Accepting the Nobel Prize with a Turkish accent

BELGİN AKALTAN - belgin.akaltan@hdn.com.tr

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“Ay vud layk to tank di Nobel komiti…” 

Oh, I’m kidding. Both our Nobel laureates Aziz Sancar (2015) and Orhan Pamuk (2006) are fluent English speakers. But as a Turkish person with ears used to the accent, I can pick up the Turkish stress in their spoken English – a nuance I like very much. 

Both of them look as if they slightly suffer both from spasticity and autism, but that is the mark of a genius, isn’t it? I think they both look very handsome, attractive and sexy for their age. It is this eccentricity in them, the dedication to science and the dedication to writing that makes them so weirdly attractive. 

My nationalist feelings peak on such days… I am thrilled. I find a fantastic pleasure in the international achievement of someone who is born in Turkey, who has a Turkish name, Turkish citizenship and Turkish passport – which I doubt he ever uses – who has graduated from Turkish schools and who can speak Turkish, no matter how rusty it sounds… 

Well, my point in writing this piece is that the combination of their Turkish features and their international genius features, with their spoken English carrying a slight hint of Turkish pronunciation, makes you want to look around and wonder: Where did they come from? 

Aziz Sancar is married to an American professor. If his wife were Turkish, he would not have been able to receive the Nobel Prize. 

Now, this is hard to prove or explain. But a Turkish wife to a scientist like Aziz Sancar would have cost him his Nobel Prize. She would have done some things or would not have done some things; and the accumulation of all of these would have probably blocked him somewhere along the way.  

The same goes for Orhan Pamuk. I mean he could not have won still being married to his Turkish wife, who stood by him during his not-so-rewarding years… They divorced in 2002; he received the Nobel Prize in 2006.

I would have been surprised if he were able to maintain his marriage to a Turkish girl and at the same time win the Nobel. No, these two do not go together. 

However, they are still good friends which is quite extraordinary by Turkish standards. And then Orhan Pamuk included his ex-wife in each and every Nobel activity, which I find very European; it makes me admire him more… 

Now, Turkish women are so high-maintenance, you have to choose between a Nobel Prize and a Turkish woman. You have to spend so much time and energy loving and pleasing a Turkish wife that no room is left for scientific studies or writing novels. You cannot maintain a relationship with them for too long unless you have to make significant sacrifices and compromises that would take you away from yourself.  Actually, all Turkish men who have been able to succeed in their relationships with a Turkish partner should be given their own smaller Nobel Prizes for having achieved their impossible individual missions. Girls, don’t hate me. I am also a Turkish woman. I’m not being critical or anything; I just know the truth. 

We are such a weird country... We Turks are such weird people… This is such an exhausting and energy-consuming place; we are so aggressive and rough to each other that we all need a break from all his. Our relationships, our gender roles, our understanding of religion, our understanding of politics, economy, media, urbanism, environment… They all have to be rebooted for us to be normal again…   

We are such self-destructive bitches and bastards that this society does not allow any of its members to rise to any internationally recognized position… 

The moment Dr. Aziz Sancar won the Nobel Prize, we started asking: Is he Kurdish; is he an Arab; is he Turkish? Is he a parallel? Is he an assimilated Kurd? He seems like he is an old-fashioned Kemalist, right? 

Also, we all owe Orhan Pamuk, big time, after we shamelessly minimized his Nobel Prize back in 2006. We did not even give him the hero’s welcome he deserved, the one we did not spare for a football club, or a Eurovision Song Contest winner. 

You may not agree with Orhan Pamuk’s ideas or the statement he gave to a foreign magazine, but that does not mean you, as a country, can ignore the unprecedented triumph he brought to his country… 

Let us make up for what we did not do for Orhan Pamuk in 2006…

Let us celebrate both of our Nobel Prizes now, with appropriate hero’s welcomes for both of them… Thanks guys, we’re so proud of you both…