I come from a land where
words feel very heavy.
I think every Turkish writer,
journalist, novelist, poet,
or academic knows that words
can get one into trouble.
We do know that because of a
poem, a novel, a short story,
or an article, we
can be targeted,
stigmatized by the government.
We do know that we can be
almost lynched on social media
by trolls, we can
perhaps be sued,
put on trial, detained,
arrested or exiled,
all because of words.
So when we write, we
carry this knowledge
at the back of our minds.
And as a result there is
widespread self-censorship
Among Turkey's literati.
But I think this is a very
difficult subject to talk about,
Because how do you talk
about the kind of censorship
that you internalize and
that you carry within.
it is embarrassing but
there is too much tension,
too much intimidation and too
much polarization in Turkey.
and this has been going
on for a very long time,
and whenever you bring
these elements together,
it means there is
self-censorship.
So overall, it's a
very difficult habitat
for us storytellers.
but I also believe that if
you happen to be a writer
from wounded democracies,
you do not have the luxury
of being apolitical, and
this is a dilemma for us,
because normally, as writers,
we are solitary creatures,
what we do thrives upon
solitude, we are like hermits.
or perhaps like mystics.
When we publish a
book we are catapulted
into the public space,
but otherwise we
like to stay in our
own imaginary worlds,
in our own story land, which
is a land without passports,
without any borders. So I
think it's challenging for
introverted writers to
turn into activists in the
public space. But as I said
if you come from such lands
like Turkey, Nigeria, Venezuela,
Columbia, Tunisia, Egypt,
you do not have the luxury
of being apolitical.
Especially in places where
politics is divisive,
aggressive, oppressive.
Writers and poets cannot close
their eyes or shut their doors.
Doris Lessing once,
very famously said that,
"literature is analysis
after the event."
But I think more and more, we
feel the need that sometimes
literature needs to be
analysis during the event.
Sometimes writers need to
respond while things are
happening and when countries
going through the
darkest tunnels.
And such a country is
my motherland, Turkey.
Over the years,
Ultranationalism, Islamism,
Authoritarianism, and Sexism
have all been on the rise.
Now some people might think that
these are completely
disconnected processes,
But, in my opinion, they
are deeply connected.
So, in countries where
Authoritarianism escalates
Nationalism also tends to rise.
And when countries become
more and more nationalistic,
Sexism also escalates.  It is not a coincidence
that as Turkey began
to lose its democracy,
with a bewildering speed,
violence against women
also increased in Turkey.
And all of these are
happening under a government
that has been in power
for a very long time,
for more than 14 years;
under a government that
has increasingly become
more and more inward looking,
and detached from Europe;
a government that confuses
democracy with Majoritarianism.
I think we need to
make it very clear
that these are completely
different things.
for a proper democracy
to exist and to function,
one needs more than
the ballot box.
You need rule of law,
separation of powers,
definitely a free
and diverse media,
an independent academia,
Women's Rights, LGBT Rights,
and freedom of speech.
Together with all
these components a
democracy can thrive.
If you don't have any
of these elements,
but only the ballot box,
that system cannot be
called a democracy.
It can be, at best, called
Majoritarianism, but
worse yet, it will become
a very dark, dull and
dangerous form of
Authoritarianism.
And today Turkey has become
the world's biggest jailer
for journalists, surpassing
even China's sad record.
There are more than 150
journalists in prison.
Among them, next to them,
there are columnists,
editors, literary
editors, cartoonists.
Thousands of academics
have lost their jobs,
and when I say they
have lost their jobs
we have to understand
that these people
have almost no chance
of finding another job,
in another university, because
once you are black-listed,
once you're stigmatized, that
door is completely closed.
And they have families.
Under a rule of law, every
human being is regarded
as innocent until proven guilty,
in Turkey, it is the
other way around.
It's topsy-turvy.
Journalists are
labeled as guilty
and then they're expected
to prove their innocence
in a system that has
lost separation of powers
and that has lost the
independence of judiciary.
We must also bear in mind,
in my opinion, that Turkey,
in some ways resembles Russia.
They both come from very
strong state traditions.
Once upon a time they
were both multi-ethnic,
multi-lingual empires.
So this dream of going back
to the past, this golden-age,
imaginary golden age of grandeur
is very much alive in
Turkey, just like it is
very much alive in Russia.
At the same time, I think
we must not forget that
the government and the people
are not the same thing.
So if we focus too much
on Turkey's politics,
and politicians, we will get
very depressed and demoralized.
But when you talk to
people, young people, women,
minorities, people from
very different backgrounds,
it is amazing to see there
are so many democrats,
liberals,
progressives, dreamers,
people who are
globally connected,
under the harshest
circumstances.
We might not hear their
voices, but they surely exist.
And I think it's very
important not to forget them
it's very important not
to disconnect with them
and to support them.
Within that framework,
I believe women occupy
a very special place.
For years, existing
political polarization
also affected Turkey's
women, and unfortunately
women have been divided
into very rigid categories
unable to break bread
together, share words together.
But I believe, when women
are so badly divided,
the only thing that benefits
from this is patriarchy itself.
So we need a new
strong sisterhood,
that can transcend
ideological boundaries
and bring women from different
backgrounds together.
Because, I think when
societies go backwards,
and when they tumble down
into fanaticism and
authoritarianism,
we women have much
more to lose than men.
