Author Levi: Talking about our problems will be therapeutic

“Turkey has not been questioning itself for a long time. At least, we have seen some rays of hope recently that the confrontation with the past might start. In the last 12 years, or maybe 15 years, we have started to talk about issues which we thought we’d never talk about. Still, there is a long way to go and there will be sadness and pain on the way, but it will be therapeutic,” he said in our Monday Talk interview for Today’s Zaman.

In his novel, he engages in a similar questioning and confronting issues of the near past related to the darkness of the Sept. 12 regime, which was enforced after the 1980 military coup.

Levi answered our questions about his novel and more.

The “darkness” in the title of your book refers to the darkness of the Sept. 12 regime and the period in which minorities were seen as outsiders. What would you say regarding the question of “Where were you”? Who can answer to it?

Indeed, we can start by saying whether or not there is a question. There is the feeling of reproach rather than questioning, and that’s why there is not a question mark. It is intentional in order to put to the forefront the feeling of reproach. This might be also a way of confronting the last 100 years, Turkey’s 20th century.

What is the reproach for?

Indeed, what is intended to be told is not only the environment after Sept. 12 but also the environment of the 1970s, when there was a political fight. In that period, prior to and after Sept. 12, some people who had dreams and hopes set out [to achieve them] and they paid a high price for that. When we look at the period after Sept. 12, you see that a roller ran over a generation which had big hopes. And that roller not only cost some people their lives but also caused memory loss. A generation might not have been eliminated altogether, but that generation was drained of strength. I probably asked that question to myself as well.

That’s the question I was about to ask because it sounds like this is your confrontation as well.

I didn’t want to put myself above others and question them. I put myself into this game of taciturnity. At the same time, this reproach is directed at everyone, including myself, because being silent can also mean sharing the crime. We should learn to confront what we have lived through. When we look at ourselves, we can better see and know each other. The way to know ourselves is through the courage to make ourselves open. This is indeed what I wanted to do because Turkey has not been questioning itself for a long time. At least, we have seen some rays of hope recently that the confrontation with the past might start. In the last 12 years, or maybe 15 years, we have started to talk about issues which we thought we’d never talk about. Still, there is a long way to go and there will be sadness and pain on the way, but it will be therapeutic.

‘After my parents, it was my turn to cry’

Coming from the Jewish culture, you probably have a teaching which says “Remember and never forget!” Do you think this teaching has had an influence on how you approached the issue?

It is quite right that this thought largely contributed to my attitude. I am happy to live with it no matter how it hurts and how strange it might sound, because I believe that I have a better and deeper understanding of life because of it. In addition, remembering and memory have a significant place in literature; for example, understanding present-day İstanbul, which I have a deep love affair with, is only possible if I have that memory and remembrance. There is a big difference between living in İstanbul and living İstanbul. This stance, which attaches importance to remembrance, can be seen in the world’s literature too. For example, one of the few great novelists of world literature, Marcel Proust, does it. And his long novel in volumes was written based on this remembrance. The same situation exists in Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s novels, too. You can’t understand his novel “Huzur” [Peace] without the concept of remembrance. I can say that as a person from this place I was fed by many heritages.

As you know, the number of book readers is quite low in Turkish society. Considering this shortcoming, television series and movies might be filling a gap when it comes to works based on the concept of remembrance. One of them was the series “Hatırla Sevgili” [Remember Darling, a series that portrays the political history of Turkey from the end of the 1950s through the military coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980]. I know that you cried at times when watching this series. Why?

In the episodes in which they were portraying the [Adnan] Menderes era, my mother and father cried because my parents supported the Democrat Party [DP]. When the episodes about the 1970s started, it was my turn to cry. I felt something when I watched a scene and my young wife, who is in her 20s, couldn’t understand the reason. I told her to watch what’s coming. It was March 16 [in 1978 when seven students died in an armed attack]. How couldn’t I cry? I was there at İstanbul University that night. Or take any scene involving torture… Many of my friends have been through it. I also tried to recount this in “When Darkness Fell.” But why did we cry?

