Category: Culture/Art

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.”

Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul said in an interview back in 2001 that the conversion of the South and East Asian peoples into Islam had negative effects on them, comparable to the effects of colonialism. In revenge, a Muslim-Turkish philosopher, supported by a lynch mob and Turkish security authorities, did not allow him in Istanbul, where Naipaul was scheduled to address the preliminary meeting of the European Writers Parliament (EWP).
This controversy inevitably evokes the memory of similar events in recent history, some of which I will outline below.
In 1989, a fatwa (Islamic verdict) was issued sentencing the novelist Salman Rushdie to death by the Spiritual Leader of Iran, Ayetullah Khomeini. The fatwa was effective particularly among the British Muslim communities of South and East Asian origin. Copies of Rusdie’s novel “Satanic Verses” were burnt in Muslim British demonstrations and major bookshops were forced after a series of bombings to withdraw the copies of this novel from their shop-windows and bookshelves. Since then, Rushdie has been forced to live under protection.
“Satanic Verses” was immediately translated into Turkish after its first publication in English in 1988 but could not find a publisher. In 1993, Aziz Nesin, the greatest modern Turkish satirist, decided to publish excerpts from the Turkish translation in his column in a daily newspaper. In July 1993, Nesin participated in a literary festival in the central Anatolian town of Sivas, in remembrance of the 16th Century Alevi poet Pir Sultan Abdal.
Naipaul observes the following on the fall of the Sindh province in India to Muslim conquest in the 8th Century: “The king of Sindh resisted quite well. Then one day it was reported to him how the invaders said their prayers in unity as one man, and the king became frightened. He understood that this was a new force in the world, and it is what in fact Muslims are very proud of: the union of people.” This critical commentary on the history of the Islamisation of Asia, which the Muslim-Turkish scholars find offensive, resembles to what happened on 4 July 1993 in Sivas.
A thousands-strong fanatic Islamist mob gathered in front of the hotel in town square, where Nesin and hundreds of participants of the festival were hosted. They chanted “God is Great!” “as one man” and then set the hotel on fire. Sivas police watched the event from a distance and nobody in the government ordered the military units to charge the mob for the protection of the festival guests.
Nesin survived the attack but thirty three participants of the festival, including poets, writers, literary critics and musicians, suffered a horrible death. These thirty three gems are the rather ironic martyrs of Ayetullah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and their families and friends still do not know where to seek compensation for their loss.
Similar attacks on writers with religious and/or nationalist motives have continued to our day. Most importantly, prominent Armenian writer/journalist Hrant Dink was murdered on 19 January 2007. Prior to his assassination Dink had been sentenced by a Turkish court for “degrading Turkishness”; during the trial he had been threatened outside the courtroom by the senior members of the Turkish “deep state”, including General Veli Küçük and lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz.
The “best pen of Turkish literature”, Orhan Pamuk, was also subject to similar judicial, semi-official and Mafioso threats and attacks. The reason for this Turkish style “literary criticism” was Pamuk’s statement during an interview that “one million Armenians and thirty thousand Kurds were killed in Turkey”. As a result, the one and only Turkish Nobel Laureate had to flee his country for America; since then, he has been forced to pay only occasional “clandestine” visits to Istanbul.
Most recently, Yugoslavian filmmaker Emir Kusturica had to leave Turkey, during a film festival, under threats to his life. The threats were issued by the high authorities, including  the Minister of Culture, who argued that a man who denies genocide against Muslims has no place in Turkey – presumably because you can only have a place in Turkey if you deny the genocide against Christians, as 72 million Turkish citizens are forced to do.
The source of the mounting threats against Naipaul, the chief Turkish-Muslim philosopher Hilmi Yavuz, has showed relief after the cancellation of the Nobel Laureate’s visit to Turkey: “He would be anxious to appear in front of the people whose religion he degraded”. Indeed, “anxious” is the word: Prior to his assassination, Hrant Dink wrote that “My heart moves like an anxious dove”.
Religious fanaticism marked the history of Medieval Europe, the most prominent symbol of which is the Inquisition. It was the heyday of fanatic Christian “philosophers”, judges and lynch mobs who traumatized thousands of people around Europe through torture and execution sessions in public. The victims were exclusively charged with “degrading Christianity”. Naipaul’s “philosophically condemned” criticism of Islam implies that contemporary Muslims demonstrate a degree of intolerance comparable to Medieval Christian Inquisition.
It is far beyond my knowledge to evaluate the world of Islam in accordance with this claim. Nor, do I have any intention to engage here in a criticism of the Western colonial influence on Naipaul’s worldview. But an observation of the recent history of “literary criticism a la turca”, including Hilmi Yavuz’s “philosophical criticism” of Naipaul, supported by a lynch mob, exclusively affirms the novelist’s critical points on Muslim intolerance at least for this country.
Zafer Yörük taught political theory at University of London between 1997 and 2006. His research interests range across politics of identity, discourse analysis and psychoanalysis. He writes a column for Rudaw every Friday from Izmir.

