BABACAN MAKES NEWSWEEK’S ‘INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES’
By Anka, Ankara
Zaman, Turkey
Oct 22 2006
Newsweek, one of the top weekly news magazines in the world, reprinted
Turkey’s chief EU negotiator and Economic Minister Ali Babacan’s
statement, “Leave history to historians.”
Newsweek selected Babacan’s statement as one of the three most
important perspectives of the week.
The magazine’s caption describing his comment said: “Ali Babacan,
Turkey’s chief negotiator in EU membership talks, marking his
disappointment in a French bill that would require Turkey to admit that
the murder of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I was genocide.”

DIKO ELECTS NEW LEADER TODAY AFTER WEEKS OF ACRIMONY
By Elias Hazou
Cyprus Mail, Cyprus
Oct 22 2006
RULING DIKO goes to the polls today to elect a new party leader,
ending an acrimonious campaign with no shortage of low blows.
Back in August, Tassos Papadopoulos dropped a bombshell when he
announced he was standing down.
Papadopoulos said he had decided to step down because his duties
as President did not allow him fully to respond to his duties as
DIKO chairman.
However, his resignation was also seen as kick starting the 2008
presidential race. In a farewell speech earlier this month,
Papadopoulos appealed for unity within DIKO, but subsequent
developments have been anything but harmonious.
Papadopoulos took over the reins of DIKO in 2000 from the late founder
Spyros Kyprianou. But the day-to-day running of the party was delegated
to no.2 Nicos Cleanthous A lawyer by profession, Cleanthous, regarded
as toeing the “Papadopoulos line”, now faces off against the younger
Marios Karoyian, a former presidential spokesman.
Karoyian is portraying himself as a link between the old and new
guards inside DIKO. He has pledged to open up the party and improve
its functioning, which he says has grown stale.
In this respect, Karoyian’s endeavour has been likened to that of
PASOK leader George Papandreou in Greece: more power to ordinary
party members.
On a live radio show this week, Karoyian – derided by detractors as
an upstart – indirectly criticised Cleanthous, saying that DIKO could
have done better in May’s legislative elections.
Cleanthous countered, noting that the party received 17.8 per cent
of the popular vote, and that in all fairness he should be given at
least some of the credit.
“Why is it that I am saddled with the negative things, never the good
things?” Cleanthous complained.
The campaign had turned nasty early on, when members of the Cleanthous
camp started picking on Karoyian’s Armenian descent.
In a letter printed in a newspaper, a Cleanthous supporter accused
Karoyian of not doing his military service – Armenians are not called
up to the National Guard – and cast a shadow over his patriotism.
Sources close to Karoyian dismissed this as racist behaviour and a
dishonest attempt at prejudicing DIKO members.
Cleanthous has denied all along any connection to this rumour peddling,
even speaking out against it.
But Karoyian’s cohorts have also managed to dig up dirt on Cleanthous:
they say that at one time Cleanthous “left” DIKO to join the ranks
of another political grouping, Enosis Kentrou (Union of the Centre).
The accusation struck a raw nerve with Cleanthous.
“I did not abandon DIKO, I merely became inactive for a while,”
he said.
“And this was at a time when the party came to power. Show me another
politician who would forsake the spoils of power.”
At a gathering of supporters at Nicosia’s Hilton Hotel this week,
Cleanthous appealed to DIKO members’ sense of responsibility.
“Do the right thing,” was his slogan, implying he was the man to
ensure stability and continuity.
Commentators note that the new party chief will have a tough task
ahead: the municipal elections – which strained relations between
the government coalition -are just around the corner.
Already, cracks have been shaping inside the party: members of the
Nicosia district branch are disgruntled at having been left out of
the decision-making process. They say that the mayoral candidates
for the Nicosia district have been imposed on them from the top.
Karoyian is almost certain to tap into this disaffection.
The party has also been rocked by allegations from former heavyweight
Nicos Pittokopitis, who claims he was robbed of the Paphos mayorship.
Pittokopitis threatened to unleash a “political typhoon” of revelations
regarding the wheeling and dealing between DIKO, EDEK and AKEL for
the municipalities.
