TURKISH PUBLISHER RAGIP ZARAKOLU HONORED BY PEN
By Doris V. Cross
Posted on May 17, 2012
NEW YORK – At the annual Literary Gala held by PEN on May 1 at the
Museum of Natural History, Istanbul publisher Ragip Zarakolu was the
recipient of the annual Association of American Publishers’ Jeri Laber
International Freedom to Publish Award. Peter Balakian, whose memoir,
Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past, was
published in a Turkish edition by Zarakolu’s Belge Publishing House,
presented the award to his two children, Seref and Zerrin Holle.
Zarakolu, who has been repeatedly jailed for challenging free
expression restrictions in his country, and was recently released
pending trial, was not well enough to make the trip from Istanbul.
In addition to Zarakolu, Eskinder Nega, one of Ethiopia’s most
courageous journalists, was honored with the Barbara Goldsmith Freedom
to Write Award. Nega is currently in prison and standing trial on
manufactured terrorism charges. He could face the death penalty if
convicted. Nega’s wife, Serkalem Fasil, has been jailed herself for
her journalism and traveled from Addis Ababa to accept the award on
her husband’s behalf “at a time when freedom of expression and press
freedoms are at the lowest point in Ethiopia.”
This year’s PEN Literary Service Award was conferred on Edward Albee
as “a writer whose critically-acclaimed work illuminates the human
condition in original and powerful ways.”
In accepting the Freedom to Publish Award on behalf of Zarakolu,
his children read a mes- sage from their father. Seref Holle began,
“I spoke with Ragip a couple of hours before com- ing over here. He
wanted to personally apolo- gize for not being able to make it tonight,
and he asked my sister Zerrin and I to share this letter with you:”
“I want to thank the International Freedom to Publish Committee of
the Association of American Publishers for the honor of the Jeri
Laber award.
“When I entered the field of publishing in 1977 by establishing
Belge International in Istanbul I did not expect to spend the next
35 years struggling for freedom of expression. I assumed it would be
accomplished in a matter of years.
“Belge began in response to the undeclared civil war of the late 1970s
that resulted in the 1980 military dictatorship in Turkey. Since that
time Belge has been dedicated to the open dis- cussion of political
and historical taboos. I have always believed that such discussions
were necessary for the democratization of Turkey.
“For years, civilian governments have promised this democratization
but it is never realized. Unfortunately the current government has
continued for nearly a decade to delay the sary reforms. As long as
the 1982 constitution and its supplemental anti-democratic laws and
decrees exist the freedom to publish remains threatened.
“Freedom of expression is not a favor to be granted by sultans,
dictators or prime ministers; it is a universal right. If in a country
the expression of independent thoughts and their publication becomes
a matter of courage, that country is in a grave situation.
“While I am fortunate to have been released from Kandira Prison, many
other publishers, editors, writers and journalists, including my son
Deniz, remain in prisons throughout Turkey. I gratefully accept this
award in their honor.
“I also want express my gratitude to both the American PEN Center
and the American Association of Publishers for their many years of
support. I thank you from the bot- tom of my heart.”
Since founding Belge in 1977 with his late wife, Ayse Hur, Zarakolu has
defied Turkey’s censorship laws by translating and publish- ing Turkish
editions of works by Armenian, Greek, Kurdish and other writers,
dealing with such forbidden subjects as the Armenian Genocide and the
repression of Turkey’s Kurdish minority. If Zarakolu is convicted of
the present charges against him he faces up to 15 years in prison.
In Balakian’s introductory remarks he recalled first meeting Zarakolu
in 1998, at
“Ragip was there to receive a prize from the Frankfort Book Fair on
behalf of his wife, Ayse Hur, who was in prison in Turkey. We became
friends and he would soon be my Turkish publisher, bringing out a
beautiful edition of my memoir, Black Dog of Fate, which deals with
the Armenian Genocide. Ragip opened up a new world for me – and as
my first Turkish friend, he would become a bridge to another side of
Turkish society – a more complex and rich Turkey – that many of us
had hoped somehow to find. For many of us, who wrote on the Armenian
Genocide in particular, had been objects of ridicule from the Turkish
nationalists we had encountered.
“When you meet Ragip, you immediately encounter his quiet strength,
warmth and gentleness that lets you know that he is at home with
himself and his life. His life’s work is an emanation of who he is. He
is humble about his work, but he is confident about what his work is
and means. He is courageous and he inspires courage.
“He and his late wife Ayse – and now their son Deniz who is also in a
Turkish prison at this time for his work as a publisher – have devoted
their lives to bringing intellectual freedom and democracy to Turkey.
And Ragip’s present wife, Katherine Holle, and children Seref and
Zerrin have been sustain- ing forces to this project in the past
decade.
“Ragip’s recent arrest is set in a long con-
text of Turkish repression of intellectuals and free expression.
Turkey (along with China and Syria) has had consistently one of the
worst human rights records over the past decades. And, this year,
Reporters Without Borders has noted that the recent arrests of 99
journalists in Turkey is the worst ‘wave of arrests since the military
dictatorship.’ Zarakolu was part of that purge.
“Imagine a publisher in Turkey bringing out books year in and year
out on the following subjects: the Greek expulsion from Turkey;
the tragedy of the Turkish left; tor- ture and capital punishment in
Turkey; the status of Turkish prisons; the ‘Kurdish question’; the
Armenian Genocide; the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Pontic
Greeks and Assyrians; anti-Semitism and the rights of women in Turkey.
“If you think of the hundreds or perhaps thousands of books that
come out each year in the US on parallel or equivalent subjects you
realize that Ragip Zarakolu’s publishing company is this entire sector
of intellectual life for Turkey, and you get a sense of what he means
to his nation.
“And yet, he has been rewarded by his government with endless trials,
harassment, persecution and imprisonment. His late wife, Ayse, was
in prison or on trial more than 30
times. His publishing company was bombed, destroyed by Turkish
nationalists in 1996. At the moment Ragip is out on bail but he will
have to stand trial for being accused of that endless false pretext
called ‘terrorism’~Q for supporting and publishing works on Kurdish
rights. And through all of this Ragip has proceeded with calm, with
patience, with perseverance, with grace and dignity, with great courage
and with a love of what he does. Ragip has said, ‘I’m not an activist,
I’m just a publisher.’
“He is more than a publisher; he is a force for democracy, intellectual
freedom and the very foundation of human society in Turkey over the
past 40 years – and he is an embodiment of these realties for all
societies, because intellectual freedom is something that can never
be taken for granted.”
PEN American Center is the largest of the 144 centers of PEN
International, the world’s oldest human rights organization and the
oldest international literary organization. The Freedom to Write
Program of PEN American Center works to protect the freedom of
the written word wherever it is imperiled. It defends writers and
journalists from all over the world who are imprisoned, threatened,
persecuted or attacked in the course of carrying out their profession.
http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2012/05/17/turkish-publisher-ragip-zarakolu-honored-by-pen/