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The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article2964382.ece
March 6 2012
India
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France seems intent on criminalising
Armenian genocide denial, even after his country's Constitution Council
quashed a recent bid. Parliament's vote last December for such a law
had sparked off a bitter diplomatic row with Turkey, which recalled
its ambassador and cut off military cooperation with Paris.
The timing of the dispute and the government's unrelenting stance on
how this dark episode should be viewed are hard to fathom. But there
is speculation that this ratcheting up of pressure is purely to woo
Armenian voters in the upcoming presidential election. The Council
held this week that in approving the controversial legislation,
the French Parliament caused harm to the exercise of freedom of
expression. The ruling is a blow for the view that opinions on
history cannot be legally enforced, relevant for France as well as
other European countries where denying the Nazi Holocaust is a crime.
Curiously, legislators who appealed against the December bill
had originally voted in its favour, a welcome reconsideration
of a regressive step. France has been dabbling with similar
counter-intuitive measures in recent years. Surely, the country's
large racial and religious minorities are unlikely to feel reassured
by official validations of history. Of material significance would
be policies that promote respect for their rights and protect jobs,
mitigating a sense of alienation, especially in the current economic
crisis gripping Europe.
While Turkey has hailed the decision of the French court, the country's
own law banning the affirmation of the slaughter of Armenians is
of a piece with the French proposal it has sought to repudiate with
sanctions. Whereas Ankara has repeatedly negated the claim that the
extirpation of Armenians was a matter of deliberate policy, owning up
to events of history is perhaps a healthier way of righting historical
wrongs. Moreover, the essence of any constitutional democracy is
that historical crimes and controversies are part of a country's
collective past. Surely, the politics behind attempts to deny the
horrors of history must be exposed. But to clamp down on such forces
betrays an authoritarian and undemocratic tendency inimical to an
open polity. The European Union has acted judiciously in enacting a
law against incitement to racial hatred, rather than a blanket ban
on Holocaust denial. In the light of this common position, individual
states could perhaps take another look at their domestic laws.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article2964382.ece
March 6 2012
India
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France seems intent on criminalising
Armenian genocide denial, even after his country's Constitution Council
quashed a recent bid. Parliament's vote last December for such a law
had sparked off a bitter diplomatic row with Turkey, which recalled
its ambassador and cut off military cooperation with Paris.
The timing of the dispute and the government's unrelenting stance on
how this dark episode should be viewed are hard to fathom. But there
is speculation that this ratcheting up of pressure is purely to woo
Armenian voters in the upcoming presidential election. The Council
held this week that in approving the controversial legislation,
the French Parliament caused harm to the exercise of freedom of
expression. The ruling is a blow for the view that opinions on
history cannot be legally enforced, relevant for France as well as
other European countries where denying the Nazi Holocaust is a crime.
Curiously, legislators who appealed against the December bill
had originally voted in its favour, a welcome reconsideration
of a regressive step. France has been dabbling with similar
counter-intuitive measures in recent years. Surely, the country's
large racial and religious minorities are unlikely to feel reassured
by official validations of history. Of material significance would
be policies that promote respect for their rights and protect jobs,
mitigating a sense of alienation, especially in the current economic
crisis gripping Europe.
While Turkey has hailed the decision of the French court, the country's
own law banning the affirmation of the slaughter of Armenians is
of a piece with the French proposal it has sought to repudiate with
sanctions. Whereas Ankara has repeatedly negated the claim that the
extirpation of Armenians was a matter of deliberate policy, owning up
to events of history is perhaps a healthier way of righting historical
wrongs. Moreover, the essence of any constitutional democracy is
that historical crimes and controversies are part of a country's
collective past. Surely, the politics behind attempts to deny the
horrors of history must be exposed. But to clamp down on such forces
betrays an authoritarian and undemocratic tendency inimical to an
open polity. The European Union has acted judiciously in enacting a
law against incitement to racial hatred, rather than a blanket ban
on Holocaust denial. In the light of this common position, individual
states could perhaps take another look at their domestic laws.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress