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Watch your words
A French proposal to outlaw genocide-denial infuriates Turkey
ECONOMIST - Dec 31st 2011**
No closer to resting in peace
FEW Turks had heard of Valérie Boyer, a deputy for Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling
UMP party in France. That was until she sponsored a bill that would make it
a crime in France to deny that the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in
1915 constituted genocide. On December 21st France's lower chamber approved
the bill, which would make denying any officially recognised genocide
punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a fine of =8045,000 ($59,000).
Within hours Turkish hackers had defaced Ms Boyer's website. The deputy
says she has been inundated with death and rape threats. (Separately, the
Israeli Knesset has begun discussing whether to recognise the 1915 killings
as genocide.)
`This is politics based on racism, discrimination and xenophobia,'
thundered Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, before announcing
a set of sanctions. These included recalling the ambassador in Paris,
banning French military aircraft and warships from landing and docking in
Turkey, freezing political and economic consultations and deciding on a
case-by-case basis whether to let French military aircraft use Turkish
airspace.
Mr Erdogan has threatened to take further action should the French Senate
approve the bill. Turkish officials have ruled out trade sanctions because
they would violate Turkey's customs union with the European Union, but have
suggested that `consumers might take matters into their own hands.' A
popular Bosphorus fish restaurant soon declared it was no longer calling
itself `Le Pecheur'.
France is Turkey's fifth biggest trading partner. Two-way trade is worth
around $14 billion and France is lobbying to build a multi-billion nuclear
plant on Turkey's Black Sea coast. French manufacturers account for a fifth
of Turkey's lucrative car market. The chill in relations has been prompted
largely by Mr Sarkozy's fierce opposition to Turkish membership of the EU.
Expanding the club to take in a large, poor and Muslim country would dilute
French influence. Moreover, Mr Sarkozy is facing a difficult re-election
battle in the spring and may be seeking to exploit the genocide to court
ethnic-Armenian votes. Not everyone in France is convinced by the merits of
the bill. Alain Juppé, Mr Sarkozy's foreign minister, describes it as
`unhelpful and counterproductive'.
But Turkey is hardly in a position to preach about free speech. Its own
laws, in a mirror image of the French proposal, prohibit descriptions of
the 1915 killings as genocide. More than 100 journalists are in jail, many
of them on flimsy charges of backing terrorism.
As for Mr Sarkozy's manoeuvres, many Armenians would say they are no more
cynical than Turkey's decision in 2009 to sign a set of protocols
establishing formal ties and reopening borders with Armenia just as the
United States Congress was gearing up to pass a genocide-recognition bill.
In the event Barack Obama convinced American lawmakers to desist. Turkey
promptly shelved the protocols, reverting to its old line that they could
be enacted only if Armenia withdrew from territories it occupies in
Azerbaijan.
Yet civil-society initiatives between Turkey and Armenia are flourishing.
Debate about the fate of the Ottoman Armenians in Turkey is louder and more
vocal than ever. But the passage of the French bill has rekindled
nationalist anger, and with it fears of reprisal among Turkey's tiny ethnic
Armenian community. One of the loudest critics of the French law, which
first came before parliament in 2006, was Hrant Dink, an Armenian newspaper
owner who was murdered in Istanbul by an ultranationalist youth in 2007. Mr
Dink had said that he was willing to be jailed in France for denying that
the events of 1915 counted as genocide, just as he was willing to be jailed
in Turkey for saying the opposite. Healing the wounds of history was best
left to Turks and Armenians, he said, not to vote-mongering politicians.
Watch your words
A French proposal to outlaw genocide-denial infuriates Turkey
ECONOMIST - Dec 31st 2011**
No closer to resting in peace
FEW Turks had heard of Valérie Boyer, a deputy for Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling
UMP party in France. That was until she sponsored a bill that would make it
a crime in France to deny that the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in
1915 constituted genocide. On December 21st France's lower chamber approved
the bill, which would make denying any officially recognised genocide
punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a fine of =8045,000 ($59,000).
Within hours Turkish hackers had defaced Ms Boyer's website. The deputy
says she has been inundated with death and rape threats. (Separately, the
Israeli Knesset has begun discussing whether to recognise the 1915 killings
as genocide.)
`This is politics based on racism, discrimination and xenophobia,'
thundered Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, before announcing
a set of sanctions. These included recalling the ambassador in Paris,
banning French military aircraft and warships from landing and docking in
Turkey, freezing political and economic consultations and deciding on a
case-by-case basis whether to let French military aircraft use Turkish
airspace.
Mr Erdogan has threatened to take further action should the French Senate
approve the bill. Turkish officials have ruled out trade sanctions because
they would violate Turkey's customs union with the European Union, but have
suggested that `consumers might take matters into their own hands.' A
popular Bosphorus fish restaurant soon declared it was no longer calling
itself `Le Pecheur'.
France is Turkey's fifth biggest trading partner. Two-way trade is worth
around $14 billion and France is lobbying to build a multi-billion nuclear
plant on Turkey's Black Sea coast. French manufacturers account for a fifth
of Turkey's lucrative car market. The chill in relations has been prompted
largely by Mr Sarkozy's fierce opposition to Turkish membership of the EU.
Expanding the club to take in a large, poor and Muslim country would dilute
French influence. Moreover, Mr Sarkozy is facing a difficult re-election
battle in the spring and may be seeking to exploit the genocide to court
ethnic-Armenian votes. Not everyone in France is convinced by the merits of
the bill. Alain Juppé, Mr Sarkozy's foreign minister, describes it as
`unhelpful and counterproductive'.
But Turkey is hardly in a position to preach about free speech. Its own
laws, in a mirror image of the French proposal, prohibit descriptions of
the 1915 killings as genocide. More than 100 journalists are in jail, many
of them on flimsy charges of backing terrorism.
As for Mr Sarkozy's manoeuvres, many Armenians would say they are no more
cynical than Turkey's decision in 2009 to sign a set of protocols
establishing formal ties and reopening borders with Armenia just as the
United States Congress was gearing up to pass a genocide-recognition bill.
In the event Barack Obama convinced American lawmakers to desist. Turkey
promptly shelved the protocols, reverting to its old line that they could
be enacted only if Armenia withdrew from territories it occupies in
Azerbaijan.
Yet civil-society initiatives between Turkey and Armenia are flourishing.
Debate about the fate of the Ottoman Armenians in Turkey is louder and more
vocal than ever. But the passage of the French bill has rekindled
nationalist anger, and with it fears of reprisal among Turkey's tiny ethnic
Armenian community. One of the loudest critics of the French law, which
first came before parliament in 2006, was Hrant Dink, an Armenian newspaper
owner who was murdered in Istanbul by an ultranationalist youth in 2007. Mr
Dink had said that he was willing to be jailed in France for denying that
the events of 1915 counted as genocide, just as he was willing to be jailed
in Turkey for saying the opposite. Healing the wounds of history was best
left to Turks and Armenians, he said, not to vote-mongering politicians.