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FRENCH GENOCIDE BILL COMPLICATES TURKEY'S EU BID
By Scott Peterson
The Daily Star, Lebanon
Oct 31 2006
By a wide margin, the French Parliament voted earlier this month to
make it a criminal act to deny an Armenian genocide at the hands of
Ottoman Turks, enraging Turkey and further deepening its suspicion
of the European Union.
Muslim Turkey - which has sought for decades to join the EU and is
now in membership negotiations - vowed retaliation against France
that could disrupt billions of dollars in trade, even as both sides
explore the limits of free speech.
The vote came the same day that Orhan Pamuk, the celebrated Turkish
novelist, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Charges of
"denigrating Turkishness" against Pamuk - brought after he publicly
spoke of the killing of 1 million Armenians during World War I, and
30,000 Kurds - were dropped earlier this year in a case seen as a
test of Turkey's commitment to EU-driven reforms.
The two events get at the heart of contradictions in modern Turkey,
where democratic and West-leaning EU aspirations often clash with
history. The staunchly secular state - a full member of the NATO
military alliance - casts itself as an indispensable bridge between
East and West, but has yet to be accepted as such by Europe.
Many Turks see the genocide vote - a hot-button issue - as just one
more obstacle to keep them out of the 25-member EU club.
"Turks find it very hard to swallow this; even Francophile Turks
educated there are turning their backs on France," says Sami Kohen,
a foreign affairs columnist for Milliyet newspaper. "A lot of us
fear this will further encourage critics of the EU [who] will say:
'Enough is enough; we should give up on this EU.'"
Turkish lawmakers Wednesday proposed a counter-bill that would
recognize an "Algerian genocide" carried out by colonial French forces
in 1945. Turkish columnists are also raising France's considerable
role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, as they seek to even the moral
playing field.
Analysts say the French vote is likely to embolden Turkish nationalists
and those who oppose EU membership for Turkey. Recent polls show
that Turkish support for joining the EU has dropped from nearly 70
to around 50 percent now.
To become law, the bill must pass the French Senate, which is not
certain, and be signed by President Jacques Chirac. Punishment would
include a one-year prison term, and a $56,500 fine, the same penalty
now on French books for denying the Holocaust.
One Turkish newspaper headline took aim at France's reputation as
the home of human rights and justice. It read: "Libert~N, ~Ngalit~N,
stupidit~N."
"French-Turkish relations, which have developed over centuries ...
have been dealt a blow today as a result of the irresponsible false
claims of French politicians who do not see the political consequences
of their actions," Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in
a statement.
"If this bill is passed, Turkey will not lose anything but France
will lose Turkey," Gul had warned before the vote. "[France] will
turn into a country that jails people who express their views."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
The vote has become a political issue in France, where a majority is
against Turkey's membership in the EU, where 400,000 ethnic Armenians
live, and where presidential elections are to be held in six months.
French exports to Turkey in 2005 totaled $5 billion.
During a visit to Armenia earlier this month, Chirac stated that Turkey
should not be allowed to join the EU unless it officially accepts that
the death of more than 1 million Armenians, which took place in the
last years of the Ottoman Empire, constitutes a "genocide." Though
the French government said it opposed the legislation as "unnecessary
and untimely," Chirac says Turkey must recognize the genocide before
it joins the EU.
But while EU officials have been at pains to note that no such genocide
criterion applies to Turkey, the sentiment matches widening unease
in Europe over Turkey's EU application. Such fears in France are
believed to be one reason the French last year rejected the proposed
EU constitution.
"France has done its best to hamper Turkey's relations with the EU"
and has been seeking "a kind of vengeance" against Turkey since the
EU constitution failure, says Seyfi Tashan, director of the Turkish
Foreign Policy Institute in Ankara, Turkey's capital. "So politically,
the more damage they do to Turkey, the better."
Armenians say that 1.5 million died in 1915 in the first systematic
genocide of the 20th century, though historians often count 1
million. Turkey officially argues that some 300,000 Armenians died
in a partisan conflict that took just as many Turkish lives, when
Armenians sided with invading Russian armies during World War I.
While Turkey has declared that it would open its files to historians,
a host of Turkish writers and academics who have challenged official
versions of events, sometimes using the word "genocide," have been
charged with insulting the state by hard-line prosecutors.
Treading that line has been Pamuk, whose novels have dug into Turkey's
imperial past to explore the contradictions and dilemmas of modern
Turkey. The Nobel citation praised the work: "In the quest for the
melancholic soul of his native city, [Pamuk] has discovered new symbols
for the clash and interlacing of cultures." In February 2005, Pamuk
told a Swiss newspaper that "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians
were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it."
"What I said is not an insult, it is the truth," Pamuk said during
his trial. "But what if it is wrong? Right or wrong, do people not
have the right express their ideas peacefully?"
Scott Peterson is a staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor,
where this article originally appeared. THE DAILY STAR publishes this
in collaboration with the Common Ground News Service.
