Other Colors

by Orhan Pamuk

  With Khomeini’s fatwa, it is not just the translation of The Satanic Verses that has been stopped but the translation of Rushdie’s previous works.

  At this point, we must ask the public, which has witnessed the killing of Turan Dursun for his work on the Koran, to do some soul-searching about the threat against Rushdie.

  POLITICS, EUROPE, AND OTHER PROBLEMS OF BEING ONESELF

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  PEN Arthur Miller Speech

  In March 1985, Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter made a trip together to Istanbul. At the time, they were perhaps the two most important names in world theater but, sadly, it was not a play or a literary event that brought them to Istanbul, it was the ruthless limits being set on freedom of expression in Turkey at that time, and the many writers languishing in prison. In 1980 there had been a coup in Turkey. Hundreds of thousands were thrown into prison and, as always, it was writers who were persecuted the most vigorously. Whenever I look through the newspaper archives and the almanacs of that time to remind myself what it was like in those days, I soon come across what for us is the most emblematic image: men sitting in a courtroom, flanked by gendarmes, their heads shaven, frowning as their case proceeds. There were many writers among them, and Miller and Pinter had come to Istanbul to meet with them and their families, to offer assistance, and to bring their plight to the attention of the world. Their trip had been arranged by PEN—the International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists—in conjunction with Helsinki Watch. I went to the airport to meet them, because a friend of mine and I were to be their guides.

  I had been proposed for this job, not because I had anything to do with politics in those days but because I was a novelist who was fluent in English. I happily accepted, not just because it was a way of helping writer friends in trouble, but because it meant spending a few days in the company of two literary giants. Together we visited small, struggling publishing houses, the dark and dusty headquarters of small magazines always on the verge of shutting down, and cluttered newsrooms, as well as afflicted writers and their families, their houses, and their restaurant haunts. Until then I had stood on the margins of the political world, never entering unless coerced, but now, as I listened to suffocating tales of repression, cruelty, and outright evil, I felt drawn in by guilt—drawn in, too, by feelings of solidarity—while at the same time feeling an equal and opposite desire to protect myself from all this and to aspire to nothing but to write beautiful novels. As my friend and I took Miller and Pinter by taxi from appointment to appointment through the city traffic, we discussed the street vendors, the horse carts, the cinema posters, and the scarfless and scarf-wearing women, that distinction always so interesting to Western observers. One image was so deeply engraved in my mind I see it still, and it takes place at the Hilton Hotel, where our guests were staying. At one end of a very long corridor, my friend and I are whispering to each other in some agitation, while at the other end, Miller and Pinter are whispering in the shadows with an equally dark intensity.

  The same tense gloom was evident in every room we visited—room after room of troubled, chain-smoking men—an atmosphere fed by both pride and guilt. Sometimes the feeling was expressed openly, and sometimes I felt it myself or sensed it in other people’s gestures and expressions. The writers, thinkers, and journalists with whom we were meeting mostly defined themselves as leftists in those days, so it could be said that their troubles had much to do with affinities for the freedoms held dear by Western liberal democracies. Twenty years on, when I see that half of these people—or thereabouts, I don’t have the precise numbers— now align themselves with a nationalism that is at odds with Westernization and democracy, I of course feel sad, but recent events in the Middle East have given pause to those who believe democracy to be the future.

  Nevertheless, my experience then as a guide, and similar experiences in later years, impressed upon me something that we all know but that I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize: Regardless of national circumstances, freedom of thought and expression are universal human rights. These freedoms, which modern people long for as the starving yearn for bread, can never justifiably be limited by nationalist sentiment, moral sensitivities, or hoped-for international gain. If many nations outside the West suffer poverty in shame, it is not because they have freedom of expression but because they don’t. As for those who emigrate from these poor countries to the West or the North to escape economic hardship and brutal repression, we know they sometimes find themselves further brutalized by racism in rich countries. We must be alert to the xenophobia these immigrants encounter in the West and most particularly in Europe. We must be alert to the tendency to denigrate immigrants and minorities for their religion, their ethnic roots, or the oppression visited upon them by the governments of the countries they’ve left behind. But to respect the human rights of minorities, and to respect their humanity, is not to suggest that we should accommodate all manner of belief or tolerate those who attack or seek to limit freedom of thought in deference to the moral codes of those minorities. Some of us have a better understanding of the West, some of us have more affection for those who live in the East, and some, like me, try to do the two things at the same time, but these attachments, this desire to understand, should never stand in the way of our respect for human rights.

