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Now on BBC News, it is time for HARDtalk. | 0:00:00 | 0:00:05 | |
Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:12 | |
A dozen years ago, Europeans looked to Turkey and thought they saw | 0:00:12 | 0:00:15 | |
a country becoming more like them, embracing Western values | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
and on a long-term track to EU membership. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
But today, well, Europe sees authoritarianism, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:21 | |
conservatism, and repression embodied in the all-powerful figure | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
of President Erdogan. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:31 | |
My guest is Elif Shafak, the Turkish novelist and writer | 0:00:31 | 0:00:33 | |
who lives much of her life in London. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:40 | |
Does the West get anywhere close to understanding Turkey's complex | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
culture and politics? | 0:00:42 | 0:00:48 | |
Elif Shafak, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:18 | |
When you write of Turkey today, I wonder what emotions draw you? | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
Would it be anger or sadness or incomprehension? | 0:01:21 | 0:01:25 | |
I think there is a lot of sadness. I feel sad. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
I feel worried. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:34 | |
So much is changing in Turkey and so fast. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
I think speed is important with many things that are happening, | 0:01:38 | 0:01:41 | |
with a bewildering speed which almost prevents time to stop | 0:01:41 | 0:01:45 | |
and analyse because something else happens next week and so it goes | 0:01:45 | 0:01:51 | |
on and on. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
I am very sad when I look at the direction that my motherland | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
has taken, and I think we have become a very unhappy nation, | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
and unhappy people. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:02 | |
Do you feel that you and Turkey have a greater distance | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
between you than ever before? | 0:02:05 | 0:02:10 | |
Because I referred to the fact that you live most of your | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
life in London. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:15 | |
Even from being a young girl, you were very used to travelling | 0:02:15 | 0:02:18 | |
around the world, but doesn't the distance from your motherland | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
feel much greater today? | 0:02:21 | 0:02:22 | |
I wouldn't generalise like that because, as you know, | 0:02:22 | 0:02:24 | |
Turkey is a very polarised, bitterly divided, bitterly | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
politicised country. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
So there is also a civil society in Turkey that perhaps we do not | 0:02:29 | 0:02:33 | |
hear much about. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:39 | |
But within that civil society, there are so many progressive | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
people, open minded Democrats who do know that their country deserves | 0:02:42 | 0:02:44 | |
much better than this. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:51 | |
Minorities, women, students, youth, so when I look at the people, | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
I feel very connected. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:55 | |
When I look at Turkey's politics and politicians, | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
then yes, the distance is enormous. | 0:02:58 | 0:02:59 | |
I want to dig inside the civil society that you see in Turkey today | 0:02:59 | 0:03:03 | |
in a minute, but I want to begin by focusing on perspectives | 0:03:03 | 0:03:06 | |
between Europe and Turkey today and the degree to which there is, | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
frankly, a complete lack of understanding. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
Do you think there is mutual misunderstanding, both ways? | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
The journey of Turkey's EU membership I think has been | 0:03:14 | 0:03:16 | |
so important and there are several turning points, | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
misunderstandings, and mistakes. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:19 | |
Turkey no doubt is a very complicated country, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
very multilayered. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:29 | |
Sometimes European observers say they find it difficult to understand | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
Turkey. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:37 | |
Many Turks feel the same way about their own country. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:40 | |
But that said, I think we need to remember there was a time when it | 0:03:40 | 0:03:48 | |
seemed almost possible that Turkey was going to become a member | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
of the EU, around 2005, 2006. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
Almost a historical moment, and that moment is lost now. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
I remember that moment very well because actually, | 0:03:57 | 0:03:59 | |
as it happens, I was based in Brussels for the BBC, | 0:03:59 | 0:04:02 | |
following every move in the Turkey-EU relationship, | 0:04:02 | 0:04:04 | |
as they sought to get to a point where membership negotiations | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
would become real and meaningful, but here we are, as you say, | 0:04:08 | 0:04:15 | |
a dozen years later and there is no prospect at all. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:19 | |
In fact, I just want to read to you something that | 0:04:19 | 0:04:22 | |
President Erdogan said just a few weeks ago. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:24 | |
He said, "In Europe, things have become very serious | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
in terms of the extent of Islamophobia. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
The EU is now closing its doors on Turkey and Turkey doesn't | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
close its doors on anyone." | 0:04:32 | 0:04:35 | |
But that's a narrative that suggests the currently pretty poisonous | 0:04:35 | 0:04:38 | |
relationship between Europe and Turkey is the fault of Europe | 0:04:38 | 0:04:41 | |
because Europe can't handle the fact that Turkey is a Muslim country. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:47 | |
We need to remember how the relationship has collapsed, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
going back ten years. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
