Yes, I heard an interview this week with Pamuk on Public Radio. I also read his "Snow" this past year and found it fascinating -- the juxtaposition of the secular/modern vs. the Fundamentalist Muslim POV in post-modern Turkey. Let me know what you think of his novel if you read it. He is considered Turkey's most significant novelist....

A Turkish court has now dropped charges against the country's best-known novelist.Pamuk was on trial for "insulting Turkishness" after he accused Turks of killing more than a million Armenians and more than 30,000 Kurds.The court was forced to drop the case because the government had not given it permission to proceed. But the conflict is still unresolved between nationalist opponents of free expression versus Western leaning advocates of Europian values. For those of us who are reading "Birds Without Wings", an interesting footnote, or sidelight.

Interesting side note - at the same time Pamuk was on trial, David Irving was on trial in the UK for denying that the Holocaust happened. If we believe in free speech, do we believe it for all even when that speech is abhorrent? (I also read an interesting column that asks how England dares to criticize Turkey for denying free speech when that country is doing the same....)

BTW, an excellent book about the Armenian Genocide is The Burning Tigris by am enjoying A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka Peter Balakain. And if you want a good sense of how the extremists feel about the issue, check out some of the reader reviews of the book on Amazon....

Let's get the facts straight, please. David Irving sued Professor Deborah Lipstadt for libel because the academic said that he was "a 'Hitler partisan' who twists history to cast the German dictator in a better light." David Irving brought the case - Professor Lipstadt was on trial.

Nothing to do with free speech at all. David Irving is free to make his claims - and the academic is free to say that he twists history, so long as she can justify it. Which she apparently can, as David Irving lost his case.

But he has never been "on trial in the UK for denying that the Holocaust happened". Nor would he ever be.

Here is a link that might be useful: Guardian - David Irving libel case

cindy, I was just about it add the info below and found Martin had beaten me to it.
We have a long tradition of free speech in Great Britain and however unpleasant Irving's ideas and comments may seem to the vast majority of the population he still has the right to state them. As Martin has written it was Irving who brought the libel case against the US academic Prof. Lipstadt, which he lost.
He is now awaiting trail in Austria where Holocaust denial is an offence.
I would be interested to know from what paper you got your information.

Here is a link that might be useful: BBC Report.. Irving in Austrian Jail

Cindy, another recent work about the Armenian genocide in Turkey is "Three Apples Fell from Heaven" by Micheline Marcom. I recommend it highly.

Argh! I hate that I can't correct my posts here! I obviously inadvertently posted a 'paste' on to that sentence. This

>BTW, an excellent book about the Armenian Genocide is The Burning Tigris by am enjoying A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka Peter Balakain.

Should have read

>BTW, an excellent book about the Armenian Genocide is the Burning Tigris by Peter Balakain.

Dumb website.

Woodnymph, I've read that, as well as the children's book Forgotten Fire. And you are right, Apples was excellent.

>But he has never been "on trial in the UK for denying that the Holocaust happened".

Mea culpa. Your two posts made me realize I conflagated (sp) the issue of the trial in Austria, with the columnists complaint that Britain had no room to criticize Turkey, apparently because of some new legislation that sounds a lot like Bush is trying to do. Still, its an interesting issue - is there ever a time when free speech shouldn't be allowed? (and I need to find that link with that column. Will return)

Oh, and it was the colunist criticizing Britain, not me. Just the messanger (in this case, with faulty information.)I have been a Angliophiile from way back and would move there in a heartbeat. Just thought the issue interesting.

Cindy, it is an interesting issue. You might want to join some of us in reading "Birds Without Wings" by de Bernieres, which we will be discussing in mid February. It deals with the Turks, Armenians, Jews, and Greeks and their interactions in a village in Anatolia at the end of the Ottoman Empire. Each ethnic group has its own version of what happened, apparently.

I read it for another online book group a few months (mmm, maybe more than a few months) back. Absolutely loved it, and I'll read it again and join in. (yikes - between that one, Time of our Singing for my RL reading group, and Anne Frank at above online group, all at the same time, I've got my work cut out for me...)

BTW, the column I mentioned was not from a newspaper, and I am not entirely sure if this is a blog or something else, anyway called Spike: Free Speeh in Europe: all or nothing

The point she's making is quite an interesting one. I don't think I'd be quite as dogmatic about it as that, but I have some sympathy with her view.

One question though - putting aside the question of whether "Holocaust Denial" should be a crime in any country, the fact remains that it is a crime in Austria. A person like David Irving must surely know this. Given that, why, pray, did he go to Austria? Feels like he wants to stir up trouble and make a martyr of himself.

coming up, to go with "Snow" thread.

Coming up for Cindy.