Vive la France!
By Heraclitus
You have to love the French. Well, I do, anyway, and I'm serious. They've just passed a law making it illegal to deny the Turkish genocide perpetrated against the Armenians from 1915 to 1917. The American Congress can't even pass a resolution admitting that this historical fact did indeed take place, because they're too cowardly and beholden to Turkish commercial interests (what? the US Congress? craven and venal? really?)--although, to be fair, Presidents Clinton and Bush should really bear the majority of the blame. But the French government, albeit in slightly dodgy circumstances, has not only refused to play along with the lie, but has decided to make it illegal to tell it at all.
Obviously, some may be uncomfortable with this. Shouldn't freedom of speech include the freedom to lie? Well, first, it doesn't in France, so there's nothing untoward about this law in that regard. More importantly, it's obvious why such a lie is being told in the first place: because a fairly powerful nation-state has every reason to want it told and believed, and is throwing all of its weight behind the lie. This marks an obvious difference between this case and that of Holocaust denial (which is also illegal in France). No one with the power, political and financial, of the Turkish government is out there denying the Holocaust. Thus in the US, where such laws are obviously impossible, Holocaust denial is gaining no ground, while, to repeat, the US Congress can't even bring itself to get off its knees and tell the truth about the Armenian genocide.
I also have no problem with freedom of speech being restricted in the case of historical fact. I think that denying the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide is altogether different from trying to revive phlogiston theory. Scientific theories are already interpretations, and you can't outlaw an interpretation. It's entirely possible, though probably unlikely, that phlogiston theory could be revised and become the basis for a scientific revolution, or at least a significant scientific advance. If a revamped phlogiston theory can make more sense of the problems scientists are working on than the alternatives, it will prevail, and rightly so. But denying historical facts, like the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide (or the French Revolution or the founding of Rome), is simply a case of lying, and lying to advance obvious interests. So I think legislating on questions like these is fundamentally different from legislating other intellectual questions or opinions, even in the "hard" sciences.
Meanwhile, in a further blow the forces of reaction in Turkey, Orhan Pamuk has been awared the 2006 Noble Prize for Literature. Pamuk has faced legal persecution in Turkey for discussing the brutal subjection of both Armenians and Kurds by the Turkish government.
You have to love the French. Well, I do, anyway, and I'm serious. They've just passed a law making it illegal to deny the Turkish genocide perpetrated against the Armenians from 1915 to 1917. The American Congress can't even pass a resolution admitting that this historical fact did indeed take place, because they're too cowardly and beholden to Turkish commercial interests (what? the US Congress? craven and venal? really?)--although, to be fair, Presidents Clinton and Bush should really bear the majority of the blame. But the French government, albeit in slightly dodgy circumstances, has not only refused to play along with the lie, but has decided to make it illegal to tell it at all.
Obviously, some may be uncomfortable with this. Shouldn't freedom of speech include the freedom to lie? Well, first, it doesn't in France, so there's nothing untoward about this law in that regard. More importantly, it's obvious why such a lie is being told in the first place: because a fairly powerful nation-state has every reason to want it told and believed, and is throwing all of its weight behind the lie. This marks an obvious difference between this case and that of Holocaust denial (which is also illegal in France). No one with the power, political and financial, of the Turkish government is out there denying the Holocaust. Thus in the US, where such laws are obviously impossible, Holocaust denial is gaining no ground, while, to repeat, the US Congress can't even bring itself to get off its knees and tell the truth about the Armenian genocide.
I also have no problem with freedom of speech being restricted in the case of historical fact. I think that denying the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide is altogether different from trying to revive phlogiston theory. Scientific theories are already interpretations, and you can't outlaw an interpretation. It's entirely possible, though probably unlikely, that phlogiston theory could be revised and become the basis for a scientific revolution, or at least a significant scientific advance. If a revamped phlogiston theory can make more sense of the problems scientists are working on than the alternatives, it will prevail, and rightly so. But denying historical facts, like the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide (or the French Revolution or the founding of Rome), is simply a case of lying, and lying to advance obvious interests. So I think legislating on questions like these is fundamentally different from legislating other intellectual questions or opinions, even in the "hard" sciences.
Meanwhile, in a further blow the forces of reaction in Turkey, Orhan Pamuk has been awared the 2006 Noble Prize for Literature. Pamuk has faced legal persecution in Turkey for discussing the brutal subjection of both Armenians and Kurds by the Turkish government.
posted by . at
4:16 PM
2 Comments:
Before anyone goes to far, the link above neglects to point out that the French Assemblee Nationale passed the voted, analogous to the House of Representatives passing a bill. It still has to be passed without amendments by the French Senate, and then ratified by President Chirac, who until very recently was the EU's staunchest supporter of Turkish entry into the EU. [Here it must be said that Chirac last week visited Armenia, where he pandered in his shameless manner by insisting that the Turks accept the genocide rap before being allowed EU entry. But everyone knows Chirac's lack of moral character exceeds even that of Bill Clinton's character defects, and the old sot may reverse again, depending on his mood of the moment.]
France has 450,000 Armenians who are wealthy and influential. So don't count out a final vote by the Senate and the senescent prez passing the bill.
When I was working at Dem National HQ for Mondale for President in '84, I was sent on a snipe hunt to research and write a speech for Fritz on the National Armenian Day. He was speaking in Fresno, which along with Watertown MA are the two population centers for US citizens of Armenian descent. I did a quick study with some help from Middle East experts [I was Resident Fellow at the Middle East Institute the year before and still had live contacts]. The memo I wrote was long and the Armenians were killed, but not so much by the Turks, who forcibly moved them out of the war zone where the Turks were fighting the Russians [who had a sizeable number of Armenians fighting for the Czar]. The Ottoman Turks [or rather the "Young Turk" military leadership] didn't want the war zone in the Armenian population center full of citizens who might go either way. So they violently deported the population of several million southward into Kurdish territory, where the Kurds were their mortal historical enemies. The Kurds killed many more Armenians than the Turks, according to this version. The remainder of the Armenians made it to Arab territory, where they were fed and clothed and treated well [the Arabs and Kurds were also hereditary enemies]. Even today, a large population of Armenians lives in Lebanon and Syria, vestiges of the forced diaspora.
But of course, the Ataturk regime did not commit the crimes, just as the German government after 1945 did not commit the Holocaust. As with everything in the Middle East, the tangled history of the region goes back millenia, which is why we are so flummoxed by Iraq. When Rumsfeld got rid of Jay Garner and the State Dept experts because he wanted "fresh thinking," he was demonstrating just how unconscious Americans are of the millenia of historical enmity spread all across the region.
Which may be one argument for NOT admitting the Turks into the EU, as the Europeans may sensibly want to quarantine such an infested collection of hateful hellholes from exporting riffraff into the EU countries. Because the Turkish borders are porous and will leak millions of emigrants just passing through to gain a foothold in the impossibly wealthy [to them] lands of the west.
And believe me, assimilation is not on the list of goals of these perennial losers.
By
dave in boca, at 5:05 PM
Republic of Turkiye is always willing to open up its archieves in order to prove that a genocide has not happened. If you or any of your friends know Turkish, then I would recommend you to visit the Government Archieves of Turkish Republic, if you are not able to do that, then I'd recommend you to visit the site: http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/intro/index.html
One should be Turk in order to realise the truth about Armenians, it is not a genocide nor a war against those people. Jews were killed by Hitler, none of them remaining were rich, but Armenians were able to build up their own government after the World War I and Turkish Independence War. If they were killed like the Jews, then how would they build up their own government??
People are free to declare their opinions but only after analysing what they are talking about!!!
By
ertengil, at 12:44 PM
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