ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News
Sir Vidiadhar Suraiprasad Naipaul. AP photo
Well-known Indian-British writer Sir Vidiadhar Suraiprasad Naipaul’s invitation to speak at an Istanbul literary event has prompted controversy due to the author’s critical statements about Islam.
A number of Turkish writers invited to the European Writers Parliament have announced they will boycott the event in protest of Naipaul’s participation.
“The invitation [to Naipaul] should be canceled and the reason should be explained to him,” said writer Rasim Özdenören. Leftist writer Cezmi Ersöz said Naipaul’s invitation to the event was an insult to Muslims.
Daily Zaman writer Hilmi Yavuz was the first to withdraw his name, followed by Cihan Aktaş of daily Milli Gazete and Beşir Ayvazoğlu of Yeni Şafak.
“Islam has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples,” Naipaul, a Nobel laureate, said in 2001. “To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say, ‘My ancestral culture does not exist, it does not matter.’”
Responding to the controversy, Ahmet Kot, the literary director of the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency made an announcement and said Naipaul was invited not as the event’s guest of honor but to deliver its opening speech.
“I was expecting to get positive reactions for bringing together people with different views,” Kot said. “I still think that we are right and some writers will support us.”
The literary event will run from Thursday until Saturday.
A similar controversy occurred during this year’s Golden Orange Film Festival in Antalya, when world-famous Bosnia-Serbian director Emir Kusturica, who had been invited to participate in the festival as a jury member, withdrew from the event following protests in Turkey. The protesters claimed some of the director’s earlier comments supported war criminals during the Bosnian War in 1995.