a happy ending

Elif Shafak, the Turkish novelist who was charged with writing “un-Turkish” dialogue in one of her novels, has been acquitted. In an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post, she describes how unexpected were the charges and how relieved and hopeful she is about the outcome:

I don’t know precisely what happened in 1915. But as a writer, I’m interested in people — their stories, their silences, their pain. I believe in recognizing human grief. I find it sad that some Turks can’t talk about 1915, that ours is a society with collective amnesia. We haven’t come to grips with our past, nor have we recognized how bitter the Armenians are because their grief goes unacknowledged. I would like Armenians to forgive and forget one day, too, but we Turks need to remember first.

I had hoped that “The Bastard of Istanbul,” told through the eyes of the women of the two families, could be a bridge between Turks and Armenians, showing how similar our two cultures are, how much they share. I tried to tell my story with humor and understanding, but all this seemed to be lost on the humorless lawyers who were determined to put me on trial.

Early this month, they started circulating a vindictive notice on the Internet, labeling me — as well as many other intellectuals — sellouts and traitors. The message ended with a gallant call to “all patriotic Turks who love their nation and are aware of their patriotic duties” to be present to protest at the courthouse throughout the trial. Though I had been apprehensive before, this notice, with its alarming language of hatred, really got to me.

But their message of hate didn’t win out. At the trial, the lawyers and their supporters showed up in force. But for the first time, they were denied entry to the courthouse, which meant they couldn’t intimidate the judges and other court personnel as they had done in the past. And remarkably, they were outnumbered more than two to one by those who support freedom of expression.

This is a rare victory in the Muslim world for the values that we all hold dear—and take for granted—in the free, democratic societies of the West. Savor the whole thing.