I heard about the case of Orhan Pamuk‘s trial on NPR driving home today. The trial begins on December 16. Here is a country’s most famous novelist on trial for saying something that insults the national character. Apparently, by discussing the verboten subject of over one million alleged Armenian deaths in Turkey in 1915, Pamuk stepped on the toes of Turkish national honor. It’s a shame that so many of his countryfolk hate him for daring to speak his mind, but Turkish children are taught at an early age to venerate all things Turkish, and that means no criticism of the government view. Whether or not one million Armenians died should be investigated fully, not swept under the carpet.