Author gives us issues to talk about
by Nick Bray
The Courier Mail (Australia)
September 23, 2006 Saturday
First with the news Edition
AN EXTRAORDINARY and dangerous legal case ended with a whimper this
week, when a Turkish court acquitted Elif Shafak, a novelist charged
with insulting Turkish identity in the dialogues of her fictional
characters.
In a trial lasting only 90 minutes, the court decided there was a
lack of substantial evidence and dropped the case.
It had been brought to trial by nationalists who accused Shafak of
insulting Turkish identity when one of the Armenian characters in
her best-selling novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, talked about Turkish
"butchers" killing his ancestors in a 1915 genocide.
The dark episode in Turkey’s history remains a taboo topic in the
country.
The bone of contention in the aborted trial was Article 301 of
the Turkish criminal code, which makes criticism of "Turkishness"
a crime. If found guilty, Shafak faced a maximum of three years’ jail.
Shafak, 34, an assistant professor of Near Eastern studies at the
University of Arizona, did not attend the trial after giving birth
last Saturday.
She marked her acquittal with reservation.
"The verdict is very pleasing in terms of Turkey’s test of democracy
and freedom of expression, but incomplete as long as Article 301
remains as it is, open to manipulation," Shafak told the International
Herald Tribune.
"If the court decided against me, the arts and literature in Turkey
could have fallen victims to censorship. Such a decision could have
gagged artists in general."
That’s a view shared by Lionel Shriver, whose opening address at the
recent Brisbane Writers Festival was on that subject.
"Political correctness is strangling public debate," she warned in
an interview last week.
The London-based American journalist and author believes fiction to
be the one public forum left where outrageous issues can be explored.
"And even fiction is now under threat."
She said the court case in Turkey was not an isolated incident.
"A play and a movie set have been shut down in recent times in England
because minority groups complained that they were offensive to them,"
she says.
"These groups demanded a respect that they have not earned, but
they won.
"If we allow this to happen, how long will it be before I find myself
on trial for something that one of my fictional characters says?"
It’s a subject dear to Shriver’s heart and one that she believes
needs to be urgently addressed, but it’s not the only one.
She also has strong views on other subjects that have been placed
on the taboo list — immigration levels, two-tier health systems and
parental guilt, for example.
Shriver isn’t just being provocative for the sake of it. Her attraction
to the outrageous is driven and informed by a need to promote public
debate on important issues.
She delights in not only observing the elephant in the room that
everyone else is refusing to acknowledge, but then describing it in
technicolour detail.
"I read a lot of newspapers and magazines and I find a lot to be
angry about," she said.
"Any issue that makes me angry, those are the ones where there’s
something going on that no one wants to talk about and they’re the
ones that we need to talk about."
After months on the publicity trail for her 2005 Orange Prize-winning
novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, she’s growing a little weary of
discussing that book and the issues it raises.
Credited with opening up a new front in the so-called Mummy Wars, Kevin
uses the story of a mother’s relationship with her mass-murderer son
to question the unconditional nature of maternal love and to further
explore the nature versus nurture debate.
"I actually don’t have fixed views on parental culpability, nature
versus nurture, or how to discipline children," Shriver said. "It’s
actually quite boring to talk about such issues in general, that’s
why it’s so interesting and important to do it in fiction because
you can deal with things in the particular."
In the particular, Shriver also has her eye on immigration levels in
her birthplace of the US and adopted home of England.
"What interests me is the levels of complexity in that debate," she
said. "If I lived in a poor country I would be inclined to move to
Europe or the US, I’m sympathetic to the impulse.
"I’m also sympathetic to the economic benefits of immigration to
Western economies with age-
ing populations."
Cheap labour performing the menial tasks Westerners no longer want
to perform, for example.
But there’s always a "but".
"Immigration is not a boon, while it does benefit some isolated
commercial interests, the state is paying through the nose," she said.
"I’m even more interested in the complexities of the social issues
immigration raises.
"Modest immigration is good, it stirs things up, introduces new things
to society, which is good for the soul."
It’s the level of immigration, the proportion of migrants to the
natives in society, which is the key to the debate Shriver would like
to have.
"You could probably put a percentage on it quite closely," she
said. "It’s nice to have visitors and to visit the parts of town
they’ve created, but when you feel inundated it stirs up all sorts of
dangerous responses. I know that resentment we feel is often viewed
as right wing, but it’s not, it’s simply about how we react."
Shriver plans to write a novel about the subject.
"The challenge will be to write about the unease of a native who
suddenly finds himself surrounded by immigrants in a way that is
sympathetic," she said. "But you mark my words, when I do write that
book, I’ll be labelled a racist."
In much the same way she’s been branded a narcissistic sociopath with
an anti-motherhood agenda for daring to question common assumptions
about maternal love.
But that book will have to wait.
Shriver’s next book, The Post-Birthday World, is in her words a much
sweeter book.
"I wanted to write something that people felt they could admit to
enjoying, that they liked," she said.
After that, though, battle lines will again be drawn.
"I’m also concerned about health care, about how . . . we face having
a two-tiered health system, one for the rich whose lives will be
prolonged indefinitely and one for the poor, where decisions will
have to be made on how much a life is worth."
That should be talked about, too.