By Fatima Tanveer,
In a development that would certainly send a message to writers spreading hatred against Muslims and Islam, Turkish writers forced Nobel Prize winner for literature V S Naipaul to cancel his plan to participate in the European Writers Parliament (EWP) at Istanbul on November 24-25 this year. The reaction of the Turkish writers was based on his past comments on Islam.
Indian-origin but Trinidad-born Naipaul had been invited as a guest of honour to deliver the opening speech at the event, held to be one of the most important international gathering of writers in Europe.
However, well-known Turkish writer and philosopher Hilmi Yavuz raised a voice against invitation extended to Naipaul known for his Islamophobia and his past comments against Muslims and Islam.
Leading the debate opposing Naipaul having been extended invitation, Yavuz questioned if Turkish intellectuals would like to sit at the same table with Naipaul or not. In his comments, Yavuz said: `I don’t care about the developments and what the world will think of me”.
In interviews to media, Yavuz said that he was not personally against Naipaul but with his mentality. Yavuz said that Naipaul might have received Nobel Prize, but it did not give him the right to insult the Muslim world.
In his comments after he received Nobel Prize in 2001, Naipaul had said that Islam had had a calamitous effect on those who converted to Islam. In his book “The Masque of Africa:Glimpses of African Belief”, Naipaul describes Islam as a quasi-totalitarian religion and asserts that Islam is a religion of and for Arabs only, therefore, every nation but Arabs are converts who were harmed by Islam. Describing Naipaul as a typical “White Indian”, Turkish writers described him as an “archaic Islamphobic”.
Under pressure from Turkish writers, the organisers asked Naipaul currently living in England to cancel his participation in the event. He finally agreed not to attend owing to widespread resentment among Turksih writers about the invitation extended to him as a guest of honour. The organisers had also threatened to cancel his invitation if he still insisted on attending the event.
Turkish writers asked as to why Naipaul had targeted Islam only though coming from a British culture, he knows well how Black Africans were converted by force to Christianity.
Turkish writers also recalled his attitude regarding the destruction of Babri Masjid in December 1992. Naipaul did not condemn the demolition of Babri Masjid even once and instead, he described the bulldozing of the mosque as the “result of Hindus creative passion.” Over 2,000 persons, mostly Muslims, were killed in the riots that followed the demolition. Naipaul was described by Turksih writers as a leader of Islamophobia in the Western world. He was equated with other Islamophobic performers like Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin of Bangladesh now living in Sweden.
It is not the first time that Turkish writers protested against those spreading hatred against Islam and Muslims. In October 2010, Turkish writers protested against Serbian film director Emir Kusturica for his insensitivity towards Bosnian victims during war in the fromer Yugoslavia. Kusturica was invited as a jury member to the 47th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival. Kusturica finally quit the jury and did not attend the programme.
Among the books written by Naipaul include “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey”, and “Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions”.
[Photo by i.telegraph.co.uk]