Orhan Pamuk to Return to Turkey

In case you have not heard of him, Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish writer and a Nobel Prize winner who has dared to talk about the Armenian Genocide. In fact, he was charged under Turkey's Penal Code Article 301, which if you remember calls for imprisonment for anyone who "insults Turkishness," though those charges were later dropped.

Turkish Sabah reports that Pamuk has already bought a ticket to return to Turkey by a plane to take off from New York in the evening of April 5th.

The newspaper also reminds that the Nobel Prize winner left Istanbul after Hrant Dink’s assassination departing for New York. Earlier Media reported that Pamuk, fearing for his life, has left Turkey withdrawing a large amount from his account. One of the suspects of Hrant Dink’s assassination has advised Orhan Pamuk "to think it over."

Here is a country which cannot offer its Nobel Prize winning writer the haven that he needs to produce works for Turkey, even if they speak against Turkey's longstanding policy of denial and manipulation. If you recall, Taner Akcam is another Turkish writer who has received much controversy because of his acceptance of the Armenian Genocide.

Source: Yerkir

New York Times Review of Taner Akcam's Genocide Book

Ever hear of Taner Akcam? You should have, because he is considered one of the first Turkish academics to accept and openly discuss the Armenian Genocide. The New York Times published a review of his book, "A SHAMEFUL ACT: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility." Here is a snippet:

...a Turkish blast against this national denial. A historian and former leftist activist now teaching at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, Akcam is often described as the first Turkish scholar to call the massacres genocide, and his impressive achievement here is to shine fresh light on exactly why and how the Ottoman Empire deported and slaughtered the Armenians.

He directly challenges the doubters back home, basing his powerful book on Turkish sources in the old Ottoman script — including the failed Ottoman war crimes tribunals held after World War I. Although he bolsters his case with material from the American, British and German archives, he writes that the remaining Ottoman records are enough to show that the ruling party’s central committee "did deliberately attempt to destroy the Armenian population."

I encourage all of you to read the review, if not the book. Whether or not you agree with the rest of his book, the fact that a Turkish academic can stand up against 90+ years of deliberate denial is admirable.

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Source: New York Times