PRODDING TURKEY

Alberni Valley Times (British Columbia)
May 11, 2006 Thursday
Final Edition

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper in April acknowledged the Armenian
genocide, his statement was an affirmation of history and an advance
in Canada’s commitment to human rights. It also damaged relations
with Turkey, a longtime friend and NATO ally the Turkish government
was so angry that it has recalled its ambassador.

In the first years of the 20th century, more than one million Armenians
died in an ethnic cleansing conducted by Turkey. It was the first
genocide of the 20th century, and the Armenians passionately have
sought international acknowledgment of that fact ever since.

The Turks have been equally passionate in their denial, claiming that
the number of deaths has been greatly exaggerated and that whatever
deaths there were resulted from civil war and strife rather than any
policy of ethnic cleansing.

Until recently, this was an argument that Turks seemed to be winning,
not because they are right there was an Armenian genocide but simply
because in the international scheme of things Turkey matters a great
deal more politically, economically and militarily than Armenia does.

The wind appears to be shifting, however. Mr. Harper chose to risk a
row with Ankara by recognizing the truth of the situation last month,
and sure enough, a diplomatic fight broke out. In France, a bill now
before the National Assembly would make denial of the Armenian genocide
a crime, in the same way as Holocaust denial is in many places.

Turkish diplomats are in Paris this week furiously fighting to prevent
the bill from becoming law. Turkey is hardly unique in its denial
of its 20th century history. Russia is reluctant to confess to the
Ukrainian Famine; Japan refuses to admit a long series of pre-war and
war-time crimes, including the 1937 Rape of Nanking; China refuses
to admit that under Mao Tse-tung as many as 30 million people may
have been murdered.

Mr. Harper is unlikely to bring up the Chinese slaughter China is way
more important than Turkey but even so, he may have done the Turks
a favour. Ankara is looking for a new future within the European Union.

To have such a future, it will need to acknowledge its past. Mr.
Harper may have helped Turkey to see the inevitability of that.