Ghost of a flea: Orhan Pamuk

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July 02, 2008

Orhan Pamuk

Fethullah Gülen is Foreign Policy's No. 1 in a list of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals (via Five Feet of Fury). Never heard of him? Not to worry, nobody important has heard of him either.

Cut to al-Guardian, falling for it.

A hitherto largely unknown Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gülen, has been voted the world's top intellectual in a poll to find the leading 100 thinkers. Gülen, the author of more than 60 books, won a landslide triumph after the survey - which is organised by the British magazine, Prospect, and Foreign Policy, a US publication - attracted more than 500,000 votes.

The top 10 individuals were all Muslim and included two Nobel laureates, the novelist Orhan Pamuk, who is also Turkish, at No 4, and the Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, in 10th.

Shirin Ebadi who says anyone who leaves Iran is "dead" to her and who supports Iran's nuclear weapons program. By contrast, Orhan Pamuk; despite the rest, his is a name to which I am happy to have been introduced if only for his drawing attention to the Armenian genocide. Ebadi's notion of human rights echoes Canada's "human rights" commissions while Pamuk could just as easily have been charged under Section 13 for bringing Turks into hatred and contempt as he was for much the same reasons under Turkey's Article 301. The difference is that Pamuk was never prosecuted by the Turkish Justice Ministry, they decided they did not have jurisdiction; any Canadian "human rights" tribunal would have convicted.

Related: Christopher Hitchens reviews Orhan Pamuk's "Snow".

Posted by Ghost of a flea at July 2, 2008 07:21 AM

Comments

I can just imagine the thought processes of the "voters" here: for 90% of them, "I'll vote for 'the Other' and show Bushitler Amerikkka just what for!" and the remaining 10%, "better vote for a wog; wouldn't want to get my head chopped off."

Posted by: Clayton Barnett at July 2, 2008 08:56 AM

I get the impression there was some poll-stacking by Turkish media. What baffles me is that a Foreign Policy internet poll would be considered worth stacking.

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at July 2, 2008 09:23 AM

Sophisticated left-coaster that I am I had indeed heard of Gülen. He seems quite a smart man whose concepts of a moderate Islam are not to be dismissed out of hand. If the poll stacking has thrust this intelligent and very active man to the forefront of the Turkish media this is no bad thing.

However, the role of "public intellectual" seems to have fallen off a cliff since the death of Jane Jacobs. I suppose the ever contentious Richard Dawkins might count, and there is alway Noam. But dig a little deeper and the pickings are slim. They won't take Mark Steyn on. Did they mention the ever crazier Naomi Klein? How about St. Algore or David Suzuki. Martin Amis didn't make the cut - reactionary, short and rolls his own.

Our own Charles Taylor is there notwithstanding his personal beclowning on the Reasonable Accomodation Report.

And so on.

As beauty contests go this was sub-Idol. As such things always will be because we never see the contestants lip sync Foucault.

Posted by: Jay Currie at July 3, 2008 12:56 AM