Tomorrow’s election will be followed by a vote in DIKO’s Central
Committee to nominate an alternate chairman.
p?id=28584&cat_id=1

ARMENIAN POLISHED DIAMOND PRODUCTION DOWN BY OVER A FIFTH
Tacy, Israel
Oct 22 2006
Armenia’s polished diamond production, at US$171.3 million, fell by 22
percent in first nine months of 2006 compared to the first nine months
of 2005, says a spokesman for Armenia’s Trade and Economic Development
Ministry. Sales of polished diamonds fell 20.1 percent to US$173.1
million, while exports were down 21.3 percent to US$168.4 million.
The drops were attributed to a fall in world prices for cut and
polished diamonds combined with a weaker dollar in Armenia.

SCRATCHING THE OTHER’S WOUNDS
By Avirama Golan
Ha’aretz, Israel
Oct 22 2006
It is fascinating to see how France, time and again, insists on
sticking its refined nose into the affairs of others and preach
wisdom to them, instead of dealing with the boiling kettles on its
own stove. The law against deniers of the massacre of the Armenian
people is still provoking a lively debate in the French press.
(France approved the law about two weeks ago by a narrow majority,
following an internal debate over the severity of punishment.) In
Turkey, the French law pushed intellectuals and writers oppressed by
the regime into a corner, compelling them to defend their country.
A day after winning the Nobel Prize, the author Orhan Pamuk hurried to
declare that the French law constitutes “a blow to the principles of
freedom of expression that France itself instilled.” It is a shame,
Pamuk said, that France does not leave the Turks to do their own
soul-searching, which is occurring in any case. Another Turkish
writer, Elif Shafak, was recently brought to trial in Istanbul for
allegedly “denigrating Turkish national identity” in her latest novel,
“The Bastard of Istanbul,” which tells the stories of two families,
Turkish and Armenian. In an article in Le Monde, Shafak asked the
French to allow her nation to “heal the wounds of its history by
itself.” Sinan Ulgen, the president of the Turkish think tank Economics
and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), argued in an article in Le Figaro,
that “France is weakening democracy in Turkey.”
This phenomenon is familiar to Israeli writers and intellectuals,
veterans of the fight against the occupation, who stutter in an attempt
to defend their country in the face of a buttressed, superficial,
arrogant and self-righteous European stance. And like the French
left’s attack against Israel, which places doubt on the legitimacy of
the state of the Jews, the new legislation derives from a combination
of factors: a historical connection (some of the Armenians who were
murdered during World War I were accused of spying for France),
an elitist lobby of anti-Turkish Armenian immigrants in France,
a desire to embarrass Jacques Chirac and weaken the right, and – at
least among some of the legislators – an innocent aspiration, though
somewhat self-righteous, for tikkun olam [making the world better].
The ones seeking to improve the world argue that the Armenian
people have suffered a hardship for 90 years, in addition to what
they experienced during World War I. The denials of the massacre are
indeed an open wound. Turkey is not only to blame. Most of the world is
responsible for belittling the tragedy and shunting it aside. In the
soul-searching that has yet to occur here, the children of Holocaust
refugees will have to examine why it was uncomfortable for them to
recognize the magnitude of the suffering of others. In this sense,
the law ostensibly does justice. But this is misleading, and not only
because the measure was essentially an internal-political one, but
also because even when the French left is correct, it is definitely
not smart.
In the introduction to the Hebrew edition of Raymond Aron’s “The
Algerian Tragedy,” Professor Emmanuel Sivan analyzes this symptom: In
France, he explains, politicians tend to be “frighteningly cynical –
even, and primarily, when speaking loftily about morality – while the
intellectuals tend to be detached ‘moralists’.” (This brings to mind,
in particular, Albert Camus and his denial of oppression in Algeria
and Jean-Paul Sartre and his support for the USSR in 1956 – A.G.)
Thus, the moralists of the French left had little impact on the war
crimes perpetrated by France in Algeria, while Aron, a centrist who
spoke in the name of realpolitik, significantly contributed to the
effort to convince the French to end the occupation.
In the case of the law against deniers of the massacre of the Armenian
people, the French left is again ignoring realpolitik. This only serves
to muffle the internal Turkish debate that finally began to awaken
after years of silence. The French should demonstrate sensitivity for
denials. After all, it has only been a few years since they allowed
references to the “war” in Algeria and lifted censorship from Gillo
Pontecorvo’s 1965 film “The Battle of Algiers.”
Why now of all times, when France is in a tumult over a film exposing a
new affair – the (denied) colonial use of North Africans as soldiers in
World War II – is it so urgent for the left to focus on the Armenians?
Perhaps it is because of another, concealed motive related to the
fear of Turkey’s entry to the European Union: the fear of Islam,
which the Pope expressed in his native tongue during a visit to his
homeland. This fear is the strongest thread motivating politicians in
Europe today. The French, who are waging a desperate battle against
head scarves and the teenagers in the suburbs, are on the eve of a
dramatic election campaign and its perennial X-factor, Jean-Marie
Le Pen, who threatens again to conjure up the dark ghosts and fears
simmering on the republic’s ideological periphery.
An Islamic Turkey frightens the French, and the fear makes them
forget smart realpolitik. If Raymond Aron were alive today, perhaps
he would explain to the citizens of his country that the order of the
day is actually to bring Turkey closer, help it prosper, encourage
its democracy, and reinforce the voices of Pamuk and his colleagues.
The insult and enmity now engendered in Turkey as a result of the
French legislation were unnecessary.
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ARMENIAN AND BELGIAN MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS GET COOPERATION AGREEMENT
Noyan Tapan
Oct 23 2006
BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 23, NOYAN TAPAN. A conference dedicated to the
Armenian-Belgian medical cooperation took place on October 16 in the
hall of the Royal Academy of Science of Belgium, within the framework
of the events dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the independence
of Armenia. As Noyan Tapan was informed by the RA Foreign Ministry’s
Press and Information Department, numerous famous doctors-scientists
participated in the conference organized by the Embassy of Armenia
to Belgium and the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium.
Ambassador of Armenia Vigen Chitechian and J.Fruhling, the
Perpetual Secretary of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium,
made welcome speeches. An agreement on cooperation with some medical
institutions of Brussels was got during the conference. Reference:
The Armenian-Belgian medical cooperation started just after the
1988 earthquake, when Belgian doctors were among the first ones to
show assistance to population of the disaster zone. The Neuphrologie
Armenie-Vlandeeren organization was founded on that basis. Belgian
doctors visit Armenia few times a year till now, implement surgeries
and pass their experience to Armenian young doctors who, owing to
the NAV, get possibility to undergo training in Belgian hospitals.

PERMISSION FOR VICTOR HUGO
Sabah, Turkey
Oct 22 2006
RTUK (Radio and Television Supreme Council) which banned French movies
and music permitted reading Victor Hugo.
In response to Armenian genocide, RTUK (Radio and Television Supreme
Council) called the radios and televisions not to broadcast French
movies and music.
RTUK’s (Radio and Television Supreme Council) Permission for Victor
Hugo
Upon the French Parliament’s approval of the Armenian genocide denial
bill, RTUK (Radio and Television Supreme Council) suggested not to
broadcast French movies and music. However, this suggestion excluded
Victor Hugo.
Upon the French Parliament’s approval of the Armenian genocide denial
bill, RTUK (Radio and Television Supreme Council) which suggested not
broadcasting French movies and music declared that this resolution
does not include Victor Hugo. ªaban Sevinc, a member of Upon the
French Parliament’s approval of the Armenian genocide denial bill,
RTUK (Radio and Television Supreme Council) said: “This recommendation
resolution aims to draw the attention of the grandchildren of Victor
Hugo, who are the intellectuals of France. We can go on learning
French and reading French books.”
–Boundary_(ID_3aUKRVtoDhVlRC83N7yqE w)–

BELOW 19 NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM OF ARMENIA LEAVES FOR CYPRUS ON OCTOBER 21
Noyan Tapan
Oct 23 2006
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 23, NOYAN TAPAN. The below 19 years old national
football team of Armenia headed by coach Armen Gyulbudaghian,
left for Cyprus on October 21 where the group tournament of the
qualification stage of the below 19 Europe Championship will take
place from October 27 to November 2. As Noyan Tapan was informed
by the Press Secretariate of the Football Federation of Armenia,
Joan (Ian) Porterfield, the coach of the national team of Armenia,
and Samvel Petrosian, the coach of the below 21 national team also
left for the Cyprus. The national teams of Hungary, Cyprus and
Azerbaijan are also involved in the seventh group, in which Armenia
is involved. The national team of Armenia will hold the first meeting
with the national team of Azerbaijan. It will take place on October 27,
in the Antonis Papadopoulos stadium of Larnaca. The Hungary-Cyprus
meeting will take place on the same day in the Ammochostos-Amberia
stadium of Larnaca. The national team of Armenia will hold the second
meeting on October 29. The Cyprus-Armenia meeting will take place in
the Tasos Marcou city stadium of Paralimni, and the teams of Hungary
and Azerbaijan will compete in the Dasaki Achnas stadium of the city
of Famagusta. The last meetings of the group tournament will take
place on November 1. Armenia will compete with Hungary in the Antonis
Papadopoulos stadium, and Azerbaijan will compete with Cyprus in the
G.S.Z. stadium. To recap, the below 19 national team of Armenia had
a control meeting on October 20 with the below 17 national team of
Armenia. The meeting finished with a big, 5:0, victory of the below
19 team.

CALMING THE CAUCASUS
The Monitor’s View
Christian Science Monitor, MA
Oct 23 2006
Georgia, a tiny democratic outpost on Russia’s southern flank, is
packing a big message. The two nations are locked in a high-stakes
political and economic standoff – one that reveals the limits of US
and European influence on former Soviet turf.
The crisis began earlier this month when Georgia, known for its 2003
“Rose Revolution” and pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili,
arrested four alleged Russian spies. The suspects were eventually
released to Russia, but Moscow has responded with uncalled-for
harshness: cutting off transportation and postal ties with the former
Soviet state, deporting many Georgians living in Russia, and shutting
down their businesses there.
The West might not pay much heed except that an escalation of tensions
could have serious consequences – for Western access to a Caspian oil
pipeline that runs through Georgia, for expanding Russian influence
in its “near abroad,” and for possible violence in the volatile
Caucasus region.
Behind the standoff lies Georgia’s desire to join NATO in 2008 and to
bring back two small separatist regions that broke away in bloody wars
in the post-Soviet early 1990s. Russian peacekeepers, serving under
a UN mandate, are in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It’s no secret that
Moscow backs their drive for independence and would like them in its
sphere. Nor does it want NATO’s borders stretching across the Black
Sea to Russia’s back door.
The fear here is that any number of wrong moves – by Russian President
Vladimir Putin or by Mr. Saakashvili – could trigger violence that
would inflame the well-armed Caucasus region, and spark a series of
ethnic secessions from countries on Russia’s border.
Complicating all of this is the Western push for independence for
Kosovo, the former Yugoslav province claimed by Russian ally Serbia.
Mr. Putin sees that as justification for independence for Abkhazia and
South Ossetia. Unsaid, but implied, would be independence for a host
of other areas Russia wants back, or more tightly under its control:
parts of Ukraine and Moldova, for instance, the long- disputed region
of Nagorno-Karabakh, and parts of central Asia.
Unless the US and Europe try seriously to address Russia’s real fears
about NATO encroachment, they may not – in the long run – be able to
prevent Russian maneuvering to buttress its periphery. Putin knows
he has the upper hand in the region. Much of the world might object
to his strong-arm, antidemocratic tactics, but he’s got most Russians
solidly behind him, and his country is flush with energy profits.
Politically, the West needs him to help solve the big-ticket crises
of Iran and North Korea. And, economically, Western Europe depends
on Russian oil and gas.
But in the shortterm, the West can help defuse Georgian-Russian
tensions by pointing to the dangers of escalation and a potential
war over Georgia’s breakaways. Over the weekend, the US secretary
of State called for “cooler heads to prevail.” Saakashvili, who
needlessly provoked the crisis, has wisely renounced any military or
quick action to solve the separatist problem. Moscow would do well
to find a face-saving way to back down.

