Hurriyet Daily News - SOPHIE QUINTIN ADALI
With low approval ratings and the French welfare state model in crisis, President Nicolas Sarkozy is a busy and desperate man. The Yerevan declaration warning Turkey to read Ottoman history the way France officially does was not only a shameful display of electoral opportunism. It also highlighted the threat posed by politicians to the principles of freedom of speech and thought even in so-called advanced democracies.
The perfect “statist” storm is brewing in France. The spiraling debt crisis, deepening global recession and upcoming national elections are combining to consolidate a deeply rooted tradition of state interventionism at the expense of individual and economic freedoms. Not content with l’Etat controversially dictating thoughts on sensitive points of French history to its citizens with memory laws, the president took the opportunity of a foreign stage to threaten intervention in Turkish minds too.
A few inconvenient facts: The 2001 law whereby “France recognizes the Armenian genocide” was passed in the National Assembly with 28 deputies casting a ballot out of 577. That a parliament would write the history of other nations is contentious enough. But as the latest episode of presidential diplomatic buzz made painfully obvious once again, legislating on the Armenian tragedy has little to do with history. Rather it is about the search for votes among the small but well-organized Armenian community.
The president’s threat to revive the bill criminalizing the denial of the “genocide” - incidentally buried by the Sénat last May - was also meant to upset the Turks. It did. Given that the Socialist Party motion was defeated by the ruling UMP, the situation now verges on the politically absurd. Worryingly for democracy, it reveals that in the current “hyper presidential” system the executive can ignore recommendations by the legislature.
The National Assembly report (2008) cannot have escaped the attention of the government’s Armenia “adviser,” the staunchly Armenian nationalist Patrick Devedjian. In short, “memory laws” and the criminalization proposal pose risks of un-constitutionality, abridgement of fundamental freedoms, disguised censorship through the threat of legal action, creation of a precedent for thought crime, restriction of the fundamental principle of freedom of scholarship. The report’s conclusion is unambiguous: “It is not the role of Parliament to write history.”
Legal scholars appealed for their annulment. Historians have united in the battle against state-edicted truths. Professor Pierre Nora, president of the association Liberté pour l’histoire (www.lph-assos.fr), does not mince his words. “Legal truth is a practice of totalitarian regimes.” France is not the Soviet Union but like Russia its politicians write history. One has to wonder what the “hyper” leader has in mind for thought-crime offenders? Throwing thousands of Turks in overcrowded French prisons to purge the one year sentence? Labor camps to pay for the 45,000 euros fine and plug the budget deficit?
Unfortunately this is no storm in a cup of tea. With all candidates having hit the campaign trail, there is a real danger that the proposal will resurface. Clearly the Armenian tragedy is too serious and sensitive a subject to be left to politicians. However some rose to the occasion by standing for liberty. Senator Josselin de Rohan (UMP) deserves praise for his integrity. “The proposal,” he stated, “undermines liberty. It is inquisitorial and obscurantist.” Where do we go from here?
* Sophie Quintin Adali is an analyst for the French classical liberal think tank UnMondeLibre.org. The opinions expressed are those of the author only.
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