Tweet
WHY FRANCE SHOULDN'T LEGISLATE TURKEY'S PAST.
by Philip H. Gordon & Omer Taspinar
The New Republic, DC
Oct 30 2006
Historical Crimes
Only at TNR Online | Post date 10.30.06 Discuss this article
As European nations debate the idea of accepting Turkey
into their ranks, vestiges of the country's authoritarian
nationalism--particularly its tendency to constrain free speech in
the name of national honor and unity--have antagonized proponents
of the European Union's accepted liberal values. For example, when
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was recently prosecuted for claiming that
a million Armenians were massacred by the Ottomans during World War
I--in violation of a Turkish law that prohibits "insulting Turkish
identity"--Europeans howled in protest until the charges were finally
dropped. In recognition of his politics and his writing, Pamuk was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
More recently, the Turkish stance on the Armenian massacres themselves
is becoming an obstacle to its entry into the EU. On a recent visit
to Armenia, for example, French President Jacques Chirac suggested
that Turkey should not be allowed to join the EU until it recognizes
the Armenian genocide. The European Parliament has similarly requested
that Turkey "acknowledge" the genocide, although it has so far avoided
making that a formal condition for membership.
But, while liberal states that demand accountability for the past are
usually well-intentioned, they can also go too far--as new legislation
in France clearly shows. In a blatant ploy to win over France's 500,000
residents of Armenian origin, the lower house of France's parliament
passed a bill on October 12 that, if agreed to by the Senate, will make
it illegal to deny that the 1915 massacres of Armenians constituted
genocide. The Socialist-proposed bill, which gives sentences of up
to a year in jail or up to a ~@45,000 fine, passed by a lopsided vote
of 106-19, and it was supported by the two leading candidates in the
presidential election scheduled for next spring, Nicolas Sarkozy and
Segolène Royal. The parliament even rejected a proposed amendment to
exempt scholarly research from the reach of the bill.
Not surprisingly, the reaction in Turkey to all of this has been
furious. Well beyond the extremists demonstrating in the streets,
nearly all Turks--including the most liberal and pro-European
ones--resent seeing one of the most sensitive issues in their history
being used as a pawn in French politics. Pamuk himself, no flack for
the Turkish government, has criticized the French legislation. Turks
rightly see the legislation as a cynical ploy not only to win
Armenian votes but to put one more obstacle on the path to Turkey's
EU membership, which France has formally, if unenthusiastically,
promised to negotiate. The backers of the new law claim that its
purpose is to facilitate Turkish-Armenian reconciliation; its effect
will likely be the opposite.
Worse, the French parliament's vote is a dangerous step down a slippery
slope. If it is a crime to disagree that what happened to Armenians
90 years ago should be considered genocide, why stop there?
Shouldn't it be a crime to minimize the impact of other historical
tragedies, such as colonialism or the slave trade? Should the
Turkish parliament pass a law making it a criminal offense to deny
that France practiced torture in Algeria or that a million Muslims
were killed there? Should African governments make it illegal to
deny that genocide took place in Rwanda? Once you go down that road,
it is hard to see where the line should be drawn.
Indeed, the new French legislation is just the latest illiberal
policy in Europe masquerading as liberalism. Since the end of World
War II, a number of European countries, including Germany, Austria,
and France, have passed laws against Holocaust denial. Proponents of
the laws argue that they allow these nations to atone politically for
their past sins, while working to ensure that Holocaust deniers could
not foster the same sort of anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust in
the first place. Now, however, they could also serve as inspiration to
scores of different ethnic and religious groups that wish to win legal
acknowledgement of their own past suffering and historical grievances,
as the Armenians have. But parliaments across Europe would be better
off taking the current legislation off the books than giving equal
treatment to every group's claims. Do we really want the government to
start deciding that some historical views are acceptable but others
merit prison sentences? And would the historical narratives that won
legislative protection be those most clearly supported by "the facts"
or those which had the most powerful political support?