  I always have difficulty expressing my political judgments with emphatic clarity—I feel pretentious, as if I’m saying things that are not quite true. This is because I know I am bound to reduce my thoughts about life to the music of a single voice and a single point of view; I am, after all, a novelist. Living as I do in a world where, in a very short time, someone who has been a victim of tyranny and oppression can suddenly become one of the oppressors, I know also that holding strong beliefs is itself a difficult and sometimes treacherous exercise. I do also believe that most of us entertain contradictory thoughts simultaneously; much of the pleasure of writing novels comes from exploring this peculiarly modern state of mind whereby people are forever contradicting themselves. This is why I believe freedom of expression to be so important—because it allows us to discover the hidden truths of the societies in which we live. At the same time, as I know from personal experience, the shame and pride I mentioned earlier also play their part.

  Let me tell another story that might cast some light on the shame and pride I felt twenty years ago while I was taking Miller and Pinter around Istanbul. In the ten years following their visit, and largely because of coincidence, good intentions, anger, guilt, and personal jealousies, not at all because of my books but because of issues to do with freedom of expression, I found myself developing a far more powerful political persona than I had ever wanted. About this time, the Indian author of a UN report on freedom of expression in my part of the world—an elderly gentleman—came to Istanbul and looked me up. As it happened, our meeting was at the Hilton Hotel. No sooner had we sat down at a table than the Indian gentleman asked a question that still echoes strangely in my mind:

  “Mr. Pamuk, what is going on in your country that you would like to explore in your novels but shy away from, for fear of prosecution?”

  There followed a long silence. Thrown by his question, I thought and thought and thought. I was plunged into a Dostoyevskyan despair. Clearly, what the gentleman from the UN wished to ask was, “Given your country’s taboos, legal prohibitions, and oppressive policies, what is going unsaid?” But because he had—out of a desire to be polite, perhaps?—asked the eager young writer sitting across from him to consider the question in terms of his own novels, I, in my inexperience, took his question literally. Ten years ago there were many more subjects closed off by laws and oppressive state policies than there are today, but as I went through them one by one, I could find none that I wished to explore “in my novels.” I knew, nonetheless, that if I said, There is nothing I wish to write in my novels that I am not able to discuss, I’d be giving the wrong impression. For I’d already begun to s
peak often and vociferously about all these dangerous subjects outside my novels. Moreover, didn’t I often and angrily fantasize about raising these subjects in my novels, just because they happened to be forbidden? As I thought all this through, I was at once ashamed of my silence and yet again made deeply aware of the fact that freedom of expression was linked with pride and human dignity.

  Many writers we respect and value have chosen to take up forbidden topics purely because the very fact of the prohibition was an injury to their pride; I know this from my own experience. Because when another writer in another house is not free, no writer is free. This, indeed, is the spirit that informs the solidarity felt by PEN writers all over the world.

  Sometimes my friends rightly tell me or someone else, “That was wrong, what you said; if only you had worded it like this, in a way that no one would find offensive, you wouldn’t be in so much trouble now.” But to change one’s words, to package them in a way that will be acceptable to everyone, and to become skilled in this arena is a bit like smuggling contraband through customs, and much the same way, even when successfully accomplished, it produces a feeling of shame and degradation.

