October 23, 2005
A good Turk
Prominent turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is facing 3 years in jail for daring to tell the world that his home country is responsible for the deaths of millions of Armenians and thousands of Kurds over the last century. However, earlier this week, in Frankfurt, Pamuk reiterated his comments, although he stopped short of using the word Genocide.
"Pamuk goes on trial in December for "insulting and weakening Turkish identity" after talking about the massacre, a taboo in Turkey. He also said Turkish forces were partly to blame for the deaths of more than 30,000 Kurds in the 1980s and 90s."
turkey's free speech laws (or lack there of) prohibit anyone from insulting national pride, which includes mentioning ethnic genocide at the hands of the turkish government. These laws are also a major stumbling block to turkey's admission to the EU. Interestingly, Germany's new chancellor Angela Merkel is among the strongest opponents of turkey's admission to the EU.
Like Pamuk, I hope someday turkey will be admitted to the EU, because in order to get there, vast changes are going to have to be made, many of which will bring to light the truth about the past and bring economic opportunities to the people of turkey. Until then, though, I hope people like Merkel continue to push for these reforms.
Posted by caltechgirl at October 23, 2005 10:12 PM | TrackBackBy the time Turkey has made the kind of progress you're talking about in order to get into the EU, there may not BE an EU in any sense we'd recognize. And that's a good thing. As someone who spent more than enough time in Brussels, I can say without any question in my mind that the EU is the UN writ small in its level of bureacratic incomptence and kleptocracy: it does vastly more harm than good, even for most of its members.
Most Americans since the end of WWII have naively regarded all efforts at "European integration" as ipso facto good. This is finally, gradually, starting to change, but for you or anyone else who'd like to have the scales taken off their eyes, I'd heartily recommend Bernard Connolly's The Rotten Heart of Europe.
Posted by: Dave J at October 23, 2005 10:43 PM