SEEING THROUGH THE SNOW
Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt
Oct 19-25 2006
Azade Seyhan* examines the achievements of Orhan Pamuk, winner of
this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature
Yashar Kemal, one of the most prolific names in modern Turkish
literature, had been a perpetual contender for the Nobel Prize for
Literature. Kemal had taken the Turkish novel beyond Istanbul’s
metropolitan centre, interwoven its texture with Anatolian ballads,
legends, songs and colours and developed a poetic prose of epic
grandeur. Yet the coveted prize eluded him. After a lot of speculation
on part of the Turkish literati and press it was Orhan Pamuk who
finally became the first Turkish Nobel laureate. Pamuk is also the
first writer to be recognised from a predominantly Muslim country
since 1988, when Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz, who died on 30 August, 2006,
was awarded the Noble Prize by the Swedish Academy for his richly
nuanced work that lent Arabic narrative a revolutionary energy.
In recent years, Pamuk’s name had begun to circulate in the rumour
mill as a sure winner. He had garnered major international prizes and
had become a celebrity on the European literary circuit. Furthermore,
Pamuk, buoyed by fame and riches (and certainly by a good dose of
conviction), stood up to what is known as the “derin devlet” (literally
the “deep state”), the powerful cadre of high-ranking officials and
members of the military who see themselves as guardians of the secular
state, making public statements that were deemed highly offensive
to “Turkishness”. In an interview in 2005 in the Swiss daily Tages
Anzeiger, Pamuk was quoted as saying that thousands of Kurds and a
million Armenians were killed in Turkish territories and he was the
only one to openly talk about it. Pamuk ended up facing charges of
insulting the state; the “affair Pamuk” became a huge cause celèbre,
and the charges were eventually dropped on a technicality. The
high profile incident cast a shadow on Turkey’s hopes to join the
European Union.
In its citation, the Swedish Academy commended the Istanbul-born
Pamuk as a writer who “in the quest for the melancholic soul of his
native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing
of cultures”. While critics have questioned the timing and political
bias of the Swedish Academy’s choice, the Academy head Horace Engdahl
has stated that political issues did not affect the decision.
Ironically, very little of Pamuk’s work is explicitly or even covertly
political. His novels defy categorisation, and their complexity is
not reducible to the endlessly repeated comments about “the clash of
civilizations” that have appeared in the media since the announcement
of the award. There is no doubt, however, that Istanbul’s amalgam
of geographies, histories and cultures holds great fascination for
Pamuk and has imprinted its signature on his works.
Born in 1952 in Istanbul to a wealthy upper-class family, Pamuk
has rarely left his hometown for long, except for a stint at the
International Writing Program at the University of Iowa between 1985
and ’88. He graduated from the American High School, Robert Kolej
of Istanbul, studied architecture for a while but ultimately chose
to devote himself to writing full time. His first novel, Cevdet Bey
ve Ogullari ( Cevdet Bey and His Sons ; 1982), a multigenerational
novel of an Istanbul family, was an instant literary success in Turkey.
With the translation of The White Castle (1985) into English, French,
and German and the translations into major languages of his subsequent
novels — The Black Book (1990), The New Life (1994), My Name is Red
(1998), Snow (2002), and the memoir Istanbul: Memories and the City
(2003) — Pamuk became an internationally recognised name.
Pamuk’s political sensibilities are couched in philosophical terms
and estranged from “real” life settings. He often displaces events and
concepts by situating them in a distant past and brings the critical
vision that historical distance sanctions to bear on the present
moment. Engdahl also cited Pamuk’s ability to expand the purview of
the novel through his intimacy with Western and Eastern cultures,
adding that he had, in some ways, stolen the novel from Westerners
and transformed it into something never seen before.
Indeed, Pamuk’s novels are informed by modernist and postmodernist
literary strategies, such as framing stories in a chain of other
stories, a metafictional stance where the narration reflects on its own
construction, and the incorporation of other aesthetic forms and texts.
The question of cultural identity threads through all of Pamuk’s work,
and he tests its claims through the registers of language, memory
and representation. In The White Castle, which presents a slice of
Ottoman life in 17th-century Istanbul, Pamuk relates the story of
a Venetian sailor captured by the Turks and sold into slavery to a
Pasha who presents him as a gift to a Hodja. The relationship between
these two men, who look like identical twins, becomes a story of the
fragility and shifting nature of identity, as the two appropriate
each other’s memories and exchange places.