  Freedom of thought, the happiness that comes of the ability to express the anger deep inside us—we have already mentioned how honor and human dignity depend on it. So let us now ask ourselves how “reasonable” it is to denigrate cultures and religions or, more to the point, to bomb countries mercilessly in the name of democracy and freedom of thought. The theme of this year’s PEN festival is reason and belief. In the war against Iraq, the heartless and tyrannical murder of almost a hundred thousand people has brought neither peace nor democracy. Quite to the contrary, it has served to ignite nationalist anti-Western anger. Things have become a great deal more difficult for the small minority struggling for democracy and secularism in the Middle East. This savage, cruel war is the shame of America and the West. Organizations like PEN, and writers like Harold Pinter and Arthur Miller, are its pride.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  No Entry

  This man wandering so languorously through the streets—he may be just killing time before an appointment, or perhaps he got off the bus one stop before his destination because there was no need to rush, or perhaps he is just curious about the neighborhood, never having seen it before. As this traveler wanders through the streets, lost in thought but still taking an interest in his surroundings, gazing at the drapery shops, the pharmacy display windows, the crowded coffeehouses, the magazines and newspapers strung along the wall, he happens onto a sign that says NO ENTRY. It doesn’t concern him, this sign; it’s not addressed to him, because even if it were not there, this is not the sort of door that would ever interest or attract him. He is occupied with his own affairs, living in his own world; he has no interest in walking through this door.

  But still, the notice has reminded him that aimless wandering has its limits. It might not have seemed so at once, but this door that previously meant nothing to him is now a rude reminder that there are limits beyond which his imagination cannot go; the imaginary world in which he had been traveling so blissfully is now cast in shadow. Maybe he should just forget it. But why did they write that? It’s a door, after all, and doors are for people to enter. So the notice is there to remind him that, while some people pass through this door, others cannot. Which means the NO ENTRY sign is a lie. Actually, what it should say is NOT EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO ENTER IS ALLOWED DO SO. By implying that certain privileged people can pass through, all those who do not possess the requisite privileges are barred, even if they wish to enter. At the same time it accords to those who have no wish to enter the same fate as those who do.

  After the man in the street has pursued this line of thought to its logical conclusion, he cannot help but wonder who the others might be who might have wished to go through that door, only to be kept out. Who exactly is allowed to enter that door, anyway? What is it that lets them through? What is it that gives some people this privilege and not others? At this point, the wanderer reminds himself that entry may not depend on privilege. Perhaps this is a door for undistinguished people who don’t wish others to look inside and see how miserable their lives are. But when the traveler, who is now coming out of his daydream, remembers that most people fit the doors of their homes with keys for just this reason, he is returned to the thought that the door provides a covert way of maintaining privilege. Instead of arranging to furnish keys to all admissible individuals, with which they might lock the door when they leave before pocketing the key like any ordinary citizen, the privileged owners have written NO ENTRY.

  If the daydreamer can think all this as he takes two steps forward, then these people must have been following the same line of thought when they put this sign on their door. Perhaps a few said, “Instead of putting up a NO ENTRY sign, let’s have keys made for us all!” but those in favor of the sign must have insisted that this was not an option. Why? Because the problem was too complex to be solved with a few keys. Perhaps a lot of people would not obey the NO ENTRY sign, a lot of people who know this sign is not addressed to them—too large a group for keys. This would be the most logical conclusion: One day, the people inside sat down to discuss it among themselves—whom in this crowd to let inside and whom to keep out. “There are too many people coming in from the outside,” they probably said. “Let’s not let them all in! Which ones shall we keep out?” Then they crossed their legs and sipped their coffee and began to argue about which outsiders to admit and which to exclude. Some of the insiders were most certainly troubled by this discussion. Maybe they too would be evicted by the time this discussion was concluded.

