Turkish Daily News
Oct 20 2006
‘No one can legislate historical truth’
Friday, October 20, 2006
Far from criminalizing denial of the alleged Armenian genocide, we
should decriminalize denial of the Holocaust, says an article in the
Guardian
ANKARA – Turkish Daily News
What a magnificent blow for truth, justice and humanity the French
national assembly has struck, by voting for a bill criminalizing any
denial of the alleged Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman
Empire, said an article published in the prestigious British daily
the Guardian yesterday.
"Bravo! Chapeau bas! Vive la France! But let this be only a beginning
in a brave new chapter of European history," said the article penned
by Timothy Garton Ash. "Let the British Parliament now make it a crime
to deny that it was Russians who murdered Polish officers at Katyn in
1940. Let the Turkish parliament make it a crime to deny that France
used torture against insurgents in Algeria."
The article said the only pity was that the European Union can’t
impose the death sentence for "these heinous thought crimes," adding
that with time that might change. too.
The French Parliament last Thursday adopted the contentious bill,
which Turkey said dealt heavy blow to Turkish-French ties. The bill
requires approval by both the Senate and the president to become law.
It is in the hands of the French government as to whether the bill
is taken to the Senate.
"What right has the Parliament of France to prescribe by law the
correct historical terminology to characterize what another nation
did to a third nation 90 years ago?" asked the article, noting that
the bill had no moral or historical justification.
"No one can legislate historical truth. In so far as historical truth
can be established at all, it must be found by unfettered historical
research, with historians arguing over the evidence and the facts,
testing and disputing each other’s claims without fear of prosecution
or persecution."
It said the proposed bill was a step in exactly the wrong
direction. "How can we credibly criticize Turkey, Egypt or other
states for curbing free speech, through the legislated protection of
historical, national or religious shibboleths, if we are doing ever
more of it ourselves?" it asked, in apparent reference to laws in EU
countries on denial of the Holocaust.
"Far from creating new legally enforced taboos about history,
national identity and religion, we should be dismantling those that
still remain on our statute books. Those European countries that
have them should repeal not only their blasphemy laws but also their
laws on Holocaust denial. Otherwise the charge of double standards
is impossible to refute."
Referring to British historian David Irving, who was found guilty in
Vienna for denying the Holocaust and sentenced to prison, the article
said: "Today, if we want to defend free speech in our own countries
and to encourage it in places where it is currently denied, we should
be calling for David Irving to be released from his Austrian prison."
It added that the Austrian law on Holocaust denial was far more
historically understandable and morally respectable than the proposed
French one. "At least the Austrians are facing up to their own
difficult past, rather than pointing the finger at somebody else’s —
but in the larger European interest we should encourage the Austrians
to repeal it.
"Only when we are prepared to allow our own most sacred cows to be
poked in the eye can we credibly demand that Islamists, Turks and
others do the same. This is a time not for erecting taboos but for
dismantling them. We must practice what we preach."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress