Carles Torner, one of the leading modern Catalan poets, is also the Executive Director of PEN International, with which he has worked for over 20 years. He has been the chair of their Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee. Torner was in Chennai to speak about PEN’s South Indian Chapter, their campaigns for freedom of expression, and the forthcoming Pen International Congress in Pune. Excerpts from an interview:
What does PEN International and its various global arms do?
PEN is the largest — and the oldest — writers’ organisation in the world, and one of the original civil society organisations committed to human rights. It began in 1921 and was quickly extended across the world, including India. At a PEN Congress in Barcelona in 1935, the Indian delegate was (former Prime Minister) Jawaharlal Nehru. During the start of the Spanish civil war in 1936 and the rise of Nazism in Germany, PEN took a strong stand against the burning of books, persecution of Jews, attacks against intellectuals, and so on. We have since become a very strong network for upholding freedom of expression.
There was a turning-point in the 1980s when Arthur Miller, then International President, and Harold Pinter, then President of English PEN, decided to campaign in Turkey against the persecution and torture of writers. They attended trials, met victims, and so on. Incidentally, the translator who accompanied them then was a young writer called Orhan Pamuk. PEN also works for the promotion of linguistic rights. We consider all literary communities to be equal, having the same rights.
What are the hurdles that writers and journalists face today, and how have these evolved over the years?
Something that we have noticed in many countries over the years is that the line between free and authoritarian societies is blurring. Writers in some countries — in the U.S., India, Spain, for example — were not in danger, maybe even 10 years ago. But now, they find themselves under state surveillance, which has created a climate of fear. And as we know, there is only one step between this fear and self-censorship. For example, 10 years ago, we thought Turkey was moving towards full-fledged democracy, even though it still had problems. But in two years’ time, civil freedom has disappeared rapidly.
Has this ‘intolerance’ indeed increased, or gotten worse over the years, or is it that civil society and media institutions are overreacting, as a response to political shifts across the world?
There is a growing repression, yes, but the effect of this is that we have spread the notion of ‘a journalist’. Today, all citizens are journalists, and can report with just a phone. This capacity to be able to report live, for example, if the police are beating up protestors during a demonstration, has been really empowering. But nowadays, we also conversely have imprisonments and sentences for someone who has just tweeted about a protest. As more information gets circulated through social networks, though, people are also getting more aware. Tensions between people must be reconciled and articulated in different ways in Mali, in Turkey, in India, and so on. We also need to look at these conflicts in context.
Pankaj Mishra calls contemporary times the ‘age of anger’ and attributes the growing political upheavals across the world to a failure of ‘Western liberal’ ideas. Do you agree?
That’s difficult to answer. See, democracy is the primary point of focus. It isn’t a Western liberal idea. It’s a moral that must be rooted in each society, and must allow all voices to express themselves. We must then be able to solve conflicts and meet criticisms in a democratic manner, with majorities respecting minorities. What we face is the weakness of democracy at the social level. We have democratic structures in many countries, but the culture which should support these structures in times of conflict is too weak.
It isn’t as though a writer has the right to offend. Not at all. But a response and critique — no matter how harsh — must be in the form of a dialogue, and within these democratic structures. These cultures need to be actively sustained by government policy. But we find ourselves in a contrary situation, as was the case with Perumal Murugan initially, for example, till the courts gave him a positive ruling. The tension between governments which tend to promote intolerance and the problems of globalisation and new modernity need open spaces for resolution.
But where (if at all) do we draw the limit for the freedom of speech and expression?
Well, violence is a clear limit. People must be allowed their rights — to life, to security, to live in peace. Not everything can be passed as freedom of expression, and citizens need to be protected from this violence, and from ‘dangerous speech’ — that which is directly linked to violence. If history, and the courts, can prove that there is a link between the two — a call to violence, essentially — then these must be prohibited.
In that case, what is the judiciary’s role in balancing these factors? The ruling in favour of Perumal Murugan is an exceptional one in India...
All societies can be perfected and improved, and the same applies to judiciaries as well. The role of civil society, courts, as well as organisations that fight for rights and freedoms should be to highlight positive judgements, like the Perumal Murugan one. It should be spread as a good practice, and be played out in the media.
PEN International, for example, does not want to be a group which sits in a corner and points fingers. We want to collaborate with these processes, and send observers to trials, where writers from across the world meet and interact with associations of lawyers, civil liberties groups and so on. We would be very pleased if, in the context of the chilling effect of the pressure on speech by nationalist discourses, we could work with judiciaries to promote a more tolerant political culture which would be the base for a healthy democratic society.