Why?

We cried for the youth that we left there. This is very human, very genuine. And if we understand this situation, then we can see the reality more easily and we can be more genuine about that reality. I think that’s why we cried. I agree with you that in a society in which books are not popular, television series play a big role. And because of “Remember Darling,” a lot of young people learned something about Deniz Gezmiş. His brother had once said that Gezmiş was afraid of being forgotten. I think we have been successful in having him remembered.

‘Sept. 12 was much crueler than March 12’

How have you arrived at the point of writing about this and writing about it right now? Has there been something in society, some changes or some movements, that prompted you?

A philosophy professor told me when I was writing “When Darkness Fell” that I was indeed writing one story even though I was writing different novels. First, I had two books, then a story of love which was not lived through, and then “İstanbul Was a Fairy Tale,” which was about a Jewish family and the people surrounding them in the period from the 1920s to 1980s. In “The Funfair is Closed” there is that love story in the 1990s. In “Where Were You When Darkness Fell” the story starts at the beginning of the 2000s and the story is told through flashbacks to the 1970s. My answer is that it was time for me to write it.

Don’t you think you have also reached an age of having to look back and engage in self-criticism, almost like the ’78 generation which started to criticize its past actions when the 2000s arrived?

That is partly right, partly wrong. Yes, there has been a period of self-criticism and there have been some good and bad products, like films and novels, during this process. But do you realize how late they have come out? Indeed, such products about the era, including “When Darkness Fell,” are only the tip of the iceberg considering the magnitude of the effects of that period on people’s lives. There are so many lives deep in the water that we still cannot talk about. I don’t know if we will be able to talk about them, but I know that they have to be told. We still have a long way to go in that direction. Literature concerning the March 12 [coup d’état of 1971] period has been vast, but this is not the case for Sept. 12. The reason is that Sept. 12 was much crueler and more scathing than March 12.

‘Remembering hurts’

You are saying that remembering hurts.

Yes, it always hurts. And sometimes you cannot talk because you don’t want to remember. One other question is: What was there to tell? This is a dangerous question because realities of life and literature are quite different. Constructing a story with aesthetics indeed requires an accumulation of knowledge about literature. It cannot be written without it.

May I ask you a few questions about the realities of life?

Of course.

Now, there are political discussions about trying the people, the generals, who were responsible from the Sept. 12 coup d’état. What goes through your mind when you hear those discussions?

First of all, the fact that Sept. 12 coup putschists have still not been tried is a disgrace for Turkey. It’s our shame. The new constitutional amendment package can open the door for that. So let’s do it. This is very important. I impatiently wait for the days when the Sept. 12 putschists will be in the seat of the accused in courts. On the other hand, some things have been shaken in Turkey. I have deliberately chosen the word “things” …

Yes, why don’t you specify that?

Because I’d like to have people fill in the blank. I say we will see what the future will bring. But I don’t know where we are going exactly. I choose to be hopeful because I like the feeling of it. Nothing will ever be the same in Turkey, but what’s going to happen in the end? That’s a question I cannot answer. What I can say is that we question things now.

You say that Pandora’s box has been opened?

Exactly. There is a lot coming out of this box. There are still things to come out. I prefer it being open. We don’t know if there are wrongdoings in the process. There is no clear answer to that question. We will have a better idea about it in the future. I still support the process, but there are also unknowns. I also want to underline one danger that is threatening us.

What is it?

It is self-censorship, which is worse than censorship. The question, “What would happen if I write that?” is very dangerous for a writer. Do you know when I’ve felt this self-censorship question?

When?

On the night of Hrant Dink’s murder. It was a very important night for me. I was 50 years old, half a century of life I’d had. For the first time in my life I asked myself if it was time to leave this city and this country. And I was sad because I asked this question. I hope I will never ask this question again because if I do, I will leave. I hope I won’t. I don’t ask this question anymore, it was a feeling that I had then.