A test for Turkey - The Boston Globe

GLOBE EDITORIAL - The Boston Globe: "THE AUTHOR Orhan Pamuk writes beautifully of his native Turkey's struggle to understand -- and to be understood by -- the West. In his 2004 novel ''Snow," an exiled poet and journalist named Ka returns to the small Turkish town of his birth to investigate the suicides of girls being forced to remove their religious headscarves in public school. He meets a shadowy and charismatic Islamist extremist who challenges his reporting. ''The Turkish press is interested in its country's troubles only if the Western press takes an interest first," he complains. ''Otherwise it's offensive to discuss poverty and suicide; they talk about these things as if they happen in a land beyond the civilized world."

Now Pamuk faces trial and possible imprisonment for his words. He has been charged by the government with the crime of ''public denigrating of Turkish identity." Pamuk dared to tell a Swiss newspaper that there are some topics in Turkey that are off-limits for public discourse, such as Turkey's history of extreme violence against Armenians and Kurds. ''Almost no one talks about it," he said. ''Therefore, I do."

The prosecution of Pamuk is offensive to human rights and free expression and should be dropped. But the great irony is that it is precisely the shifting and anguished ''Turkish identity" that is at the core of Pamuk's work. Is Turkey to be a secular nation or a Muslim one? Is its nature more European or Asian? Will its government become more democratic or more autocratic? These are the questions that Pamuk's characters -- and thousands of real-life Turks -- grapple with as they cast a wary eye on modernity and the West.

Turkey's penal code has been amended in recent years, but the law still forbids public disagreement with the government on topics it considers of ''fundamental national interest." Yet the actions against Pamuk are also not in Turkey's national interest, especially since it is anticipating talks to join the European Union later this year. The EU has already expressed its disappointment; earlier this month the commissioner in charge of expanding EU membership said trying Pamuk would be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, which Turkey has signed. Other international groups have taken up Pamuk's cause, finding it suspicious that the charges coincide with the EU talks.

If the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has made Pamuk a convenient scapegoat to reassure hard-liners that Turkey's hoped-for ascension to the EU will not cost the nation its identity, it has chosen the wrong target. Pamuk is world-famous because his voice is not harshly polemical but as complex and nuanced as the future his country must face. He belongs, as does Turkey, in the civilized world. "