington and EU

Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn on their

toes, despite the general appearance of good

intentions.

It is worth mentioning here that Mr. Rehn has

takenadvantageof hiswelcomed reputation for

ceremonial laxity during his repeated visits to

Turkey by drawing on the many remarkable,

otherwiseimpoliticsimilaritiesbetweenhisown

country’s (Finland) political mythology and

Kemal Atatürk's luminously apparent influence

on that history. “It is well known that Atatürk

madethebook‘TheLandofWhiteLilies,’which

describes the rise of Finnish national

consciousnessthrougheducationandcivicaction,

compulsory reading in theTurkish schools; thesuperhuman of the book is J.V. Snellman, the

national philosopher. It is also known that

AtatürkwasanadmirerofGeneralMannerheim,

laterthedefenderof Western democracyin the

WinterWar.The chainmoveson thoughin the

reverse direction as Urho Kekkonen, long‐time

PresidentofFinland,studiedAtatürk’sreformsin

hisyouthandpursuedpoliciesinFinlandwhose

similarityto‘kemalism’isobvious–astrongstate

based on national unity andequal opportunity.

But while we in Finland hail Snellman as the

philosopher, Mannerheim as the military leaderandKekkonenasthestatesman,Turkeyseemsto

haveallthreequalitiesinjustoneperson,Kemal

Atatürk!”6

Thereis, withexpectancyon foreigninvestment

screeningtocometoanend,aregionalproposal

fo r th e increase in capitol leg islation on

intellectualpropertiestofollowthegovernment’s

WTO prompted liberalization of Turkey's tele‐

communications sector in 2004. That such

diverse, economicties withthe European Union

have led to Turkey's integrated competition in

world markets is a testament to the quality,

confidence, and eagerness of a considerably

westerniz ed do mest ic wor kforce with an

appreciationforforeignlabormodels,goodsandservices,and a desire tobecome theexemplary

momentumbehindattemptstobringstabilization

to the Middle East. All this despite debates

questioningwhetherornotTurkeyevenbelongs

to Europe geographically, and the impact

Erdoğan's actual economy and impoverished

popu lation will have on EU bu dgets and

institutions.

However critical, Rehn temporarily nudged this

assertionoutofviewbeforeanengagedaudience

in Istanbul at the group meeting of the

Greens/EFA of the European Parliament in

October of 2004. “The budgetary impact of

TurkishEU membershipis obviouslyrelated to

theparametersofthefinancialperspectivesand

key spending pol icies from 2014 onwards .

TransferstoTurkey,andthusthenetbudgetary

costfortheEU,woulddependon anumberof

variables,suchastheEUagriculturalandregional

policies,aswellasthearrangementsagreedwith

Turkeyin the negotiations.I want to underline

thatthereisnoautomaticextrapolationofcosts

on the basis of current budget figures. The

outcomeislargelyinourownhands.” 7

On Monday, those hands went behind closed

doors as Finnish Foreign Affairs Minister Erkki

Tuomioja conducted behind‐the‐scenes

negotiations to persuade Ankara’s Foreign

MinisterAbdullahGultoopenitsportstoGreek

CypriotshipsinexchangeforliftinganEUtrade

embargo on Turkish‐occupied northern Cyprus,

saidtheBBC'sOanaLungescuinLuxembourg.




4

“Thereisaseriousriskthataccessiontalkscould

beatleastpartiallysuspendedbytheendofthe

year.Themoodmusicseemsmuchmorepositive

than expected, with both Mr. Gul and Mr.

Tuomiojasoundingconfidentthatasolutioncan

befound.”8AnewglobalembracewithreformatthehandsoftheAKPhasbeenswift,butnotswift

enough. In anticipation of a recognizable

consensustothe2004ReportoftheIndependent

CommissiononTurkey(AproductoftheBritish

CouncilandtheSorosFoundation’sOpenSociety

Institute,interestinglyenough),thesinequanon

foraccession:judicialreform;areturntovillages;

ongoing cases of torture; religious freedom;

women's rights; the Kurdish question; and

furtheringciviliancontrolofthegovernmentare

allkeyoutlierswhichremaintobeaddressedvia

public interest outside the scope of efforts put

forthbyTurkey’sintellectuallyelitealone.Ankara

must now, andfinallyseta courseto make the

steps visible in its own eyes as the just path

towardmodernization.

“What’smoreimportant,adecreefromAnkaraor

a decree from God?” asks a fervent Islamist in

Pamuk’s “Snow”. While the West is suited to

ponder this question ad finitum throughout

negotiations,andmaynot,intheend,beableto

concedeanyformofdemocracyachievedbythehandsofthoseenemieswhoinnowayresemble

them,thereareandwillbeotherstoquicklycarry

out a response to a clear indication of double‐

standards;aresponsethat,intheirmind,mayjust

aswellbeacceptedbyboth.

[1] “A Good Start” by Khurram Naik for the Sunday, August 20, 2006 installment of Minds and Markets.

[2] “Without Regret or Hope” by Joan Didion for the June 12, 1980 The New York Review of Books.

[3] “Guerillas: An Intelligence from the Third World” by Paul Theroux writing in the November 16, 1975 New York Times

Book Review of V.S. Naipaul’s novel “Guerillas”.

[4] “Anatolian Arabesques” by John Updike writing in the August 30, 2006 issue of The New Yorker Magazine review of

Orhan Pamuk’s novel “Snow”.

[5] “Frozen Assets” by James Buchan writing in the Saturday, May 29, 2004 issue of The Guardian Review of OrhanPamuk’s novel “Snow”.

[6] “ Turkey and the EU: A Common Future?” by Olli Rehn, European Commissioner-designate for Enlargement: Group

meeting of the Greens/EFA of the European Parliament, Istanbul, 20 October 2004, provided by EuropaWorld.

[7] “ Turkey and the EU: A Common Future?” by Olli Rehn, European Commissioner-designate for Enlargement: Group

meeting of the Greens/EFA of the European Parliament, Istanbul, 20 October 2004, provided by EuropaWorld.

[8] Turkey and Serbia chivvied by EU” Oana Lungescu reporting for the BBC News, Monday, October 16, 2006

Writer and essayist Michael Lobban was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1983. For the research label Atelier

Vasari he has contributed to and edited the annual trend study Engaging The Funder , exploring key

domestic venture philanthropic and social entrepreneurship paradigm shifts, emerging markets, and the

global network culture serving museums, archives and libraries, public media outlets, and foundations

internationally. His creative non-fiction includes the zine Supernature, a collection of musings on keynote

trends in the globalization, immigration, technology, and economic debate, and Peacekeeping, observations

from the evolving 'diplomacy in motion' of French Minister of Foreign & European Affairs and Doctors

Without Borders co-founder Bernard Kouchner, with critical essays on the fiction of V.S. Naipaul, J.M.

Coetzee, and Michael Ondaatje, (The Ecology of Distance), Kazuo Ishiguro (The Modernist Ideal), Haruki

Murakami (Japanese Cinema), and Martin Amis (Serious Money). His stories include Buckaroo Holiday ,

Dacoit of Sindh, The Panic Artist , Russia is Russia, and Horseface. He has written a novella, Hidden, a

collection of poetry, Gentle Creatures, and is currently at work on the novels Failure and Evening Byzantine.

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