Congratulations Mr. Pamuk, but..

 

 

TO THE ESTEEMED MEMBERS OF NOBEL PRIZE JURY

Istanbul, 12.10.2006

Dear  Sir,

 

I  was born in the  days of WWI, and shared the most painful days of our war  of Independence (when the whole world tried to  destroy us), and could see our victory under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and witnessed in great happiness the foundation of a contemporary state. My age is 92 and I  write books for general public, about the history of Hittites and Sumerians.

The  award of the Nobel prize to one among us,  makes me very happy, because our generation knew to be joyful, and not jealous,  for anything done for our country. Particularly, the winning of the Nobel Prize by a young writer like Orhan Pamuk, is a great success.

 

However, what really saddens me and citizens who love their country, is the behavior of the Jury who  gave the prize.  May be we cannot judge the literary aspect of Orhan Pamuk  as well as you do, because a large group of people do not like his  books.  However, his being highly appreciated, because he wrongly blamed his own country, is the matter that makes us feel sorry. 

As he said,  if there were no freedom of thought, his last novel  "Kar" could have been forbidden, because it was not telling the truths.

 

The party that opened a court case against him, is not the State, but an Association of Law, which reflects  the public  opinion.  The fact that in his book and conferences, he was not speaking the truth about our country and our great leader Ataturk who made us what we are today, and his speaking that an Armenian genocide was made,  exhausted the patience of our people.

In reality, this incident should be considered as an exact lesson of democracy.  If  this prize had been awarded to him, before he had spoken all these, it would have been indeed a great happiness for us. We were going to be happy for the first time, that one of our people, won the greatest prize on earth, with his pen. 

 

Now we see that the Jury of a country which we trust that pays high priority to human rights, in our opinion, made the mistake of believing with closed eyes, and without asking or searching the truth, in  what one person said or because of politics.

Hoping that my letter will be read,
I express my best regards.

 

Dr. Muazzez Ilmiye Cig

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