New Anatolian, Turkey
May 12 2006

Voltaire in tears
Yavuz Baydar

yavuz.baydar@gmail.com12 May 2006

If alive today, the great French thinker, known for his unconditioned
defense of dissenting opinion no matter what it is, would feel
absolutely shattered. By the way his countrymen, with a great historic
achievement in deep values of freedom for humankind, are unable to
raise their voice against yet another `European’ folly…

New bill, criminalizing denial of `Armenian Genocide’ with prison
sentence, to be debated in French parliament next week, is certainly a
cloud of shame over that country. I am, not as a Turk, but as a
journalist, deeply concerned for the mindset that has created it, and
for consequences, if passed.

It was also with the same shared anxiety, a group of Turkish
intellectuals printed an appeal to French politicians and opinion
makers in Liberation.

They said, in brief, the following:

“We, the Turkish citizens, feel all the burden of the inhuman disaster
faced by the Ottoman Armenians during the last days of Ottoman
Empire. The agony of Armenians is our agony. The 1915 disaster cannot
be denied by anyone who claims to be human. Looking for the reasons
and aims behind such a tragedy is nonsense…’

“But the democratic process is on in Turkey, as was seen during the
Istanbul conference held last Sept. 23-24. This process will chip away
at the darkness confronting the public on that issue. Even though the
people who struggle for this are branded traitors, we know that these
are the stages of a democratic process, so we will keep on struggling
through the issue.’

“But we have serious concerns about the French Parliament’s possible
approval of the Armenian bill. Whatever its aim, such an initiative
would destroy joint efforts to investigate the facts. Such an
initiative would curb free discussion in France and would also create
a negative impact in Turkey.’

“Such polarization would encourage monologues, as France should very
well know. In fact, we need dialogue more than such a vicious
argument. Freedom of expression is a universal principle, just like
the struggle for the crimes against humanity. Defending one does not
mean neglecting the other.

“But today it’s a shame that both sides are unable to communicate
their understanding to one another. Such a deadlock carries the risk
of further, more serious conflicts.

“The pioneers of such initiatives in France or in other places should
take into consideration those circles who are trying to avoid free
argument about the 1915 incidents..’

It is apparent there is something deeply wrong in Europe, in general,
as the attempts to limit the free speech increase. Take the case of
David Irving, or Ernst Zündel, holocaust deniers. The more they are
subjected to trials or prison, the more popular they become.

Richard Bernstein wrote an article in IHT about the growing anti free
speech trends in Europe and expressed his concern about it.

He wrote: `During the uproar over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons,
Muslims attacked the Holocaust denial laws in several European
countries as rank hypocrisy because those same countries permitted
insults to Muslims, and, as the American legal scholar Ronald Dworkin
observed recently in The New York Review of Books, they had a point.
But, Dworkin continued, the response should not be to broaden the
coverage of the laws against insult to religion but to strike them
down. Free speech, he argues, is an indispensable requirement of a
democratic society, not something that can be bargained away to
mollify this or that offended group. And so, as an American in Europe
and a Jew mightily offended by Holocaust denial, I nonetheless come
down on the side of free speech rather than on the prohibition of
offensive speech. One of the cultural differences between America and
Europe in this regard is that in America this issue is debated. In
Europe it is not.’

So true. Perceived arrogance of some Europeans in these matters have
strong elements of double standards, of hyprocricy.

Take Setif, a French case. As the subject stil haunts many French, as
a dark point in their recent history, with some 60.000 civilian
Algeriennes massacred by the French forces, France still rejects the
attempts to deal with the issue properly, by not acknowledging that
it was a crime of humanity.

Given the broad definition of genocide in 1948, it may even be called
an `act of genocide’. By saying `let us leave it to historians’, it
is rather easy to conclude that the world will have hard time to
praise the French political class for championship in righteousness,
will it not?

Pushing denialists in any issue into corner, into marginality may be
a noble task, but, after all, it all comes down to free speech and
its limits. Civilised societies, such as UK, Canada, USA deal even
the most loathable, most nonsensical expressions with tolerance. You
do not put those who say things that may offend some of us, however
deeply the offense may be, to prison. If you do, you have nothing to
say against others who do.

Truly disturbed by what the French bill represents, one certainly
hopes, as Richard Bernstein does, that Europe really comes to its
senses about protecting free speech with no ifs and buts. This bill,
if it becomes law, will definitely pollute, even disrupt (what if
Turkey criminalises, as a retaliation, acceptance of the 1915 events
as genocide?) all civil attempts to reach an understanding and
reconciliation between Armenians and Turks. It will, at the best,
delay them.

I call -and expect – all French colleagues to say no this folly.

What is happening, for the moment, is an insult, an attack to a
fundamental human right, a right constituted by Voltaire and his
countrymen.