Being man of creativity in the pandemic

We are far removed from reminding you of “The Plague” by Albert Camus or “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Marquez Gabriel Garcia. This does not refer to the compositional-narrative proficiency but a specific pragmatism. As a mastter of fact, this refers to the virus and the pandemic menace.

What should the man of creativity do? Prepared to bow down before the state, “damned” Albert Camus or curry favor with the head of the state or, acting independently, set his future stand as ”a vote of silent majority”? When in Paris, 1968 the security forces consulted with President Charles de Gaulle over plans to arrest J.-P. Sartre, the war veteran and titan of the world policy, said ”Sartre is France; he is untouchable”, would not resign office and be remembered today with great respect? (1)

The so-called “silent majority” may suffer trying days on account of the bread and the butter; however, more importantly is the fact that trying days may put to the test the “state” and “intellectuals”. Both in paradigmatical and practical terms. Not much time is required to learn how those ruling "two states of one nation" stood the test. Same goes to “intellectuals”. Let’s start with “intellectuals”, for the writing fraternity takes a broader interest in intellectual aspect of the matter than “matters of national importance” in testing days.

Ataol Behramoglu. One of the most influential representatives of the Turkish poetry after Nazim Hikmet. We have seen that a paradigm created by Nazim hikmet after his enforced departure from Turkey in June 1951 not only in literasture but “education and intellectuality” as well became pervasive in society. In other words, any wielder of pen in modern Turkey identifying himself as “intellectual” or “educated” is meant to be a personality capable of offering “resistance” elevated by Nazim Hikmet to the level of category.

Ataol Behramoglu, today’s brightest representative of the Turkish literature. A close friend of Rasul Rza, and then Anar, he went against the military junta and politicians of right wing. Ataol had repeatedly been arrested, exiled but every time he renewed energy. Behramoglu and the 17-years AKP government have always been mutually irreconcilable. What is there to talk about if there is the poet, intellectual and writer claiming that “provision of apartment to me by the state is out of question”, on the one hand,  and if there is the power seeking to enslave the writer, poet and journalist, on the other hand?

In his last article he demonstrated his zero tolerance protesting against attempts of the head of the state to divide the nation into two camps. Read the following: “How many people realize this or are afraid of telling about it? I don’t know. Not at an ordinary stage in the life of the country, not in the course of political polemics; however, in this unordinary, exceptional period when the nation and citizens of the world are in need of brotherhood; moreover, in terms of the words on brotherhood, this is a contempt of those thinking differently from him, so he will get his answer if not today, tomorrow, in human conscience... The mind of this sort promises no fraternity...” (“Cumhuriyet”, April 8, 2020)

Ataol Behranoglu, professor of the Russian language and literature of istanbul University Aydin (Istanbul Aydin University or Ýstanbul Aydýn Üniversitesi) is charging the country’s President - alleging that ”those who think like me are my friends of mine; those who think different to mine are enemies of mine» - with dividing country’s citizens into friends and enemies as emphasizing that the public conscience will never forget it. Behramoglu makes it clear that answers to this allegation of the President will not be long in coming, at the neasrest elections. If he is comfortable in his own skin, is it so rewarding to ask ”Who is right?” Then it’s our turn to ask: is the poet wise or silly enough when charging the head of the state with “non-alignment”? Should Behramoglu be thought to be rational or hairbrain if yesterday, today or tomorrow he as a citizen would ask the head of the state to grant him "an apartment or a holiday center" and lick the head of the state’s boots in the pandemic period?

Is worth or worthlessness of the creative thinker dependent upon answers to these questions?

And those governing the state, though...

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1. In an alternate version, Jean-Paul Sartre was arrested during a regular protest rally in 1968 that grew into disorders. This caused outrage of student community. When Charles de Gaulle learned about it, he ordered to release Sartre as saying: «France does not jail its Voltaire» https://expert.ru/expert/2012/02/nesostoyavshayasya-revolyutsiya/.