The topic, of course, was the French genocide denial bill. For a while I listened to the discussion between a Turkish academic and a British lady. The Turkish gentleman was repeating all those well-known axioms: “This discussion should be left to historians, no one denies in Turkey that tragic things happened in 1915, but these events cannot be labeled as genocide,” so on and so forth. The British lady was well-prepared for this defensive denialist attitude and advanced strong arguments showing that 1915 events were indeed genocide, and she was beating the Turkish guy with her well-tuned “civilized manner.” The Turkish guy may not be aware of it, but his remarks had no meaning for anyone outside of Turkey.
Then I joined the discussion, and I tried to make my point. I said: “It is not relevant to discuss whether the 1915 events were genocide or not, but rather we should discuss if this French genocide bill will help Turkey to confront its past. There are people in Turkey, including myself, who believe what happened in Turkey in 1915 was indeed a genocide and who try to bring this subject to the attention of the Turkish public. This French bill, however, took hostage all these discussions, giving strength to Turkish nationalists only, and nowadays, we cannot discuss anything but this genocide bill.”
Then the British lady took the floor once again and stated quite confidently that what I was saying “is another way of blackmailing.” At this exact moment, I lost my temper, and I said something like, “Look, I have been defending human rights in Turkey for the last 20 years and fighting against this nationalist mentality, which carried out all these massacres, it is very easy for you speaking like that sitting there...” And all of a sudden, we came to the end of the program. I did not have a chance to share all my thoughts.
After the discussion, I found myself pondering different things. Everyone may be right about his or her respective positions. Armenians, for example, may ask how long they should wait for Turkey to come to terms with recognizing what happened in 1915. Some Europeans may think that without this kind of outside pressure, Turkey will never discuss what happened in the past. However, I strongly believe the French move and others like it are only delaying Turkey’s inevitable confrontation with its past; this is the only purpose they serve.
Does France really want Turkey to confront its past, to see a more democratic Turkey, to see Turkey as a good neighbor to Armenia? Why then it is so strongly against Turkey’s accession to the EU? Why then does it try to push Turkey off the European map? Perhaps French President Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to kill a few birds with one stone: He will get more votes from Armenians; he will advance his agenda of killing Turkey’s chances to join the EU by provoking Turkey into giving these primitive reactions to this French bill and showing all the world that Turkey has not taken any step toward democratization, but rather it repeats its past, etc.
I repeat in this column many times, Sarkozy and like-minded people in Europe share the same agenda with some Turkish nationalists and with the Turkish deep state. They all want to end Turkey’s progress toward becoming a member of the EU. They want to see an isolated Turkey. To whose benefit would such a Turkey be? The Greeks? The Cypriots? The Armenians? The Muslim world? Whom?
Some Armenians may think Sarkozy is trying to help them force Turkey to recognize the Armenian genocide, and thus, they will protect Armenia and so on. However, if they pay more attention, they could easily see that Sarkozy’s mind works in exactly the same manner as the people who did terrible things to Armenians in 1915 in Anatolia. They are all nationalist, they are all short-sighted and they are all Machiavelists, who believe they could do anything to advance their political agenda!
