VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU
ISTANBUL-Hürriyet Daily News
Participants at the closing session of the European Writer’s Parliament, or EWP, in Istanbul on Saturday criticized the overall attitude toward V.S. Naipaul, the celebrated Indian-British author who stayed away after eliciting reaction from certain writers.
A total of 65 writers from all over the world visited Istanbul to participate in the meeting. At the end of Saturday’s meeting, the writers criticized the overall attitude toward Naipaul, while also focusing on freedom of speech and thought problems in Turkey.
Nobel Laureate Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was invited to speak at the opening session of the EWP, which was organized by Kült Artistic Reflex with support from Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency, but following a storm of controversy over his past comments on Islam, Naipaul chose to abandon his trip.
Although the latest invitation resulted in much uproar, Naipaul visited Turkey several months ago without incident.
Daily Zaman writer and poet Hilmi Yavuz was the first to draw attention to Naipul’s invitation in an article from Nov. 17.
Yavuz said in his article that it was a disrespectful act toward society to invite a person who had humiliated the Muslim world.
“I don’t have a personal problem with Naipaul,” Yavuz told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review in a Wednesday interview. “I have a problem with the mentality. I don’t care what the world thinks about me. As a Turkish intellectual, my mission is to illuminate my own society. He might have received the Nobel prize, but it does not give him the right to insult the Muslim world.”