By: Kenton Smith

HAS Nobel Prize-winner V.S. Naipaul thrown in the towel?

In the space of one week, the veteran British-based writer told The Independent that he “would write one more book and then stop,” then pulled out of the European Writers’ Parliament in Istanbul after Turkish writers threatened to boycott the event because of his past criticism of Islam.

The writers cited comments Naipaul made about the religion the same year of his Nobel Prize win, in 2001.

Naipaul compared Islam to colonialism, saying the religion “has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history.”

Naipaul, a Trinidadian of Indian descent, is the author of such acclaimed novels as A House for Mr. Biswas and the Booker Prize-winning In a Free State.

— — —

Canadian literary philanthropist Scott Griffin is taking poetry on the road.

Griffin announced the new Poetry in Voice project, a bilingual recitation contest that will award thousands of dollars to students and school libraries. A pilot program at a dozen Ontario high schools is planned to expand to the rest of Canada.

Competing students will be judged according to physical presence, voice and articulation, accuracy and dramatization. Finalists will face off in the spring.

Griffin is founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize, the world’s largest prize for a first edition single collection of poetry written in English.

— — —

CBC Radio host Grant Lawrence will appear in Winnipeg Sunday to promote his debut book, Adventures In Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound.

Lawrence will provide a reading, slideshow and signing at McNally Robinson at 2 p.m.

Lawrence is host of the CBC Radio 3 Podcast and has guest-hosted numerous other radio shows and music festivals. The book describes how B.C.’s Desolation Sound shaped his life in music, and the country’s history.

— — —

The University of California Press has had its biggest success in 60 years with the Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, an official with the publisher has told the New York Times.

The first print run was for 50,000 copies; the book has now gone back to press six times, for a total print run of 275,000 to date.

— — —

For local scribes with too many distractions at home, the Manitoba Writers’ Guild has two writing studios for lease; the first is available starting Dec. 1, 2010, the other starting Jan. 1.

The studios in the Artspace building at 100 Arthur St. rent for $100 a month and are available for either a six-month or one-year lease to MWG members.

Interested parties should contact the guild at info@mbwriter.mb.ca or 944-8013.

ksmithpaperchase@gmail.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 27, 2010 H8

via PAPER CHASE: V.S. Naipaul says he’ll stop after one more book – Winnipeg Free Press.

V.S. Naipaul has been forced to pull out of a major literary conference in Turkey after protests over his views on Islam.

The Nobel laureate was invited to give the opening speech at the European Writers’ Parliament (EWP) in Istanbul, but several Turkish writers threatened to boycott the event because of his critical comments about Islam, which he likened to colonialism, in a speech here 10 years ago, saying that it “has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples.”

The organisers said he had withdrawn by “mutual agreement” following “politicisation” of the event.

“The politicisation 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 EWP said in a statement.

British- Indian novelist Hari Kunzru, who gave the opening speech instead, regretted the row.

“I feel we would be stronger and more credible if we were to deal with divergent views within this meeting rather than a priori excluding someone because of fear that offence might be given,” he said.

Ahmet Kot, Literary Director of the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency, which is hosting the conference, expressed his disappointment over the row.

“I was expecting to get positive reactions for bringing together people with different views. I still think that we are right and some writers will support us,” he said.

The idea behind the EWP, an initiative of Turkish and Portuguese Nobel laureates Orhan Pamuk and José Saramago, is to encourage debate on contemporary issues that have relevance to literature.

The Guardian, quoting Turkish media reports, said the row erupted after poet and philosopher Hilmi Yavuz described the invitation to Sir Vidia as “disrespectful,” saying he had insulted Islam in the past.

via The Hindu : News / National : Naipaul pulls out of Turkey meet.