EDITORIAL: FREEDOM AND GENOCIDE

McGill Tribune
torage/paper234/news/2009/03/04/Opinion/Editorial. Freedom.And.Genocide-3658242.shtml
March 4 2009
Canada

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of
one’s time defending scoundrels." H.L. Mencken didn’t have McGill in
mind when he wrote that, but his words still ring true here. Campus
free-speech advocates are often forced to defend charlatans and
provocateurs-not because we agree with them, but because they’re the
first ones affected by a clampdown.

That’s certainly the case with Turkish professor Turkkaya Ataov,
who spoke at McGill on February 20. Ataov, who is known for denying
the Armenian genocide, was invited to campus by the Turkish Students’
Society. The event was a tense affair, with the large audience sharply
divided into Turkish and Armenian camps.

There’s no denying that Ataov’s lecture was an unpleasant event,
but we’re troubled by the efforts some students made to keep him from
speaking at McGill. The Armenian Students’ Association, along with a
dozen other groups, pressured the university administration to keep
Ataov from speaking.

The administration stood its ground, and we applaud them for
it. Barring Ataov from lecturing would be a blow to academic freedom
at McGill. Many great scholars-from Diderot to Derrida, or Thomas
Paine to Karl Marx-were initially denounced as scoundrels. University
campuses should be forums where outrageous ideas can be developed,
debated, and (quite often) discarded.

Of course, Ataov isn’t on par with those scholars. But his implausible
theories aren’t a threat to McGill students, who should be able to
see through them easily enough. And, more importantly, the best way
to combat this sort of drivel is to confront it. To deny the Armenian
Genocide requires a hefty dose of ignorance and ideology-both of
which are easily exposed in an open forum.

Those who doubt the effectiveness of this strategy should look back to
2007, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak
at Columbia University. At the time, many people tried to prevent
him from even taking the podium. Yet Ahmadinejad’s remarks-which
included him denying the existence of Iranian homosexuals-did far
more to discredit him than his critics ever could.

We sympathize with students of Armenian heritage, who don’t want one
of history’s great tragedies swept under the rug. But the Armenian
Genocide happened, and nothing Ataov, or anyone else, says can change
that. That’s an easy debate to win, so there’s no need to stifle
it-especially at the expense of free speech on campus.