  The man outside, looking at the door, has witnessed tense situations like this before, so he can imagine the people who have nailed the sign up and he can guess how their discussion will proceed. It will first be dominated by those agitated souls who wish to protect their property, their pleasures, and their privileges, but because such anxieties are boring, the language will soon change. Those who ask, “What do you mean when you talk about our property, our pleasures, and our habits?” will themselves be asked, “What do you mean by the word we?” This very simple question causes instant ferment. These people have now discovered how much fun it is to pretend they don’t know who they are. There will be those who find the discussion troubling, who have to object to four or five people joining them from the crowd outside. Under their guidance, the discussion turns into a riddle, a question of identity. This is the most fun of all. They all take pleasure in finding ingenious ways to enumerate the virtues that set them apart from all others, but without actually saying so. It is all so entertaining that they begin to wonder why they didn’t hang up the NO ENTRY sign sooner. In an instant, the street on the other side of the door has become a gathering place for all those who oppose those virtues which they have assigned themselves. However they now define themselves, the people outside are their opposite. It could even be said that they are only able to define themselves by saying what they are that the people outside their door are not. Many idiots passing by the door without thinking are not aware of this. A few people feel indebted to these idiots. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take some of them in, they think. It could be a way of teaching them how we became people like us, and maybe when they become like us we’ll be stronger.

  This is the point at which some people will realize that the sign is intended to direct the attention of the idiots outside to the privileges enjoyed by insiders. What this sign does—what it does to our traveler—is to give all those who pass in front of the door the sense of being outsiders. Some people can feel this without even wanting to pass through the door. All they need to do is see the sign.

  As he begins to feel as if he has stood longer than necessary in front of this door, our traveler sees how the sign has somehow divided the world in two. There are those who can enter and those who cannot. The world is full of pointless divisions like this, so many passersby will give this one no particular import
ance, but the fact remains that there are still some people who give it enough importance to take the trouble of nailing such a sign on their door. At this point, the traveler, having now emerged from his daydream, decides that all this talk of identity is really shameful boasting and self-aggrandizement. A great anger rises up from deep inside him. Who is it behind this door—who could it be? For the first time he feels the urge to enter. But what is to be gained from playing into the hands of the smug? Because it will take no more than two or three seconds for him to predict what will pass through their minds. At the same moment, it occurs to him that it should be easy to open the door. Two or three people could kick it in easily, or push it open with their shoulders. If this were not the case, they would not have put up the sign in the first place. If he wants to get inside, all he has to do is go get one or two of his brothers and ask for their help. Hadn’t he already divined— thanks to this sign—that he and all these other outsiders share a common fate? So now the man standing outside the door begins to imagine the new world unfurling before him. He could, if he wished, seek out all those with whom he shares his fate and draw them into a discussion of character. Now it has become important for him to know who, and what, he is. He must establish an identity that rejects all that the arrogant insiders stand for.

  So it is that the traveler begins to think about his own particular virtues, pleasures, belongings, and relationships; one by one he turns them into things he must proudly claim and protect. So heady is this celebration of his character that he has even begun to feel anger against those who do not possess the same virtues, those who are unlike him. At the same moment it seems to him as if those inside might have foreseen this turn of events. But he is not about to give up all the traits that make him who he is simply because this is their game plan. There is a move he can make—an inspired move—against them. Before he undertakes to work out this move, he is well advised to ask himself what his purpose is. “Is my aim to go inside?” asks the man who, until only a few minutes ago, was wandering the streets lost in thought. “Or is my aim to discover what characteristics I share with all the others who are not allowed in?” But he does not wish to trouble himself with thoughts so cold-blooded and analytical. What he wants now more than anything else is to vent the anger he feels rising up inside him. If he does so, he’ll calm down, maybe even forget the sign, but because he does not know of a way to vent his anger, he becomes more agitated still. As the pain of exclusion grows slowly stronger, it feeds the flame of his anger. Perhaps his pain comes from feeling that he belongs to the same class as all the other outsiders, is made from the same material, shares the same soul. There is something belittling about this—a reality that neither his mind nor his soul wishes to accept.