By Scott Peterson
The Daily Star, Lebanon
Oct 31 2006
By a wide margin, the French Parliament voted earlier this month to
make it a criminal act to deny an Armenian genocide at the hands of
Ottoman Turks, enraging Turkey and further deepening its suspicion
of the European Union.
Muslim Turkey - which has sought for decades to join the EU and is
now in membership negotiations - vowed retaliation against France
that could disrupt billions of dollars in trade, even as both sides
explore the limits of free speech.
The vote came the same day that Orhan Pamuk, the celebrated Turkish
novelist, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Charges of
"denigrating Turkishness" against Pamuk - brought after he publicly
spoke of the killing of 1 million Armenians during World War I, and
30,000 Kurds - were dropped earlier this year in a case seen as a
test of Turkey's commitment to EU-driven reforms.
The two events get at the heart of contradictions in modern Turkey,
where democratic and West-leaning EU aspirations often clash with
history. The staunchly secular state - a full member of the NATO
military alliance - casts itself as an indispensable bridge between
East and West, but has yet to be accepted as such by Europe.
Many Turks see the genocide vote - a hot-button issue - as just one
more obstacle to keep them out of the 25-member EU club.
"Turks find it very hard to swallow this; even Francophile Turks
educated there are turning their backs on France," says Sami Kohen,
a foreign affairs columnist for Milliyet newspaper. "A lot of us
fear this will further encourage critics of the EU [who] will say:
'Enough is enough; we should give up on this EU.'"
Turkish lawmakers Wednesday proposed a counter-bill that would
recognize an "Algerian genocide" carried out by colonial French forces
in 1945. Turkish columnists are also raising France's considerable
role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, as they seek to even the moral
playing field.
Analysts say the French vote is likely to embolden Turkish nationalists
and those who oppose EU membership for Turkey. Recent polls show
that Turkish support for joining the EU has dropped from nearly 70
to around 50 percent now.
To become law, the bill must pass the French Senate, which is not
certain, and be signed by President Jacques Chirac. Punishment would
include a one-year prison term, and a $56,500 fine, the same penalty
now on French books for denying the Holocaust.
One Turkish newspaper headline took aim at France's reputation as
the home of human rights and justice. It read: "Libert~N, ~Ngalit~N,
stupidit~N."
"French-Turkish relations, which have developed over centuries ...
have been dealt a blow today as a result of the irresponsible false
claims of French politicians who do not see the political consequences
of their actions," Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in
a statement.
"If this bill is passed, Turkey will not lose anything but France
will lose Turkey," Gul had warned before the vote. "[France] will
turn into a country that jails people who express their views."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
The vote has become a political issue in France, where a majority is
against Turkey's membership in the EU, where 400,000 ethnic Armenians
live, and where presidential elections are to be held in six months.
French exports to Turkey in 2005 totaled $5 billion.
During a visit to Armenia earlier this month, Chirac stated that Turkey
should not be allowed to join the EU unless it officially accepts that
the death of more than 1 million Armenians, which took place in the
last years of the Ottoman Empire, constitutes a "genocide." Though
the French government said it opposed the legislation as "unnecessary
and untimely," Chirac says Turkey must recognize the genocide before
it joins the EU.
But while EU officials have been at pains to note that no such genocide
criterion applies to Turkey, the sentiment matches widening unease
in Europe over Turkey's EU application. Such fears in France are
believed to be one reason the French last year rejected the proposed
EU constitution.
"France has done its best to hamper Turkey's relations with the EU"
and has been seeking "a kind of vengeance" against Turkey since the
EU constitution failure, says Seyfi Tashan, director of the Turkish
Foreign Policy Institute in Ankara, Turkey's capital. "So politically,
the more damage they do to Turkey, the better."
Armenians say that 1.5 million died in 1915 in the first systematic
genocide of the 20th century, though historians often count 1
million. Turkey officially argues that some 300,000 Armenians died
in a partisan conflict that took just as many Turkish lives, when
Armenians sided with invading Russian armies during World War I.
While Turkey has declared that it would open its files to historians,
a host of Turkish writers and academics who have challenged official
versions of events, sometimes using the word "genocide," have been
charged with insulting the state by hard-line prosecutors.
Treading that line has been Pamuk, whose novels have dug into Turkey's
imperial past to explore the contradictions and dilemmas of modern
Turkey. The Nobel citation praised the work: "In the quest for the
melancholic soul of his native city, [Pamuk] has discovered new symbols
for the clash and interlacing of cultures." In February 2005, Pamuk
told a Swiss newspaper that "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians
were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it."
"What I said is not an insult, it is the truth," Pamuk said during
his trial. "But what if it is wrong? Right or wrong, do people not
have the right express their ideas peacefully?"
Scott Peterson is a staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor,
where this article originally appeared. THE DAILY STAR publishes this
in collaboration with the Common Ground News Service.