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The Globe and Mail, Canada
Oct 8 2005
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: ONE AUTHOR SPEAKS
On flogging poets and catching fish
At a recent writers' festival in Iceland, MARGARET ATWOOD spoke out
about the Orhan Pamuk case. Here's what she had to sayBy MARGARET
ATWOOD
Saturday, October 8, 2005 Page R13
REYKJAVIK -- I've been asked to say a few words about writers'
festivals, and why we might have such things. There's also a fish
conference here at this time -- I hope none of you have come to the
wrong place. Here's how to tell them apart: At the fish conference,
they're talking about fish -- an important subject, in my view, as
some kinds of fish are threatened -- whereas at the writers'
conference we are talking about writing . . . in many areas of the
world, under threat as well.
Iceland is a highly fitting place to be talking about writing,
because most of the earliest writing of the medieval period took
place here. There has been much discussion of why this was, but two
of the elements must have been an appreciative and discerning
audience, and the desire to learn and create. Any society needs both
of these to produce a vigorous literary tradition, but it also needs
a third element -- the public policy we refer to as freedom of
speech.
It was intensely moving for me to visit Thingvallir, the volcanic
rift valley where the Althing met, in Iceland's earliest days, when
it was a self-governing country. Here points of view were hotly
debated, speakers were heard, and decisions were reached. The memory
of this kind of freedom -- freedom from absolutism, freedom to
express your mind without being thrown into a dungeon -- this memory
died hard in Iceland. Difficult times arrived, and the country fell
under the rule of Denmark, in that era a hard-handed monarchy; but
finally Iceland regained its independence, a quality that its
citizens as individuals had never lost. Parliamentary democracy as we
know it today owes much to Iceland.
Now I am going to make a connection that will be a surprise to some
-- a connection between Iceland and Turkey. Oddly, in the Prose Edda
-- which deals with the supposedly ultra-Norse pre-Christian
mythology -- there's a Christian-era cover story. This story
identifies the Aesir -- Odin, Thor, Baldur, and all the rest -- as
having come originally from Troy, "known to us," says the Icelandic
Edda writer, "as Turkey." It's a curious thought -- that the Norse
Gods came from Turkey. I mention it here because the world-famous
Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who has done more than anyone to
encourage a sympathetic view of Turkey in the West, is about to stand
trial in his own country for having spoken about the deaths of
Armenians and Kurds in Turkey at the time of the First World War.
Perhaps Iceland should make Orhan Pamuk, if not a god, at least an
honorary Icelander, as exemplified by his independence of mind and
expression.
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The Icelandic Nobel laureate Halldor Laxness begins his novel
Iceland's Bell -- a novel that circles around the losing and the
recovering of the ancient Icelandic manuscripts -- with an act in
which free speech is punished. A poor farmer has said that the Danish
monarch then ruling Iceland had a fat mistress. That the man who is
flogged for stating a widely circulated truth is also an accomplished
oral poet is no accident.
Why are repressive governments so afraid of writers? Why do they
arrest and imprison and torture and kill them, all around the world?
It's for much the same thing -- for saying what everyone knows, but
nobody dares voice, and for saying it well. Imposed silence is a
favoured weapon of tyrants. To own up to the real history of one's
country is an act of courage, because real histories are never
spotless; they are also seldom popular with the authorities of the
day. But true writers like Orhan Pamuk and Halldor Laxness are not
placed among us to flatter and conceal.
To flog the poets is not in the best interests of any country, much
less one that wants to join an association -- in this case, the
European Union -- where flogging the poets is not viewed well. Let us
hope that Turkey comes to its senses, and takes up again the destiny
ascribed to it by the old Icelandic Edda writer -- as a place where
"the people are most endowed with all blessings: wisdom and strength,
beauty, and every kind of skill."
And let us, as writers, celebrate our own particular skill -- and the
freedom we have to practise it -- during this exceptional writers'
festival. In Ireland, where many Icelandic genes originated, there
was a mythical fish known as the Salmon of Wisdom. I hope that is the
kind of fish we will all try to catch.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051008/AUTHOR08/TPEntertainment/TopStories
Oct 8 2005
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: ONE AUTHOR SPEAKS
On flogging poets and catching fish
At a recent writers' festival in Iceland, MARGARET ATWOOD spoke out
about the Orhan Pamuk case. Here's what she had to sayBy MARGARET
ATWOOD
Saturday, October 8, 2005 Page R13
REYKJAVIK -- I've been asked to say a few words about writers'
festivals, and why we might have such things. There's also a fish
conference here at this time -- I hope none of you have come to the
wrong place. Here's how to tell them apart: At the fish conference,
they're talking about fish -- an important subject, in my view, as
some kinds of fish are threatened -- whereas at the writers'
conference we are talking about writing . . . in many areas of the
world, under threat as well.
Iceland is a highly fitting place to be talking about writing,
because most of the earliest writing of the medieval period took
place here. There has been much discussion of why this was, but two
of the elements must have been an appreciative and discerning
audience, and the desire to learn and create. Any society needs both
of these to produce a vigorous literary tradition, but it also needs
a third element -- the public policy we refer to as freedom of
speech.
It was intensely moving for me to visit Thingvallir, the volcanic
rift valley where the Althing met, in Iceland's earliest days, when
it was a self-governing country. Here points of view were hotly
debated, speakers were heard, and decisions were reached. The memory
of this kind of freedom -- freedom from absolutism, freedom to
express your mind without being thrown into a dungeon -- this memory
died hard in Iceland. Difficult times arrived, and the country fell
under the rule of Denmark, in that era a hard-handed monarchy; but
finally Iceland regained its independence, a quality that its
citizens as individuals had never lost. Parliamentary democracy as we
know it today owes much to Iceland.
Now I am going to make a connection that will be a surprise to some
-- a connection between Iceland and Turkey. Oddly, in the Prose Edda
-- which deals with the supposedly ultra-Norse pre-Christian
mythology -- there's a Christian-era cover story. This story
identifies the Aesir -- Odin, Thor, Baldur, and all the rest -- as
having come originally from Troy, "known to us," says the Icelandic
Edda writer, "as Turkey." It's a curious thought -- that the Norse
Gods came from Turkey. I mention it here because the world-famous
Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who has done more than anyone to
encourage a sympathetic view of Turkey in the West, is about to stand
trial in his own country for having spoken about the deaths of
Armenians and Kurds in Turkey at the time of the First World War.
Perhaps Iceland should make Orhan Pamuk, if not a god, at least an
honorary Icelander, as exemplified by his independence of mind and
expression.
Advertisements
The Icelandic Nobel laureate Halldor Laxness begins his novel
Iceland's Bell -- a novel that circles around the losing and the
recovering of the ancient Icelandic manuscripts -- with an act in
which free speech is punished. A poor farmer has said that the Danish
monarch then ruling Iceland had a fat mistress. That the man who is
flogged for stating a widely circulated truth is also an accomplished
oral poet is no accident.
Why are repressive governments so afraid of writers? Why do they
arrest and imprison and torture and kill them, all around the world?
It's for much the same thing -- for saying what everyone knows, but
nobody dares voice, and for saying it well. Imposed silence is a
favoured weapon of tyrants. To own up to the real history of one's
country is an act of courage, because real histories are never
spotless; they are also seldom popular with the authorities of the
day. But true writers like Orhan Pamuk and Halldor Laxness are not
placed among us to flatter and conceal.
To flog the poets is not in the best interests of any country, much
less one that wants to join an association -- in this case, the
European Union -- where flogging the poets is not viewed well. Let us
hope that Turkey comes to its senses, and takes up again the destiny
ascribed to it by the old Icelandic Edda writer -- as a place where
"the people are most endowed with all blessings: wisdom and strength,
beauty, and every kind of skill."
And let us, as writers, celebrate our own particular skill -- and the
freedom we have to practise it -- during this exceptional writers'
festival. In Ireland, where many Icelandic genes originated, there
was a mythical fish known as the Salmon of Wisdom. I hope that is the
kind of fish we will all try to catch.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051008/AUTHOR08/TPEntertainment/TopStories