Moreover, though the laws against Holocaust denial were--emotionally
and politically--difficult to oppose, the consequences of compromising
free speech are becoming clear. This February, for example, several
months after European leaders defended the right of a Danish newspaper
to publish a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad that offended Muslims,
an Austrian Court sentenced historian David Irving to prison for
Holocaust denial. The trial exposed European free speech advocates to
charges of hypocrisy and undermined their efforts to convince Muslims
that their tolerance of the cartoons was based on principle--and not
a double standard.
To his credit--and despite his wish that Turkey acknowledge
the Armenian genocide--Chirac and his government opposed the new
legislation, arguing that history should be left up to historians,
not lawmakers. He took the same principled stance last year, when he
successfully opposed a law, backed by a majority in his coalition,
that praised the "positive role" of colonialism.
As Pamuk's prosecution reminds us, Turkey's own record on free speech
is far from pristine, and Turks would do well to be more open about
their past. Instead of prosecuting those who challenge the official
history, Ankara should support debating it openly and accepting its
scars. Already, there are signs that this is taking place. Last year,
Istanbul's Bilgi University held a conference on Armenian history at
which a range of views were presented. Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan supported that conference, and he has also come out
in favor of a joint Turkish-American committee of historians to study
and report on the issue.
Turks should keep moving in this direction and do more to
acknowledge that atrocities--however characterized--occurred. But
these initiatives need to come from Turks themselves in a spirit of
reconciliation, instead of being imposed from the outside under threat
of prosecution. Ultimately, historians, not governments, should be the
ones to decide these sensitive issues. The response to illiberalism in
Turkey must not be illiberalism in France. What an irony if Turkey is
kept out of the EU because of its position on free speech by a country
that would put historians in jail for questioning the official line.
Philip H. Gordon is a senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the
Brookings Institution. Omer Taspinar is a professor at the National
War College and a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w0610 30&s=gordontaspinar103006
--Boundary_(ID_39t6 MRDa4UWN/4MPFyYFZA)--
by Philip H. Gordon & Omer Taspinar
The New Republic, DC
Oct 30 2006
Historical Crimes
Only at TNR Online | Post date 10.30.06 Discuss this article
As European nations debate the idea of accepting Turkey
into their ranks, vestiges of the country's authoritarian
nationalism--particularly its tendency to constrain free speech in
the name of national honor and unity--have antagonized proponents
of the European Union's accepted liberal values. For example, when
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was recently prosecuted for claiming that
a million Armenians were massacred by the Ottomans during World War
I--in violation of a Turkish law that prohibits "insulting Turkish
identity"--Europeans howled in protest until the charges were finally
dropped. In recognition of his politics and his writing, Pamuk was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
More recently, the Turkish stance on the Armenian massacres themselves
is becoming an obstacle to its entry into the EU. On a recent visit
to Armenia, for example, French President Jacques Chirac suggested
that Turkey should not be allowed to join the EU until it recognizes
the Armenian genocide. The European Parliament has similarly requested
that Turkey "acknowledge" the genocide, although it has so far avoided
making that a formal condition for membership.
But, while liberal states that demand accountability for the past are
usually well-intentioned, they can also go too far--as new legislation
in France clearly shows. In a blatant ploy to win over France's 500,000
residents of Armenian origin, the lower house of France's parliament
passed a bill on October 12 that, if agreed to by the Senate, will make
it illegal to deny that the 1915 massacres of Armenians constituted
genocide. The Socialist-proposed bill, which gives sentences of up
to a year in jail or up to a ~@45,000 fine, passed by a lopsided vote
of 106-19, and it was supported by the two leading candidates in the
presidential election scheduled for next spring, Nicolas Sarkozy and
Segolène Royal. The parliament even rejected a proposed amendment to
exempt scholarly research from the reach of the bill.
Not surprisingly, the reaction in Turkey to all of this has been
furious. Well beyond the extremists demonstrating in the streets,
nearly all Turks--including the most liberal and pro-European
ones--resent seeing one of the most sensitive issues in their history
being used as a pawn in French politics. Pamuk himself, no flack for
the Turkish government, has criticized the French legislation. Turks
rightly see the legislation as a cynical ploy not only to win
Armenian votes but to put one more obstacle on the path to Turkey's
EU membership, which France has formally, if unenthusiastically,
promised to negotiate. The backers of the new law claim that its
purpose is to facilitate Turkish-Armenian reconciliation; its effect
will likely be the opposite.
Worse, the French parliament's vote is a dangerous step down a slippery
slope. If it is a crime to disagree that what happened to Armenians
90 years ago should be considered genocide, why stop there?
Shouldn't it be a crime to minimize the impact of other historical
tragedies, such as colonialism or the slave trade? Should the
Turkish parliament pass a law making it a criminal offense to deny
that France practiced torture in Algeria or that a million Muslims
were killed there? Should African governments make it illegal to
deny that genocide took place in Rwanda? Once you go down that road,
it is hard to see where the line should be drawn.
Indeed, the new French legislation is just the latest illiberal
policy in Europe masquerading as liberalism. Since the end of World
War II, a number of European countries, including Germany, Austria,
and France, have passed laws against Holocaust denial. Proponents of
the laws argue that they allow these nations to atone politically for
their past sins, while working to ensure that Holocaust deniers could
not foster the same sort of anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust in
the first place. Now, however, they could also serve as inspiration to
scores of different ethnic and religious groups that wish to win legal
acknowledgement of their own past suffering and historical grievances,
as the Armenians have. But parliaments across Europe would be better
off taking the current legislation off the books than giving equal
treatment to every group's claims. Do we really want the government to
start deciding that some historical views are acceptable but others
merit prison sentences? And would the historical narratives that won
legislative protection be those most clearly supported by "the facts"
or those which had the most powerful political support?
Moreover, though the laws against Holocaust denial were--emotionally
and politically--difficult to oppose, the consequences of compromising
free speech are becoming clear. This February, for example, several
months after European leaders defended the right of a Danish newspaper
to publish a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad that offended Muslims,
an Austrian Court sentenced historian David Irving to prison for
Holocaust denial. The trial exposed European free speech advocates to
charges of hypocrisy and undermined their efforts to convince Muslims
that their tolerance of the cartoons was based on principle--and not
a double standard.
To his credit--and despite his wish that Turkey acknowledge
the Armenian genocide--Chirac and his government opposed the new
legislation, arguing that history should be left up to historians,
not lawmakers. He took the same principled stance last year, when he
successfully opposed a law, backed by a majority in his coalition,
that praised the "positive role" of colonialism.
As Pamuk's prosecution reminds us, Turkey's own record on free speech
is far from pristine, and Turks would do well to be more open about
their past. Instead of prosecuting those who challenge the official
history, Ankara should support debating it openly and accepting its
scars. Already, there are signs that this is taking place. Last year,
Istanbul's Bilgi University held a conference on Armenian history at
which a range of views were presented. Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan supported that conference, and he has also come out
in favor of a joint Turkish-American committee of historians to study
and report on the issue.
Turks should keep moving in this direction and do more to
acknowledge that atrocities--however characterized--occurred. But
these initiatives need to come from Turks themselves in a spirit of
reconciliation, instead of being imposed from the outside under threat
of prosecution. Ultimately, historians, not governments, should be the
ones to decide these sensitive issues. The response to illiberalism in
Turkey must not be illiberalism in France. What an irony if Turkey is
kept out of the EU because of its position on free speech by a country
that would put historians in jail for questioning the official line.
Philip H. Gordon is a senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the
Brookings Institution. Omer Taspinar is a professor at the National
War College and a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w0610 30&s=gordontaspinar103006
--Boundary_(ID_39t6 MRDa4UWN/4MPFyYFZA)--