So there's an urgency
for us to come together
and perhaps the new impetus for
a better democracy in Turkey
is going to come
from Turkey's women.
Women of all backgrounds,
Turkish, Kurdish, Alevi,
Armenian, Jewish. We need to
revive that kind of feminism
and women's movement
that is all embracing
and that goes hand-in-hand
with the LGBT movement.
Once as a nation in
Turkey we saw ourselves,
historically and culturally
as part of Europe.
So when I look at our literary
journeys, as Turkish writers,
we grew up reading French
literature, Italian literature,
English literature, in
addition to Russian literature.
It's very interesting that
Persian and Arabic literature
has not been translated
into Turkish until recently.
That's a mistake for sure, but
it's also a sign that shows
that the country's literati saw
themselves as part of Europe
and not as part of
the Middle-East.
Now, that mood has
completely changed in Turkey.
The dominant mood right
now is euro-skepticism.
And Turkey's political elite
are telling the young people
that, you know what, we
tried, it didn't work,
it's better to abandon
the dream of EU
and it's better to think
about other alternatives.
The other alternatives that
they're talking about include
the Shanghai Pact. So
they're saying we should join
Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan,
China and Russia,
and have an
alternative pact there.
And that's an easier
place, of course,
for a country with a sad
record of human rights.
But, I think there
are people, overall,
both inside Turkey and outside
Turkey, who will claim,
including some experts, who
will claim that maybe democracy
is not the right forum,
not the right regime
for the Middle-East.
They are telling us that
it doesn't work in
this part of the world.
And they're also saying,
maybe we have to make a choice
between stability and democracy.
And they're saying
we have to prioritize
stability over democracy.
And I think people who believe
in this false dichotomy
have learned nothing
from history.
Because history has
shown us, time and again
that undemocratic nations
are very unhappy nations
and unhappy nations
cannot possibly
be stable in the long run.
So I spoke about Turkey, but
I also have been watching
what's happening in
the world, in Europe
and in America, with a
weird sense of deja vu
because some of the
things we see elsewhere,
weirdly resemble what
happened in Turkey before.
So the patterns feel
strangely familiar.
For instance, the sharp
polarization in societies
around false divisions
of us versus them.
The blurring of the line
between fact and fiction,
the reinvention of the
past as an age of grandeur
and this rhetoric about making
our countries "great again,"
the emphasis on
strong leadership,
the fragility of
liberal democracy
in the hands of
populist demagogues
and the attack
against intellectuals
and this romanticization
of an imaginary "volk,"
this emphasis on
so-called "real people"
as if there could
be an unreal people.
Poland, or Hungary,
very much resembling
what happened in
Turkey before, but also
to a certain degree, the
movements in the Netherlands,
in France, it is as if there's a template
and we see this being repeated
again and again. So what
I'm trying to say is
the loss of democracy in Turkey,
holds important lessons for
progressives everywhere.
What happened in my country
can happen anywhere.
It can even happen here.
There are three
elements in my opinion
to take into consideration.
Firstly, populist movements
have a disproportionate
impact on mainstream politics.
Even when they
stay in opposition,
once they are in the game they
force mainstream politicians
to adopt a much
more nationalistic,
jingoistic rhetoric.
For instance, like we've
seen in the Netherlands.
When they come to
power, secondly, they
benefit enormously
from manipulating
state apparatus,
and also controlling the media.
I think this is an age in which
journalism is under attack.
And thirdly, even though they
like to claim that they are
very nationalistic, in
today's globalized age
I think all populist movements
are deeply interconnected
and they encourage each
other, they feed each other.
So what do we do?
I think we need to understand
that conventional politics
in the form of Left
versus Right, is no more.
There are new dividing lines
that we need to take into
consideration, including
the duality between
urban and countryside
such as we've seen in Austria,
or we have seen in Turkey
in the latest referendum.
These new divisions
require a new
and an all-embracing approach
that can go beyond party
politics and partisanship.
I think we need to
find a new language
that also speaks to
people's emotions.
Emotions are being very
much underestimated
in mainstream political theory,
but they're very important
for us storytellers.
I think we need to put more
emotional intelligence
on the table.
Because this is the age
in which emotions guide,
shape and distort politics.
When I say emotions,
it's the age of angst,
the age of apprehension
and the age of anger.
If we only speak to
people who think like us,
vote like us, talk like us,
that means we're staying
in our own mental ghettos,
and it is a very dangerous
thing to be surrounded
by tribes or to be
surrounded by sameness.
So in conclusion,
I'd like to remind
ourselves of what
the Lebanese thinker
and philosopher Khalil
Gibran used to say,
he used to say that in his life he had
some unwanted teachers,
and he learned silence from
people who were talkative.
He used to say that
he learned tolerance,
from the intolerant and
kindness from the unkind.
I think it's a beautiful
way of thinking and
maybe we need to
apply the same method.
So we will learn
the indispensability of
democracy from autocrats,
we will learn
the beauty of pluralism
from ultra-nationalists,
we will learn the need
for internationalism
from isolationists.
Therefore allow me to go back
and correct what I
said at the very beginning.
I think it's not only
Turkish or Nigerian
or Egyptian writers,
it is all of us,
East and West, whatever
our profession,
from whichever walk
of life we come from,
we all need to become activists
in this age, in my opinion.
We need to become activists
for empathy, for diversity
for pluralistic democracy
and, very importantly,
I think for a global
solidarity. Thank you.
(applause)