The question of heritage and its claim on identity assumes the form
of a cultural sea change in My Name is Red, a treatise on the lost art
of Ottoman miniature painting that becomes a portrait of how different
forms of representing — divine vs human; truthful or real vs stylised
— signify the struggle for cultural hegemony. Pamuk’s “postmodern”
signature under this novel bears the fusions and revisions of the
binaries present-past, word-image and life- fiction.
In The Black Book, the reader is treated to a mini history of
Ottoman Islamic culture through a circuitous trip in Istanbul’s
labyrinthine spaces. What ultimately separates Pamuk’s work from the
many modernist/postmodernist novels that address questions of identity,
representation and memory is its easy merger of two different reserves
of cultural capital. Pamuk uses the techniques and thematics of the
modern novel in the text, texture and guise of a culturally specific
Ottoman Turkish life and history.
Kar ( Snow ), a postmodernist allegory of the sociocultural imbroglio
in which contemporary Turkish society is caught up, is Pamuk’s first
self- consciously political novel and arguably his most conceptually
sophisticated work. This is the novel that Western readers and critics
welcomed as a source of insight into the alarming confrontations
between the West and the Islamic world and between political cultures
and ethnic communities within and without nation-states. Although
Pamuk had started writing the novel before the extremist arm of
political Islam struck the United States in the form of hijacked
commercial airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center, with the
release of the novel in English translation he became the unofficial
interpreter of Islam for the American public.
In 2005 the German Book Trade chose to award its prestigious Peace
Prize (Der Friedenpreis des deutschen Buchhandels) to Pamuk, honouring
him as an author committed to a concept of culture based on knowledge
and respect for others, writing from a space where Europe and Islamic
Turkey can coexist. Yashar Kemal was the first Turkish writer to be
honoured with the same prize.
Ironically, many secular Turkish intellectuals are irritated by Pamuk’s
oppositional stance from his very privileged position to what he sees
as an intolerant secularist state and its Jacobin advocates.
In Snow, however, Pamuk gives no credence to those who see him as a
champion of modern Islam or who condemn him as an agent provocateur
against the Kemalist reforms of the Republic. In fact, Pamuk marshals
his impressive erudition and literary skill to craft a historically
informed and aesthetically astute commentary on the fortunes of a land
entangled in the thorny ramifications of its past and the pressures
of conforming to the dictates of modernity. Like most of Pamuk’s
previous novels, Snow is a metafiction, a text that reflects on the
act of (re)constructing a story from fragments of other stories,
evidentiary documents, eyewitness accounts, tapes, videos, notebooks
and other traces of memory. At the level of thematics and symbolism,
Snow becomes a fictional vehicle in pursuit of a people’s identity in
the complex web of history and modernity and an allegorical account
of a fateful search — for one’s self, for a sense of belonging or
community and for love.
The story takes place in the small provincial city of Kars. This is
Pamuk’s first novel in which the setting has moved away from Istanbul,
in this case to the Northern province on the Russian border. The
protagonist Ka is a 42-year-old secular writer from Istanbul who
has just returned from a 12-year political exile in Germany. Upon
his return to Turkey he goes to Kars on a temporary assignment to
report on the upcoming municipal elections and a wave of mysterious
suicides among young women. These women, forced into marriages that
they did not want, or else terrorised by fathers and husbands, kill
themselves in spates. Islamists, however, claim women kill themselves
because they cannot wear headscarves to school.
Pamuk’s narrator, who in the end turns out to be Pamuk’s double,
does not take sides and neither censures nor censors. Nevertheless,
in Snow, the real culprit that reveals itself in the undertone and
the subtext of the text is the state.
When Ka accepts the assignment to report from Kars he also has a
private agenda: to see Ipek, his university classmate, for whom he
still holds a torch. He has learned that Ipek is separated from her
husband Muhtar, also a former acquaintance. Muhtar is running for
mayor. This election is one of the many threads in the narrative that
forms part of the “Islamist-Secularist” debate. Ipek leaves Muhtar, a
secularist turned Islamist, because he wants her to cover herself and
become the dutiful Muslim wife. As a visiting journalist, Ka has the
opportunity to listen to the divergent and contentious views of many
citizens of this historical border town, a place desolate and broken,
replete with memories of glory and atrocity, with remnants of Armenian
and Russian occupation and the early remnants of the nation’s efforts
at Westernisation. The seemingly harmonious co-existence of multiple
cultures, languages, religions and ethnicities in the Ottoman state
is now transformed, as Ka experiences firsthand, into irreducible
differences whose terms are no longer negotiable, as conflicting
groups proliferate (secular Turks, Islamist Turks, Kurd nationalists,
Marxist Kurds, Islamist Kurds) and move to ever more distant poles.
Ka tries to understand each viewpoint and the reasons that drive
people to acts of self-destruction and violence and enters into
lengthy conversations with young Islamists. Most of these young
people bear no resemblance to stereotypical images of young Muslim
fanatics. Blue, a charismatic and handsome Islamist, is a walking
paradox in that he identifies with terrorist Islam though he has never
killed a soul. He shares some of Pamuk’s publicly stated views but
takes them to an extreme where they buckle under the weight of their
illogic. The reflective and poetic Ka confronts more questions at
every turn; his tolerance and compassion paralyse him in his search
for answers. He tries to negotiate between the Islamists and the
government officials. Ka’s self-guilt as a middle class citizen who
saw in Islam the dope of the duped and who missed his chance as a
young man to understand his people leads him to flirt with the notion
that Islam is the answer, the memory that has to be captured and
pressed into the service of a nation’s salvation. In the end, after
a bloody military coup staged in the form of a play, Ka is forced to
return to Germany without Ipek, only to be killed, execution-style,
presumably by Islamists, who suspect him of betrayal. His only sin
was trying to understand it all.
The resonance of Pamuk’s books with the burning political and cultural
issues of the day should not detract from the literary achievement
of his work. Pamuk understands how political forces and oppression
control human lives but also believes that individuals have the
capacity to understand their fate and to imagine in the midst of an
abject present the possibility of a different future.
* The writer is Fairbank Professor in the humanities and professor
of German and comparative literature at Bryn Mawr College. The author
of Representation and Its Discontents: The Critical Legacy of German
Romanticism (1992 ) and Writing Outside the Nation ( 2001 ) , she has
just completed a book on the modern Turkish novel entitled Tales of
Crossed Destinies .
–Boundary_(ID_ZkY94iwx0JQmCEeIIKGixw)–

TYCOON SAVES ARMENIANS’ GOODS FROM AUCTION
Story By Patrick Nzioka
Daily Nation, Kenya
Oct 23 2006
A single telephone call was all it took to save household goods
belonging to the Armenian brothers from the auctioneer’s hammer.
A local tycoon paid Sh450,000 and an additional Sh100,000 as costs
in a matter of minutes to save the goods that were to be auctioned
off to pay rent for the house they lived in at Runda estate.
The two brothers were deported in June after they allegedly caused
a security breach at the city’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
Prospective buyers who had gathered at the Pangani Auction Centre yard
on Saturday went home disappointed because they could not lay their
hands on the posh sofa sets, beds, fridges, mattresses, carpets,
tables, crates with bottles and ceramic tiles, advertised for sale
to recover rent arrears.
The owner of the house, Mr Sammy Musyoki, had sued Brotherlink
International Ltd, a company associated with the two men who claim to
be brothers – Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargsyan – to recover the rent.
Mr Joab Apopo, a lawyer for Businessman Raju Sanghani arrived at the
yard just before the auction started.
He called Mr Sanghani on his mobile phone to brief him on the
situation.
Mr Apopo was instructed to negotiate with the lawyer representing
the landlord to stop the auction on condition that he would be given
the money.
If that failed, he was told to bid for the entire lot at Sh450,000.
The money would be paid once the bid was accepted.
The auction had been delayed after another lawyer representing Ms
Shirfana Alarakiya who lived in the Runda home with the brothers,
negotiated with Mr Musyoki’s lawyer, Mr Richard Mutiso, on how to
pay the money.
Mr Mutiso rejected her offer of a Sh200,000 down payment, but left
with Mr Apopo for Westlands after agreeing to negotiate.
Mr Sanghani appeared before the Kiruki Commission that investigated
the activities of the two men. He said he had invited them to Kenya
believing they were investors.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress