Losing Freedom of Speech

Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
May 5 2006

Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, asked a quite meaningful
question to French politicians whether he or one of his colleagues
would be punished for rejecting the Armenian genocide. It was a very
well advised question indeed. Really how should the Turkish
politicians answer questions regarding the so called Armenian
genocide? Getting a prison sentence is not a very weak possibility
even for political figures. The leader of the Turkish Proletarian
Party, Dogu Perincek, was arrested in Switzerland due to his speeches
regarding the issue just a few months before.

Such a thing has of course roots in (political) attitudes toward
other nations, but it would be missing the entire picture to say that
such instances are directed to a certain case, nation, or belief. The
situation seems much worse than just blindly opposing a particular
group of people. Europe recedes from its tolerant culture in general.

Tolerance is not the only value, which we back out of. The
humanitarian values, on which the modern Europe is built, are now on
a quite splitting base.

The cartoons of Jyllands-Posten led to an intense tension in the
world public opinion. Many supported them quite passionately, however
people preferred to keep their silence in many similar issues
afterwards. The famous historian, David Irving, experienced quite
uneasy days when he contradicted the established belief on the
Holocaust. Thanks to God, it did not realize but the Austrian court
jailed him for three years for the speeches, he gave ten years
before. What he said is open to debate but rejecting what someone
says is something and abolishing the right to express what he wants
to do are two very distinct things. Sentencing an academician for
what he said is totally another thing. It is thought provoking that
all the process about Mr. Irving took place in February this year, in
the middle of all the discussion about the cartoon issue.

Nowadays the Dutch Labor Party discusses introducing a preliminary
evaluation and checking of interviews, its members give. The recent
abolishment of a commercial Tv advertisement in the Netherlands is
even more confusing. The publicity medium was Rita Verdonk (the
Minister of integration and minorities) and her strict attitude was
criticized in a quite funny approach. Just like in many other cases,
she was quite determined in expelling a refugee because his residence
permit had expired. The fact that this refugee was a famous
footballer, made the case much more popular than the others. In the
advertisement, Mrs. Verdonk’s husband was driving crazy when that guy
scored against the Netherlands. The Dutch courts will now punish the
advertiser 50 000 Euros each time if it continues showing the
advertisement. People criticized this repressiveness but it can not
be said that there was a remarkable opposition to all these
happenings. People did not underline the significance of freedom of
speech in many of these instances. Restrictiveness seems to grow
silently. The list of examples can be further lengthened…

The point is to be wise enough to be able to form a common platform
to discuss this. Opposing or supporting the Holocaust is one thing,
but sentencing an academician to prison just because of his speeches
is another thing. Maybe the most frightening aspect of all these
cases is that, they take place without any noteworthy opposition. Of
course not everything can be said, there should be some basic
concerns and some exceptions like respect, national integrity, etc
but one sightedness should not be the guide.

We, all are on the edge of a gloomy phase indeed and losing something
very valuable. It took quite a long time for people to become wise
enough to learn the importance discussing rather than blindly
promoting their own ideologies. The democratic values thought people
the significance of providing a neutral ground, on which different
people could express what they believed. We are now edging away from
liberal democratic ideology and becoming hostiles again. On the other
hand, liberals, themselves also act highly contradictory to their
ideologies nowadays. How much liberal are liberals themselves in this
context? Or does liberalism just follow a path towards a different
form of fundamentalism? Liberals are quite open when what they
believe is at stake but critical and even aggressive when people
contradict them. Ayaan Ali Hirsi, the member of parliament of Dutch
Liberal Party, recently published an article with the title of
confrontation in place of collaboration. She was charging Islam due
to being the source of terrorism and radicalization within the
society in her article, just like she does in all her speeches. In
the meantime, she is chosen as the candidate for the Nobel price for
this year.

To conclude, Europe losses its basic principles and exaggerated
nationalism, Islamaphobia, exclusionism take their place. Maybe we
should now ask ourselves the question whether systems can survive
despite eradicating their core values.

05 May 2006

Nermin Aydemir is Netherland representative for Journal of Turkish
Weekly