Birgün, 19 May 2006
Last week, we had a number of harsh exchanges with some community leaders of the Armenians of France.
"The declaration[1] sent by myself and eight friends to the Libération newspaper seemed to have caused them a lot of bother.
They described the content of our declaration as a “lethal blow”
“Your declaration has created a split that Turkey could not have created with economic or political pressure. If this law is not enacted, rest assured your share in that failure will be considerable!” said one of them.
***
I hope that comes to pass, and the law is not enacted; so that the Armenian world does not fall victim to an erroneous policy in which it is being used like a pawn.
Because, if this law is enacted, its consequences are very clear: As a result of being prevented from exercising their freedom of speech by this and similar laws, those who occupied an unjust position because of their denialist stance, will first be elevated to victim status, and then, through this victimization, they will gain legitimacy.
***
No doubt we have to understand the state of mind of the Armenians who display this current rigid stance, and are even prepared to limit a sacred fundamental right like freedom of expression.
While laws exist to prevent the denial of the massive genocide carried out against the Jews, and while the existence of these laws are generally accepted without questioning their implications for freedom of expression, they ask, and quite rightly, why the same understanding and perception is not displayed towards the disaster that befell the Armenians.
It is this double standard against which they are rebelling.
***
To demonstrate that I am not observing double standards, I shall, once more, clearly state that freedom of expression is the mother of all freedoms, of human rights and universal principles; after all, without freedom of expression the others have no meaning.
Therefore, I do not think that the struggle against crimes against humanity, including the Holocaust, should need measures that restrict freedom of expression.
It is clear that such restrictions are not successful as preventive methods.
If they were, there would be no Neo-Nazis emerging in Germany today.
It is quite evident, really. These laws may have successfully protected Jewish victims of the Holocaust against denialist discourse; however, they unfortunately failed to prevent the emergence of racist ideologies targeting other ‘others.’
So what are we to do to protect those ‘others’? Should we wait until they, too, are slaughtered, and then issue a separate law, again restricting freedom of expression, for them?
No, no. The struggle against genocide should not be based on the restriction of freedom of expression.
On the contrary, it is only by emptying some thoughts from their brains that people make space for new thoughts.
And it is only by talking that people are transformed?
***
This is what I told the Armenians of France:
“During the last few years, you experienced denialist discourses at un- 229 comfortably close quarters for the first time. You witnessed denialist demonstrations in your streets for the first time. You came eye to eye with denialist discourses for the first time. And you could not stand it.
“Whereas we, the Armenians of Turkey, have faced such discourses for years. Let alone the fact that we have to live in the midst of denialist assertions, they have even introduced them in our schools, pouring such discourses into the brains of our own children.
“So how do we stand it? Is it perhaps that we are not as sensitive as you? Or not as Armenian?”
“But we have learned, in the end, that if silence is taboo, talking is democracy.”
“We have learned, in the end, that locked within every wrongful discourse lies the key question that will undo it.
“So much so that people who deny repeatedly, eventually learn to acknowledge.”
***
It is only natural that those people who are backing this resolution will not be affected by these things we have said at this stage. I would not wish it upon them, but the real bother for them will begin once the law is enacted.
Perhaps then they will remember what we said. I hope it won’t come to that.
[1]In response to a draft resolution presented by the French Socialist Party to the National Assembly of France, proposing that denial of the Armenian Genocide be made a criminal offence, Ahmet İnsel, Baskın Oran, Elif Şafak, Etyen Mahçupyan, Halil Berktay, Hrant Dink, Murat Belge, Fatma Müge Göcek and Ragıp Zarakolu issued a joint declaration stating their concern that this resolution may infringe freedom of expression. The resolution was adopted by the French Parliament on 12 October 2006 as an addendum to the law issued in 2001 that acknowledged the Armenian Genocide