Naipaul, Turkish Authors Pull Out of Istanbul Writers’ Conference

By AYLA ALBAYRAK

ISTANBUL—Nobel Prize-winning author Sir V.S. Naipaul has pulled out of a writers’ conference in Istanbul that starts Thursday, pressured by religious conservative media in Turkey that objected to statements he has made on Islam.

The move sparked two Turkish authors to pull out of the event, its organizers said Wednesday.

Mr. Naipaul, author of some 30 books, had been due to give the opening speech at the European Parliament of Writers, a literary event organized here to mark Istanbul’s status as a European Capital of Culture this year.

For the past week, however, religious conservative Turkish newspapers, including Yeni Safak and Zaman, have been campaigning against the decision to honor Mr. Naipaul, a 78-year-old Trinidadian of Indian origin. While some Turkish authors supported his right to attend the conference, defending him on grounds of free speech, others said they would boycott the event if he attended.

“How can our writers bear to sit by the same table with Naipaul, who has seen Muslims worthy of so many insults?” wrote poet and Zaman columnist Hilmi Yavuz, who initiated the planned boycott last week and described Mr. Naipaul as “an enemy of Islam” and “a colonialist.”

The uproar over Mr. Naipaul’s participation exposed the continued sensitivity of religion in modern, officially secular Turkey, even as it seeks to join the European Union. Free speech also remains fragile, with hundreds of journalists facing trial over their articles and thousands of websites banned under a 2007 law.

“In these days when it is often said how we are opening up to the world, this case showed how closed we still are,” liberal journalist Ece Temelkuran wrote in Haber Turk newspaper.

Mr. Naipaul, through his agency, declined to comment. A statement by the agency confirmed that the writer had decided not to attend due to the strong Turkish reactions, a decision it said was made Tuesday by Mr. Naipaul and the event’s organizers.

“The politicization of the conference in the Turkish media in regards to Sir V.S. Naipaul’s participation has altered the original conception of the event and [his] contribution to it as a celebrated author,” the statement said.

“We feel disturbed about how things came to this point and how meaningless [the debate] has been,” said Ahmet Kot, literary director of the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency.

The organizers said that by Wednesday evening in Istanbul, Turkish writers Murat Uyurkulak and Cem Akas, the latter of whom was scheduled to moderate a panel discussion, had withdrawn to protest the cancellation of Mr. Naipaul’s visit.

Mr. Akas couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Mr. Uyurkulak said in a telephone interview he made his decision in support of freedom of expression.

“I am not a fan of Naipaul. I don’t really like him. But I don’t want to take part in a literary event where somebody is being boycotted because of what he says,” Mr. Uyurkulak said. “If we cannot host someone who represent opposing views as he pleases, if we cannot listen to them, we have a problem.”

The organizers added that all foreign writers were already en route or already in Istanbul, and that none had so far canceled appearances.

Mr. Naipaul’s views on Islam, including those in 1981’s nonfiction “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey” and the 1998 “Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples,” have sparked anger in the Muslim world. Opponents of his visit to Turkey have cited several of his books as offensive and objected to his characterization of Islam as “imperialist.”

Islam “has had a calamitous effect on converted people,” Mr. Naipaul said in 2001 after a book reading in London. “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 doesn’t matter.’”

The European Writer’s Parliament was conceived by Turkey’s sole winner of a Nobel Prize for literature, novelist Orhan Pamuk, together with Jose Samarago, the Portuguese Nobel winner, who died in June. The event aims to bring together around 100 writers from around Europe.

Jason Goodwin, author of “The Janissary Tree,” had just arrived in his hotel in Istanbul on Wednesday when he heard word of Mr. Naipaul’s cancellation.

“I can understand why Turkish writers might be upset” by Mr. Naipaul being an honorary guest, Mr. Goodwin, who has written about the Ottoman empire, said in a telephone interview. “My impression is that he also doesn’t know Islam as deeply he should. Personally, I would have wanted to hear Mr. Naipaul speak as he would have been an interesting voice, an interesting person.”

Mr. Goodwin also said he understood Mr. Naipaul’s decision. “We are all here as guests,” he said. “And who wants to be an awkward guest?”

via Naipaul, Turkish Authors Pull Out of Istanbul Writers’ Conference – WSJ.com.