Unfortunately the concepts of tolerance and respect are not developing in an equally synchronized manner throughout the world. Muslim tombs in Europe are vandalized, while murders are committed in Malatya, and people from different religious denominations kill each other with bombs in Baghdad while ethnic groups in Rwanda massacre one another. Consequently societies are no longer capable of criticizing each other, because nobody’s hands are clean. EU member states have been meeting over the last seven years to fight against this situation. One of the results of this effort is the treaty that was negotiated by the EU justice ministers. This document aims to fight against racism and xenophobia, and condemns discrimination, racism, crimes against humanity and those policies which nourish these tendencies. As the definitions proposed by the 27 member states are divergent, a full agreement on the concepts was difficult to reach. It is not easy to completely purify this kind of issue from national egoisms. But it is still notable to see that 27 different countries have agreed on concepts they commonly qualify as threats. That being said, the presented document has some gaps.
In all of the EU countries, as they are all democratic states of law as per the Copenhagen criteria, there are legal regulations about these subjects. It’s not easy to understand why it might be thought that since these issues, which couldn’t be eradicated by existing laws, would disappear with a new treaty, a new legal document. According to the latter, racism, xenophobia and crimes against humanity are not punished simply for being expressed, but from the moment they become violent acts. This presupposes that when we are talking about violence we understand this in the same way. Moreover we know that many neo-nationalist and anti-immigrant political parties in Europe have a legal existence within the political life of these countries, and even accede to power, despite their xenophobic and intolerant rhetoric. We can also see the results of inciting the “us” feeling, which transforms the “other” into an enemy. But when these feelings don’t become actions, the laws prefer to remain silent in front of them to respect freedom of speech.
Concepts like discrimination, xenophobia and racism are slightly different from one another and they are products of a specific mentality. That is why it would be wiser to resolve this problem by “understandings” rather than “treaties.” The effort of taking revenge for historic discriminations through this document is another problem. We should congratulate Europe for its courage in discussing this, and keeping up its efforts for recompense for historic persecution within the time period of the formation of the European Community. When we start to talk about genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Europe, how we will know where to stop? Societies will become more democratic when they start to question their past. But what if this process becomes a fight between societies, in an effort to prove that some of them are guiltier than others? This will lead to discrimination through law. This process will certainly include discussing the Armenian issue and could affect negatively Turkey by blocking its democratization through an internal dialogue.
This issue necessitates a serious change in the thoughts and every penalizing attitude encourages discrimination in peoples’ minds. Do we need examples? If there were any reference to the concept of genocide, Turkey should sign this document and thereby become a country that promises to fight against xenophobia and racism in Europe.