I did criticise the Turkish Government for failing | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
to fulfil EU criteria. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
We needed those reforms. | 0:04:57 | 0:04:59 | |
Primarily in order to improve our immature and wobbly democracy. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:01 | |
It was going to be good for Turkey's future and for Turkey's civil | 0:05:01 | 0:05:08 | |
society as well, but I also criticised some of the politicians, | 0:05:08 | 0:05:11 | |
particularly to make it more clear, populist politicians, | 0:05:11 | 0:05:13 | |
within Europe, continental Europe, especially in France at the time | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
of Sarkozy, who used Turkey at the time as the fear card | 0:05:16 | 0:05:19 | |
in their own electoral campaigns. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:24 | |
What they did was quite short-sighted and what we need | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
to understand is ever since the EU became more distanced from Turkey, | 0:05:26 | 0:05:33 | |
this directly worked into the hands of isolationists in Turkey, | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
and who are those? | 0:05:36 | 0:05:41 | |
They are the nationalists, they are the Islamists, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:44 | |
and they are the ones who want a more authoritarian regime. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:50 | |
So Turkey became more and more enclosed. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:52 | |
It is very sad that years and years ago, public opinion, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
public support for EU membership in Turkey was incredibly high. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:57 | |
But not now? | 0:05:57 | 0:05:59 | |
Not now. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:00 | |
I mean, the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Yildirim, just told our programme | 0:06:00 | 0:06:03 | |
a couple of weeks ago, he said if there were a vote right | 0:06:03 | 0:06:07 | |
now in Turkey, he has no doubt that the vote would be | 0:06:07 | 0:06:10 | |
against membership of the European Union, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
and I'll come back to this point about you and your country. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
I mean, you do live in London. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
You are westernised, if that phrase means | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
anything at all. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
Of course, Turkey has always been seen as this country pulled | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
and pushed between East and West, and the western element | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
within Turkey does appear to have lost out. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:30 | |
Well, the Government officials are saying that the public opinion | 0:06:30 | 0:06:32 | |
right now is quite negative. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
Yes, but that's also not unrelated to the fact that constantly | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
the government itself is producing this anti-Western rhetoric | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
and they're talking about joining the Shanghai pact, walking | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
in the opposite direction with Kurdistan, China and Russia, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
and surely that is the right place to be for a country with such a poor | 0:06:46 | 0:06:55 | |
record of human rights violations, human rights and freedom of speech. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:57 | |
I personally never want to see Turkey walking in that direction. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
I want Turkey sharing the same values that matters | 0:07:01 | 0:07:03 | |
so much in Europe. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:12 | |
We have such a long history together. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:14 | |
I am not only talking about financial, economic ties, | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
not only political ties, but also cultural ties that go | 0:07:17 | 0:07:26 | |
all the way back to the Ottoman Empire. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
With regards to identity, it is a big issue in Turkey | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
and I wish we could see being in the middle of East and West | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
as a source of richness instead of as something to get rid of. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
I wish we could see that diversity is a treasure in itself. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
I have always believed in multiple belongings. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:44 | |
Yes, I am an Istanbulite, but I am also a Londoner. | 0:07:44 | 0:07:48 | |
There are so many elements in my soul, from the Middle East, | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
I am attached to the Asian, the Mediterranean, the Balkans. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
I am a European by choice and I like to believe that I am | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
a world citizen. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:03 | |
Why not have multiple belongings? | 0:08:03 | 0:08:04 | |
We do not have to be narrowed down to a singular, | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
monolithic identity politics. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:08 | |
Well, it is fascinating you put it that way, | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
and you put me in mind of the recent novel you wrote which was published | 0:08:11 | 0:08:15 | |
last year, Three Daughters of Eve, which is about a Turkish woman, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
Peri, who is living in Istanbul but still struggling to quite come | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
to terms with her complicated past which involved being educated | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
in the West, questions about her identity, relationship | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
to living in a Muslim country, albeit in Istanbul, | 0:08:26 | 0:08:42 | |
which is obviously in many ways the most liberal city in Turkey. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
It strikes me that you are Peri, in a way. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:48 | |
There are a lot of issues that she is wrestling | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
with and uncertainties and other easiness that she has that you have. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:54 | |
In my recent novel, there are three women | 0:08:54 | 0:08:56 | |
characters, female characters. | 0:08:56 | 0:08:57 | |
All of them come from Muslim backgrounds but there | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
are relationships with identity, religion is completely different. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
So we have Shirin, who is an Iranian British student, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:04 | |
and she is the child of exiled parents. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:06 | |
She is an atheist. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
She no longer has any faith at all. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
Absolutely. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:13 | |
She is an atheist and she's very critical of all religions, | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
but in particular of Islam, because of the mistreatment | 0:09:16 | 0:09:18 | |
of women. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:20 | |
We have Mona, who is Egyptian American, who wears | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
a headscarf and is a practising Muslim. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:25 | |
Who has a belief. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
But I am really interested in Peri. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
Because it seems to me, if I may, that when you talk | 0:09:30 | 0:09:33 | |
about your Istanbul and your belief that in Turkey, yes, | 0:09:33 | 0:09:36 | |
there can be this third way, this wonderful synthesis of East | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
and West, you speak obviously for yourself and for a tranche | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
of Turkish frankly progressive liberal and perhaps not very | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
representative opinion, perhaps embodied by fictional | 0:09:44 | 0:09:46 | |
characters like Peri as well, but do you really feel that you tap | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
into the feelings of many ordinary Turks today? | 0:09:50 | 0:09:55 | |
I think it goes beyond Turkey, but Turkey is an interesting | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
platform in that regard because of our many, | 0:09:58 | 0:10:00 | |
many confusions. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:03 | |
We are a very confused nation about our identity, | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
where we stand. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
So it is not a coincidence that I brought these girls together. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
They jokingly call themselves the sinner, the believer, | 0:10:11 | 0:10:13 | |
and the confused. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:22 | |
And you are right. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:23 | |
I particularly wanted to follow the confused and write | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
about the confusions of our times. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
I'm intrigued by this debate on faith. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
Is there another path? | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
Is there another way of talking about these issues, | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
a more secularist approach? | 0:10:35 | 0:10:44 | |
A nonreligious way of talking about faith, is that possible? | 0:10:44 | 0:10:46 | |
Maybe to put it more bluntly, I'm intrigued by faith but I do know | 0:10:46 | 0:10:50 | |
that faith without doubt is a dogma and dogmas | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
are very, very dangerous. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:53 | |
But I guess my point is what you have just said | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
is fascinating and it is nuanced, and is there any room for nuance | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
in Turkey today? | 0:11:00 | 0:11:08 | |
Because look at the way Mr Erdogan handles politics. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:10 | |
He referred to himself once, rather famously, as a black Turk. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
The idea that there is now this popularisation in Turkey | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
between the white Turks, who he would regard as the elite, | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
unrepresentative perhaps, associations with the military | 0:11:19 | 0:11:20 | |
and the state in the past, and then what he identifies | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
as the black Turks, who as the masses, the people | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
who have faith, have religion, and frankly follow him. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
That is not a nuanced view of where Turkey is today | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
but it is Erdogan's view and Erdogan is by so far the dominant player | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
and character in Turkey's story today. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:46 | |
Populism in general thrives upon dualities and populist | 0:11:46 | 0:11:48 | |
demagogues like the distinction between us versus them. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:50 | |
They're creating us versus them. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:51 | |
They benefit from that. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:52 | |
I think it is the artist's, it is the writer's job to introduce | 0:11:52 | 0:12:00 | |
more nuance and hopefully to bring forth a more nuanced way of looking | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
at things, but you are definitely right. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
Given the state of things in Turkey today, we have to bear in mind that | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
Turkey has become the world's biggest jailer of journalists. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
Journalism is the most difficult profession in Turkey today. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
And every poet, every writer, every journalist, every academic | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
in Turkey knows that because of a poem, | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
because of an article, a novel, or even a tweet, | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
we can get into trouble so easily. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:35 | |
We can be sued. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:36 | |
We can be almost lynched in social media. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
We can be put on trial, may be detained or exiled or imprisoned. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
So what I am trying to say is when we write, we have this | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
knowledge in the back of our minds. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:47 | |
As a result, there is a lot of self-censorship, | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
which is a subject we find very difficult to talk | 0:12:50 | 0:12:52 | |
about because it is embarrassing. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
Do you self censor? | 0:12:54 | 0:12:55 | |
But I think we need to face it. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:57 | |
Well, I am asking you face it. | 0:12:57 | 0:12:59 | |
Absolutely, and I am facing it. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:00 | |
I think when I write fiction I never self censor not because of any other | 0:13:00 | 0:13:04 | |
thing but because the art of storytelling guides me | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
and when I am inside a novel I stay inside the novel for weeks | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
and months, sometimes over a year. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:12 | |
And those characters become my reality. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:14 | |
And I forget the so-called real world. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
Only when I hand it to my editor I become very anxious and by then | 0:13:16 | 0:13:20 | |
it is too late. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:26 | |
And how can you say that, Elif Shafak, when you more than most | 0:13:26 | 0:13:29 | |
know the repercussions of writing things that cross a line. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
In 2006, the Bastard of Istanbul was your novel which landed | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
you in court. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
For a while it seemed you were going to be convicted | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
of crimes under Article 301, which essentially was accusing | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
you of insulting Turkishness because of the way you wrote | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
about the mass killing of Armenians, what many call | 0:13:45 | 0:13:47 | |
the Armenian genocide? | 0:13:47 | 0:13:52 | |
Yes, in my novel the Bastard of Istanbul, I wrote the story | 0:13:52 | 0:13:59 | |
of an Armenian American family and a Turkish family | 0:13:59 | 0:14:01 | |
and it is a book that uses the word genocide for what happened in 1915 | 0:14:01 | 0:14:05 | |
and for that I was accused of insulting Turkishness under | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
article 301, even though nobody knows what that exactly means. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
What is insulting Turkishness? | 0:14:11 | 0:14:16 | |
It is open to misinterpretation. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:21 | |
And it was a very unsettling, unnerving time for me. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
I had to live with a bodyguard for a year and a half and the trial | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
itself was quite negative. | 0:14:28 | 0:14:34 | |
But that's a memory you can't get rid of. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:37 | |
Saying so frankly that you were unsettled, you were | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
unnerved, lived for a year and a half with a bodyguard, when you | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
write your books today, and I know you have just embarked on another | 0:14:43 | 0:14:47 | |
novel, surely you are carrying that in your consciousness and it does | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
impact the way you write, does it not? | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
I think it took me a long time to heal that psychological | 0:14:54 | 0:14:57 | |
turbulence in my soul. | 0:14:57 | 0:14:58 | |
Of course, I was affected by that. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:00 | |
But at the same time, when the book came out in | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
Turkey, I was experiencing the trial and so forth, | 0:15:03 | 0:15:05 | |
from the readers the | 0:15:05 | 0:15:06 | |
feedback, the warmth, was amazing. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:08 | |
Particularly women readers. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:09 | |
Women readers of all backgrounds, Turkish, | 0:15:09 | 0:15:10 | |
Kurdish, Jewish, Armenian, their words, it was just amazing. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:21 | |
It showed me one thing. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
That words matter in Turkey. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:26 | |
Stories matter. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:27 | |
And your connection as a writer with readers is very important. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:30 | |
That is why I always say being a Turkish | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
writer is just like being kissed on the one cheek by readers | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
and being slapped on the other cheek by the | 0:15:36 | 0:15:38 | |
system exactly at the same time. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
But let me ask you this. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:43 | |
If you want to make a difference in Turkey today, | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
an you identify with the writers, the journalists, the | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
progressives, the academics, let's not forget thousands of those have | 0:15:48 | 0:15:50 | |
lost their jos and many been arrested since | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
the most recent round of | 0:15:52 | 0:15:54 | |
measures taken in the state of emergency. | 0:15:54 | 0:16:01 | |
If you self identify with this group in Turkey, how do you | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
make that voice, the let's call it progressive, liberal voice, | 0:16:05 | 0:16:07 | |
resonate and count across the country, because there's no | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
doubt the AKP know how to organise and | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
deliver politically, and one could also say | 0:16:12 | 0:16:14 | |
that the military and everything that goes with the | 0:16:14 | 0:16:16 | |
Turkish military, they know how to organise. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:18 | |
But it seems to me that the liberals and progressives, | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
though they may be quite substantial number, they don't really organise | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
or have a coherent vision for the country. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:26 | |
Yes, but first of all I am so glad you mentioned academics in | 0:16:26 | 0:16:30 | |
addition to journalists, writers, who are unfortunately... | 0:16:30 | 0:16:31 | |
Who have lost their freedoms today. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
But the position of the academics is also so | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
important. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:36 | |
Thousands of them have been sacked. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:37 | |
We need to understand that when you are dismissed as an | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
academic and Turkey, your prospects of finding another | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
job at another university is almost nil. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
These people are almost left without money, without any job, and | 0:16:45 | 0:16:47 | |
completely unlawfully exact. | 0:16:47 | 0:17:11 | |
So to be frank about it, the progressives, | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
the liberals, they are too weak. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
They are not united. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:16 | |
They don't have a coherent platform or vision and | 0:17:16 | 0:17:18 | |
therefore, for all of the individual efforts of people such as yourself | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
and many others, the voice doesn't resonate. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
Yes, but there are so many important voices in Turkey today. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
As we are speaking, I am very sad to say, | 0:17:29 | 0:17:31 | |
two academics are on hunger strike and it has been over 60 days. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
They have now passed a very critical threshold, | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
which is life-threatening medical for them. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:38 | |
There are people trying to dissent, criticise, | 0:17:39 | 0:17:40 | |
express their sorrow or position sometimes at the expense of their | 0:17:40 | 0:17:43 | |
lives. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:44 | |
You are right. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:45 | |
The opposition in Turkey, the other half, is quite | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
fragmented, disorganised, but let us not also | 0:17:47 | 0:17:55 | |
forget what happened in | 0:17:55 | 0:17:56 | |
this referendum. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:56 | |
I would like to take a closer look at it. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
In the run-up to the referendum, we have | 0:17:59 | 0:18:01 | |
seen a very unfair campaign. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
Almost all of the state's resources, almost | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
all of the media outlets were is devoted to one side of the | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
referendum, which is the yes vote, pro Erdogan. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:16 | |
Essentially to change the constitution to the | 0:18:16 | 0:18:18 | |
presidency, not necessarily Mr Erdogan, because he won't be there | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
forever, but to give the presidency much more power. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
Yes, but it was symbolised in him, certainly. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
What I am trying to say is the other side of the campaign, the no voice, | 0:18:25 | 0:18:30 | |
was almost given no free space, and just the opposite. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:32 | |
People who dared to say no were either targeted, | 0:18:32 | 0:18:35 | |
slandered, stigmatised, sometimes physically | 0:18:35 | 0:18:36 | |
or verbally assaulted or | 0:18:36 | 0:18:37 | |
lost their jobs. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:45 | |
So within this climate of intimidation, we went to | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
this referendum. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:48 | |
But let's put all of this on the side and look at the | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
picture we have in hand. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:53 | |
It is remarkable that despite the intimidation half | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
of the Turkish society still said no. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:57 | |
And that says something about the strength... | 0:18:57 | 0:18:59 | |
Well, just under half. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:04 | |
The nature of democracy is that those who get the | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
most votes tend to win and obviously in this case it was close but | 0:19:07 | 0:19:11 | |
Erdogan's side won that argument. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:12 | |
It seems to me you have got to address the | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
most basic fact of all which is that since 2003, Mr Erdogan and his | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
colleagues in the AKP have time and again | 0:19:19 | 0:19:21 | |
proven themselves to be the | 0:19:21 | 0:19:22 | |
most popular force in Turkish politics. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:24 | |
You may talk about his authoritarianism, his oppressive | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
approach to free speech in the media, but he wins elections, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
repeatedly, and if you travel perhaps to rural Antolia, you | 0:19:29 | 0:19:32 | |
will see just how popular the man is. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:37 | |
The distinction between the countryside and urban areas is not | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
only happening in Turkey. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:45 | |
Across Europe we have seen similar patterns. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:47 | |
Even in Austria, we have seen more far right being supported | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
across the countryside and in urban areas more liberal voices voting | 0:19:50 | 0:19:56 | |
pro-liberal voices. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:56 | |
So it is a pattern that we see over and over | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
again. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:00 | |
There is a pattern. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:05 | |
You could argue that the sorts of things we | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
see in Turkey today could be linked to the political realities of Russia | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
today, where Putin is in the ascendant. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:14 | |
You could perhaps look at a country like Egypt, where 2011 | 0:20:14 | 0:20:17 | |
brought the Arab Spring and so many pro-democracy voices onto the | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
streets in Cairo, but where is Egypt today? | 0:20:20 | 0:20:22 | |
Those liberal, secular, pro-democracy voices are nowhere. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:24 | |
But here is what I think. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
Being popular or getting the most of the | 0:20:27 | 0:20:29 | |
votes, let's say, by numbers, isn't enough to gain legitimacy. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
