SCRATCHING THE OTHER’S WOUNDS
By Avirama Golan
Ha’aretz, Israel
Oct 22 2006
It is fascinating to see how France, time and again, insists on
sticking its refined nose into the affairs of others and preach
wisdom to them, instead of dealing with the boiling kettles on its
own stove. The law against deniers of the massacre of the Armenian
people is still provoking a lively debate in the French press.
(France approved the law about two weeks ago by a narrow majority,
following an internal debate over the severity of punishment.) In
Turkey, the French law pushed intellectuals and writers oppressed by
the regime into a corner, compelling them to defend their country.
A day after winning the Nobel Prize, the author Orhan Pamuk hurried to
declare that the French law constitutes "a blow to the principles of
freedom of expression that France itself instilled." It is a shame,
Pamuk said, that France does not leave the Turks to do their own
soul-searching, which is occurring in any case. Another Turkish
writer, Elif Shafak, was recently brought to trial in Istanbul for
allegedly "denigrating Turkish national identity" in her latest novel,
"The Bastard of Istanbul," which tells the stories of two families,
Turkish and Armenian. In an article in Le Monde, Shafak asked the
French to allow her nation to "heal the wounds of its history by
itself." Sinan Ulgen, the president of the Turkish think tank Economics
and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), argued in an article in Le Figaro,
that "France is weakening democracy in Turkey."
This phenomenon is familiar to Israeli writers and intellectuals,
veterans of the fight against the occupation, who stutter in an attempt
to defend their country in the face of a buttressed, superficial,
arrogant and self-righteous European stance. And like the French
left’s attack against Israel, which places doubt on the legitimacy of
the state of the Jews, the new legislation derives from a combination
of factors: a historical connection (some of the Armenians who were
murdered during World War I were accused of spying for France),
an elitist lobby of anti-Turkish Armenian immigrants in France,
a desire to embarrass Jacques Chirac and weaken the right, and – at
least among some of the legislators – an innocent aspiration, though
somewhat self-righteous, for tikkun olam [making the world better].
The ones seeking to improve the world argue that the Armenian
people have suffered a hardship for 90 years, in addition to what
they experienced during World War I. The denials of the massacre are
indeed an open wound. Turkey is not only to blame. Most of the world is
responsible for belittling the tragedy and shunting it aside. In the
soul-searching that has yet to occur here, the children of Holocaust
refugees will have to examine why it was uncomfortable for them to
recognize the magnitude of the suffering of others. In this sense,
the law ostensibly does justice. But this is misleading, and not only
because the measure was essentially an internal-political one, but
also because even when the French left is correct, it is definitely
not smart.
In the introduction to the Hebrew edition of Raymond Aron’s "The
Algerian Tragedy," Professor Emmanuel Sivan analyzes this symptom: In
France, he explains, politicians tend to be "frighteningly cynical –
even, and primarily, when speaking loftily about morality – while the
intellectuals tend to be detached ‘moralists’." (This brings to mind,
in particular, Albert Camus and his denial of oppression in Algeria
and Jean-Paul Sartre and his support for the USSR in 1956 – A.G.)
Thus, the moralists of the French left had little impact on the war
crimes perpetrated by France in Algeria, while Aron, a centrist who
spoke in the name of realpolitik, significantly contributed to the
effort to convince the French to end the occupation.
In the case of the law against deniers of the massacre of the Armenian
people, the French left is again ignoring realpolitik. This only serves
to muffle the internal Turkish debate that finally began to awaken
after years of silence. The French should demonstrate sensitivity for
denials. After all, it has only been a few years since they allowed
references to the "war" in Algeria and lifted censorship from Gillo
Pontecorvo’s 1965 film "The Battle of Algiers."
Why now of all times, when France is in a tumult over a film exposing a
new affair – the (denied) colonial use of North Africans as soldiers in
World War II – is it so urgent for the left to focus on the Armenians?
Perhaps it is because of another, concealed motive related to the
fear of Turkey’s entry to the European Union: the fear of Islam,
which the Pope expressed in his native tongue during a visit to his
homeland. This fear is the strongest thread motivating politicians in
Europe today. The French, who are waging a desperate battle against
head scarves and the teenagers in the suburbs, are on the eve of a
dramatic election campaign and its perennial X-factor, Jean-Marie
Le Pen, who threatens again to conjure up the dark ghosts and fears
simmering on the republic’s ideological periphery.
An Islamic Turkey frightens the French, and the fear makes them
forget smart realpolitik. If Raymond Aron were alive today, perhaps
he would explain to the citizens of his country that the order of the
day is actually to bring Turkey closer, help it prosper, encourage
its democracy, and reinforce the voices of Pamuk and his colleagues.
The insult and enmity now engendered in Turkey as a result of the
French legislation were unnecessary.
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