Tweet
Orhan Pamuk: Armenian Genocide is a Moral Issue
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
Oct. 12, 2007
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (A.W.)'Answering a question from the audience during
his book reading organized by the Harvard Bookstore on Oct. 12,
Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk said that the Armenian
genocide is a moral issue that needs to be discussed freely in Turkey.
The question read, `What do you think about the Armenian Genocide
Resolution in the U.S. Congress?' Pamuk said, `I was expecting this
question.' Interrupted by laughter from the audience, Pamuk continued,
`Don't worry, I'll get out of it.'
`For me, it's a moral issue, it's a personal issue,' he went on to
say. `For me it's an issue of free speech, which we don't totally have
in Turkey. ¦ The Turkish people should be able to freely discuss [this
issue].'
Pamuk added, `I basically think it is upsetting that this issue is
getting to be an arm-twisting issue [between states] rather than a
moral or free speech issue in Turkey.' Pamuk was in Cambridge to read
from his newly published book Other Colors: Essays and a Story (Alfred
A. Knopf, 2007). He is the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in
Literature. In 2005, he was charged with `insulting Turkishness' under
Turkey's notorious Article 301 for saying in an interview with a Swiss
magazine that `Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were
killed in these lands and nobody dares to talk about it.' The charges
were later dropped.
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
Oct. 12, 2007
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (A.W.)'Answering a question from the audience during
his book reading organized by the Harvard Bookstore on Oct. 12,
Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk said that the Armenian
genocide is a moral issue that needs to be discussed freely in Turkey.
The question read, `What do you think about the Armenian Genocide
Resolution in the U.S. Congress?' Pamuk said, `I was expecting this
question.' Interrupted by laughter from the audience, Pamuk continued,
`Don't worry, I'll get out of it.'
`For me, it's a moral issue, it's a personal issue,' he went on to
say. `For me it's an issue of free speech, which we don't totally have
in Turkey. ¦ The Turkish people should be able to freely discuss [this
issue].'
Pamuk added, `I basically think it is upsetting that this issue is
getting to be an arm-twisting issue [between states] rather than a
moral or free speech issue in Turkey.' Pamuk was in Cambridge to read
from his newly published book Other Colors: Essays and a Story (Alfred
A. Knopf, 2007). He is the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in
Literature. In 2005, he was charged with `insulting Turkishness' under
Turkey's notorious Article 301 for saying in an interview with a Swiss
magazine that `Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were
killed in these lands and nobody dares to talk about it.' The charges
were later dropped.