105 The search for identity is not only experienced by an individual but also
Turkey’s people, as one community, one İstanbul citizen, and one nation also experience and live in the identity formation process. Ataturk’s forced
modernization and all the attempts to Europeanized Turkey or to divide Turkey have brought the grief to the entire city. Through the Gezi protesters and the spirit
of unity that they bring, show that Turkey’s people come together in the third space to deconstruct the authoritarian of their leader that systematically uses
violence against ethnic and religious minorities
262
and forces Turkey to have only one single identity. Hüzün, which is suggested as “a communal feeling, an
atmosphere, and a culture”
263
, is felt and shared by the protesters that come from different identities. The hüzün they feel for their city has broken down the wall
that separate the narrow identity that is build by Turkey’s elites for Muslim and Christians, men and women, secularists and conservatives have raised their voices
to challenge the power of the “new colonizer”.
5. Theoretical Observation
In this section, I summarize the complexity of the oscillation of the East and the West in Pamuk’s My Name is Red and The White Castle that is presented
in the previous discussion. In both stories, Pamuk delineates how the West is always presented not only as a threat but also as a seduction within the East. In
Said discourse on Orientalism, the Orient is Europe’s cultural contestant and one
262
Efe Levent, “Western Commentators still Getting Turkey’s Gezi Park Protests Wrong”, Global Voice 19 November 2014 http:globalvoicesonline.org20141119western-
commentators-still-getting-the-gezi-park-protests-wrong.
263
Pamuk, İstanbul, 101
106 of the deepest images of the Other. Orientalism also promotes a binary opposition
between the East and the West. Europe is always seen as superior and powerful while the East is inferior and weak. In his oeuvre, Pamuk portrays different
Orientalism for in Turkey’s case it is Europe that becomes Turkey’s cultural contestant and deepest image of the Other even though historically it had never
been colonialized by any Western countries. This is along with Pamuk who “likes Edward Said’s idea of Orientalism, but since Turkey was never a colony, the
romanticizing of Turkey was never a problem for the Turks”.
264
Europe is very important for Turkey in its construction of identity. Referring to Said’s theory, I argue that the development and formation of
Turkey’s identity “require the existence of another different and competing alter ego”,
265
which is Europe itself. After the Empire collapsed and the Ottoman root was revoked, Turkey experienced a cultural inferiority and split identity because it
wanted to merge with the Other but could not go far enough because it was threatened and obstructed by the Other. The feeling of having inferior culture and
complex desire to imitate Other is depicted by Pamuk through the Sultan who commands the palace miniaturist to slavishly appropriate the Italian Renaissance
painting style and Hoja, a master of an Italian slave, who feels inferior towards his slave’s knowledge as a westerner. Olive’s split identity, as the best palace
miniaturist who overly bound to the East and West painting tradition reflects Turkey’s identity that is also split and in ambivalence, whether to embrace
264
Pamuk, Other Colours, 370.
265
Said, Orientalism, 332.
107 Western culture or to leave the Islamic roots that is said as the obstacle of its
progress. The East-West oscillation cannot be separated from the cosmopolitanism,
which is the result of the encounter between the East and the West. This cosmopolitanism, later, leads to mimicry and ambiguity and also hybridity—that
is discussed deeper in chapter four. The result of this encounter is an attraction of Western science and technology, which leads to the adoption of those Western
innovations. Mimicry can be one of the most effective strategies to fight against the colonizer and as a way to survive from the oppressor. In addition, mimicry can
also cause ambivalence because it exists on both the Self and the Other. However, the appropriation of Western painting and technology existed since the Ottoman
Empire under Sultan Mehmed II. He invited an Italian painter, Bellini, to make his self-portrait as well as invited many Western scholars, scientists, and technicians.
In Pamuk’s My Name is Red, Murad III also invites a Western painter and forces the palace miniaturists to imitate the Italian Renaissance painting. In The White
Castle, after Hoja dupes him, Sultan Ahmed I commands Hoja and his slave to create a military cannon that can destroy Ottoman’s enemy as well as bring the
glory of the Empire back. The enchantment of Venetian painting style and European technology that
is followed by the appropriation of Western art and science has raised a confrontation from the Eastern group. The head of the miniaturists and the
Preacher Nusret Hoja MNR as well as the former imperial astrologer TWC take action to preserve and maintain the Eastern tradition from the “invasion” of the
108 Western tradition. Ataturk’s radical modernization, which applies the principle of
secularism, has revoked Turkish society from their Islamic Ottoman roots. The abrupt changes conducted by the elites Westernists have created confusion in
Turkish society as well as produced identity crisis. The process of writing Turkey’s new identity has led to ambivalence for Turkey stays on the two
different conditions, on the Self and the Other. Turkey, now, is still trying to search for its true identity that is written above the Islamic Ottoman culture that
tries to be removed through Ataturk’s project. Bhabha’s writing is hybrid. It is a combination of Michel Foucault,
Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, and other concepts. If Foucault is “limited to his attention to European discourses”
266
, or Said’s Orientalism discourse is “too homogenise the East and fails to recognise the Ottoman Empire as a world power
in the 16
th
-17
th
centuries”
267
, and Fanon mostly expresses his anger felt on racism he experienced, Pamuk proposes the liminal space to negotiate the everlasting
predicament of the oscillation between the East and the West. He offers the third space as a bridge that connects the two poles and chooses to combine the East and
the West as an alternative solution of this predicament as well as a way to mediate Turkey’s split identity. The liminal space he suggested is an appreciation and a
place he gave to an individual—and also the Turks—who are still looking for the identity without any claim and distraction from other parties or groups. Bhabha
also states that a new identity is written in the third space, a space where the East and West meet.
266
McRobbie, The Uses of Cultural Studies, 105.
267
Akalin, “Ottoman Phenomenon”, 112.
109 Additionally, Pamuk suggests his readers to enjoy and celebrate the
process of the oscillation and also proposes hybrid identity rather than embracing only one single identity. Those are the strategy of resistance and the ways to
overcome dichotomy, which is the problem of modernity that undermines within Turkey. Turkey’s identity formation process is like completing puzzle, which
parts can be filled and which identity can be written only by referring or mirroring to the Other. The third space that is suggested by Pamuk can be used as a room to
mirror the Other that can be employed to reflect Turkey’s new identity.
110
CHAPTER IV PAMUK’S SOLUTIONS
TO THE PREDICAMENT OF THE OSCILLATION
Turkey should not worry about having two spirits, belonging to two different cultures, having two souls.
—Orhan Pamuk
268
Slavishly imitating the West or slavishly imitating the old dead Ottoman culture is not the solution.
—Orhan Pamuk
269
Due to the problems and implications of the enchantment and appropriation of the Italian renaissance art and European technology, here I
attempt to present some solutions, which Pamuk’s selected tales offer to the predicament of the oscillation.
This part of the analysis firstly deals with Pamuk’s impartiality, which outlines and deeply analyses his neutral position for not taking sides and his
choices to be a bridge that connects the two different sides, the East and the West. Secondly, Pamuk’s critique, which is raised to the representatives of both sides in
My Name is Red and The White Castle, will be presented as a reflection of his critic towards the Westernists the secularists and anti-Westernists the
conservatives sides that insist Turkey should have only a single spirit. Pamuk’s background as a writer also influences his solution to the complex oscillation.
Therefore, in the last session, I will review Pamuk’s alternative solution that is
268
Pamuk, Other Colours, 369.
269
Pamuk, Other Colours, 370.
