Esma Çakır / Venice, Sep 8 () – Turkey’s Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk told he approuved the decision to publish the lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian toddler who has drown and washed ashore Bodrum coasts after a migrant boat disaster leaving 12 killed, in the media and said, “The image almost sparked a social transformation”.
Orhan Pamuk has recently arrived to Venice for the world premier of “The Innocence of Memories” movie directed by British Filmmaker Grent Gee, inspired by the “Museum of Innocence” launched after Pamuk’s famous novel, in 2012.
Within an exclusive interview with Dogan News Agency, Pamuk addressed the debates on whether the image captured by photographer Nilüfer Demir showing Aylan’s lifeless body should have been published.
“To publish images displaying sexual murders and abuses has a second meaning. But in the case of child Aylan, I believe it was the right thing to publish the photo. The world has shaken up and the publication of this image sparked a social transformation and encouraged an important political decision. I don’t claim that the image was the only reason for that. However, the humanity had to wake up to themselves and get informed. No one would be able to recover the pain, if the wounds were not displayed” said the world-renowned author.
Having added that Turkey’s approach to the refugee crisis was fair, Pamuk said, “2 million people were in our country and they weren’t even turning their head to look. We weren’t behaving well to those 2 million either. Thus, because we weren’t treating them right, while making them work without paying them, refusing to offer them papers, civil right and education in Turkey, they want to flee to Europe, for fair reasons. Europe treats them better and they leave for Europe”.
“My job is to reflect upon why those people couldn’t stay in Turkey and flee to Europe, risking to drown off, not to order ‘this and that will happen’” added Orhan Pamuk.
(Photo)
