The Globe and Mail (Canada)
October 13, 2006 Friday

Genocide denial – and its enemies

MICHAEL MARRUS

Should it be a crime to deny the genocide of as many as a million
Armenians at the hands of the Turkish authorities in 1915, during the
dying days of the Ottoman Empire? This is what the overwhelming
majority of the French National Assembly, the lower house of the
French parliament, declared on Thursday, as it voted 106 to 19 in
favour of a Socialist-backed law that would punish what the French
call la négation du genocide arménien with a year in prison and a
hefty fine of $65,000.

The French law, which still needs the ratification of the Senate and
approval of the president of the Republic, might never see the light
of day – but only if cooler heads prevail than those that supported
the bill in parliament yesterday. According to its proponents, some
of whom published a manifesto in Wednesday’s Le Monde, the Armenian
genocide law was all about the campaign against genocide wherever it
exists. Genocide denial, wrote a group of anti-genocide lawyers, was
part of genocide itself, and as such called for both a political and
a juridical response. "Free expression," their argument goes, "does
not include the right to manipulate history nor to deny historical
evidence." Those who do, the legislators insisted, should be
punished. Proponents referred to weighty precedents: a 1990 law
against Holocaust denial, among other things, and an official
recognition of the Armenian genocide in 2001. "It is a question of
courage and a need for justice," claimed the signatories.

The context of this law, however, is somewhat wider than that. Not
entirely absent from the minds of the legislators was the electoral
impact of the French Armenian community of close to 500,000 – one of
the largest in Europe. These certainly seemed to have counted for
more than Armenians in Turkey, for whom this lawmaking was pronounced
an "imbecility," or for that matter of the French-Armenian deputy
Patrick Devedjian who tried in vain to present an amendment exempting
academic research from the harsh penalties of the law. Ever-present,
as well, were the concerns of those who have been doing their best to
torpedo not only improving Franco-Turkish relations, but also to
undermine the entry of Turkey into the European Union, a proposition
fervently championed by the French government and which may well not
survive the high-profile controversy the debate has provoked.

At least as important, however, are deep divisions among the French
about the role of government and the law in determining how history
should be understood and written. Less than a year ago, French
society was deeply split over another law that involved history. This
time it was the right, not the left, that was concerned with imposing
its notion of correct history, leading to the passage of a law that
required French high-schools to teach the "positive values" of French
colonialism and to "acknowledge and recognize in particular the
positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North
Africa." Charging that legislators had no business defining
historical truth, the historical profession mobilized against this
law, which was eventually scuppered by French President Jacques
Chirac. But not before much political bloodletting, not to mention
severe diplomatic bruising from France’s former colonial subjects and
those who had fought against the French Empire.

There is a final element of context that lurks just beneath the
surface of these debates. Like all Europeans, the French feel
increasingly threatened by the blandishments of political Islamicists
who have challenged liberal notions of free expression, on issues
extending from the Danish cartoons to Pope Benedict XVI’s quotation
of a Byzantine Emperor’s disparaging remarks about the Prophet
Mohammed.

That is why editorial opinion in Paris yesterday, expressed by
newspaper editors who have, after all, much to lose from restrictions
on what people can or cannot say, seemed to be powerfully opposing
the moves of the parliamentarians. Free expression, we are seeing
once again, is indivisible: What is right for speech we might think
worth hearing, must also apply for speech that is detestable – as
many would think is the denial of the Armenian genocide.

"Committed to the defence of human rights," wrote the editorialist in
Le Figaro, "attentive to dialogue among peoples, France stands tall
when it is the messenger of peace and the values of civilization, but
it makes itself look ridiculous when it becomes a public prosecutor,
in the name of a supposed universal memory."

Michael R. Marrus is Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of
Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto and the author of The
Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46: A Documentary History.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress