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ISTANBUL: Paris's Folly

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  • ISTANBUL: Paris's Folly

    Paris's Folly
    YAVUZ BAYDAR

    Today's Zaman
    Jan 24 2012
    Turkey

    The French Senate's passing of the bill which criminalizes the denial
    of the mass deportations and massacres of the Ottoman Armenians in
    1915 is simply an act of folly.

    Let us first ignore the disproportionate and questionable (in
    principle) reaction of Ankara, which seems to echo the folly at new
    heights. Regardless of that, the vote on Monday night will serve
    nothing good, other than the short-term interests of the French
    politicians. But, in the mid- and long-term perspective, it will set
    a negative example of how the French decision-makers attempt to limit
    the area of free speech and cause delays in Turkey's social process
    of reconciliation of the disaster and bringing it to a closure.

    To begin with, the text of the law is problematic. Both of the
    terms used to describe the 'crimes' ('outranciere' - 'outragous' and
    'minimiser' - 'to minimize') - defined as 'genocide'. These terms
    are, to say the least, ambiguous, and open to interpretation. And,
    I am inclined to believe, the law contradicts the Article #34 of
    Constitution of France. Namely the part, that goes: '...civic rights
    and the fundamental guarantees granted to citizens for the exercise
    of their civil liberties; freedom, diversity and the independence
    of the media; the obligations imposed for the purposes of national
    defence upon the person and property of citizens...'

    It is a domestic matter for the French to take the issue further,
    but I have an inkling it will flare up only after the presidential
    elections. This is exactly as described in an Anatolian proverb:
    "A madman throws a stone into a well, it takes 40 [sane] men to take
    it out." What happens, say, if Turkish, German or Russian military
    archives (still fully coiled or with strictly limited access) offer
    new aspects in the future for academics to question the thesis of
    "Armenian Genocide"? It may be a weak prospect, but what if? No doubt,
    the current law already puts a great strain on the freedom of French
    scholarship on the subject.

    What unites Turkey and countries like France is their willingness
    to restrict freedom of speech in the matter of genocide. True, in
    many cases, the denial of crimes of this nature can fall into the
    domain of racism and sheer hatred, thus offending the victims' kin,
    but more often it is used worldwide to exercise skeptical views,
    doubt, nuances and civilized objections.

    In Turkey, there are many such examples of people who fall into the
    latter category, separate from Armenian-haters or nationalists,
    and their restraint in calling it genocide is based on the lack
    of proper debate, and French-like laws -- such as Article No. 301
    of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) -- which scare them from debating
    freely. Therefore, many of us here fight firmly to have Article 301
    fully abolished so that more and more Turks can be informed and reach
    their own conclusions. The more they have access to diverse views,
    the more revived their conscience will be to face the Great Pain
    of the Armenians. The less third-party interventions by legislating
    history and through memory laws, the easier the process. Thus, Paris
    has only hit the brakes on this one.

    The immediate effect of the folly is the mutual political
    instrumentalization of the tragedy. As described spot-on by Timothy
    Garton Ash in The Guardian newspaper, ("In France, genocide has become
    a political brickbat," Jan. 18): "..a tragedy which should be the
    subject for grave commemoration and free historical debate, calmly
    testing even wayward hypotheses against the evidence, is reduced to an
    instrument of political manipulation, a politician's brickbat. The
    corpse counts of yesterday are parlayed into the vote counts of
    tomorrow. You accuse me of genocide, I accuse you of genocide."

    The Armenian diaspora in France and elsewhere may feel (with
    justification from their perspective) relieved, and many Turks --
    still not fully aware of the crimes of humanity in their past --
    feel outraged, but what brings them together is the usage of their
    lack of closure by outside actors. They are abused. France is not,
    will never be, on the high moral ground on this one.

    A good sign, after all, is the reaction by Turkey's Prime Minister
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday. By underlining "patience and calm," he
    is now on the right track to reduce the tension. Where does he stand
    on 1915? Not so clear, but he is the one that initiated the Turkish
    glasnost 10 years ago -- a process that moves in slow motion and hits
    bumps on the path. The awakening is now a fact, and irreversible.

    The process of Turkey's glasnost is based on taking into account the
    bloody tradition of the Young Turks and the Committee of Union and
    Progress, which set the patterns 100 years ago through a series of
    erratic moves and crimes against humanity. If anything, Erdogan knows
    what he is up against and who in Turkey supports him if he aims for
    historic closure.

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