It is not enough to make a system a democracy. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
And that is the biggest mistake the AKP elite | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
have been making over and | 0:20:37 | 0:20:38 | |
over throughout the years. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:39 | |
In short, what they are thinking is if we have | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
the ballot box, this is democracy, is what they are saying, and I am | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
saying no because the ballot box is only one | 0:20:46 | 0:20:48 | |
of the requirements for a | 0:20:48 | 0:20:50 | |
proper democracy. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:50 | |
In addition to the ballot box, you need other things. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
You need rule of law, separation of powers, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
checks and balances, definitely a free media, definitely | 0:20:55 | 0:20:57 | |
an independent academia, you need women's rights, | 0:20:57 | 0:20:59 | |
you need LGBT rights. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:00 | |
Together with all these | 0:21:09 | 0:21:10 | |
components, you can have a proper, pluralistic, functioning democracy. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:18 | |
Now, if you don't have any of those other | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
components and only have the | 0:21:21 | 0:21:22 | |
ballot box, that system cannot be called a democracy. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:27 | |
It can only be a majoritarianism at best. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:29 | |
At worst, it will go towards authoritarianism. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:31 | |
What we have lost in Turkey is the culture of code systems. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
What we have lost is the understanding that | 0:21:34 | 0:21:36 | |
we can have diversity and unity at the same time. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
We can have shared values. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:43 | |
Rather than that, it has always been half of the society | 0:21:43 | 0:21:46 | |
pitted against the other half. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:48 | |
And this is the rhetoric that Mr Erdogan | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
used again and again. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:51 | |
And that kind of dualism is not healthy for any | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
society. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:54 | |
And, yes, I think there is a lot of depression in Turkey at the | 0:21:54 | 0:21:58 | |
moment. | 0:21:58 | 0:22:01 | |
Would you like to escape from that depression by ceasing to | 0:22:01 | 0:22:04 | |
write about Turkey and writing about other things? | 0:22:04 | 0:22:06 | |
You have just started a new novel. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
Is that going to be set in Turkey? | 0:22:08 | 0:22:10 | |
Frankly, I think if you are a writer from countries such as | 0:22:11 | 0:22:14 | |
Turkey, Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt, from places that have either wobbly | 0:22:14 | 0:22:16 | |
or no democracies, if you happen to be | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
a novelist from such a | 0:22:19 | 0:22:20 | |
background, you do not have the luxury of being able to... | 0:22:20 | 0:22:23 | |
You do not have the luxury of being able to | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
say, "I close my door. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:27 | |
I am just going to live in my own bubble." | 0:22:27 | 0:22:34 | |
What I like to do as a writer is to ask | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
questions. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:37 | |
Difficult questions about difficult issues, political taboos, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
sexual taboos, cultural taboos, just to say, "Why is it like that? | 0:22:39 | 0:22:42 | |
Let's talk about this." | 0:22:42 | 0:22:43 | |
And then I like to leave the answers to | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
the readers. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
And in a word, if you continue to think like that and | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
write like that, you will be able to write in London, but you won't be | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
able to write in Turkey. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
Does that bother you? | 0:22:58 | 0:22:59 | |
Yes, it does bother me, of course. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:01 | |
I mean, it makes me sad, this feeling of sorrow, melancholy I | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
think just follows you. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:06 | |
Istanbul is a city that you can't just leave | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
behind. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:08 | |
You carry Istanbul with you in your soul, in your writing. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:12 | |
On the other hand, interestingly, writing in English, I have | 0:23:12 | 0:23:14 | |
started... | 0:23:14 | 0:23:15 | |
I have been writing both in Turkish and in English and that | 0:23:15 | 0:23:18 | |
commune between the two languages has also been an interesting | 0:23:18 | 0:23:21 | |
experience for me. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:22 | |
I realise over time, if there is humour in my work, | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
satire, irony, I find it much easier to express that in English, whereas | 0:23:25 | 0:23:29 | |
melancholy, sorrow, I find it easier to express in Turkish. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:31 | |
But one other thing I noticed is by writing in | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
English, maybe taking a step back and looking at Turkey from that | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
cognitive distance, maybe I can see things a bit more closely when I | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
write in English, paradoxically, because there is no baggage, there | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
is no cultural baggage. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:55 | |
It frees me from my anxieties and I feel maybe | 0:23:55 | 0:23:59 | |
more free to write whatever I want to write at that moment in time. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:05 | |
Elif Shafak, we must end there, but thank you so much | 0:24:05 | 0:24:08 | |
for being on HARDtalk. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:09 | |
Thank you. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:10 | |
It is a pleasure. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:11 | |
Thank you very much indeed. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:21 |