Legislating history – French-style

French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Photo by Reuters.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Photo by Reuters.
You have to hand it to the French. Their legislators will go where angels fear to tread. In particular, they like to ban things.

Things like English or American words and terms thought by authorities to be corrupting the French language: words like "fast food", "email", "blog", "Wi-Fi", "Le Weekend" and so on. This has been an ongoing campaign over many years by mandarins at the French ministry of culture and belies the extent to which many French people are enamoured of foreign originated products and practices, be they technological, commercial or cultural. But then France and the French have never been strangers to paradox - in part it is just this quality that lends French culture its allure.

So far the official approbrium over language has not been enacted in legislation - possibly because it would simply be impossible to police - but it has done so in the case of traditional Muslim head-dress. In April this year, France introduced a burqa ban. Muslim women in full face veils, or niqab, are now banned from any public activity including walking down the street, taking a bus, going to the shops or collecting their children from school. In passing such a law, many French politicians said they were acting to protect the "gender equality" and "dignity" of women - admirable sentiments unless you happen to be the women concerned who do not want to have their equality or dignity so defended.

Arguments about security and identification issues, which have surfaced around the world including in New Zealand, would seem to carry more weight.

Now France has caused a storm of controversy by passing a law making it illegal to deny the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide. Turkey has reacted with fury and has cut ties with France, withdrawing its ambassador, and cancelling all economic, political and and military meetings with its Nato partner - amid accusations and counter accusations as to motive for the move.

While the initiative has been mooted for some years - an earlier version of the law was put before France's lower house of parliament in 2001 and again in 2006 but in each case it was not ratified by the Senate; this time the law stipulates genocide denial in general rather than the Armenian "genocide" denial in particular, but it is widely recognised that the intent is to single out the latter. It goes before the Senate next year.

Turkey says French President Nicolas Sarkozy is playing to the election gallery of the country's 500,000 Armenian voters and accuses his party of "politics based on racism, discrimination and xenophobia". Certainly, Mr Sarkozy has made no secret in the past of his opposition to Turkey's entrance to the European Union and it is more than possible the issue has been elevated to create yet a further stumbling block. For its part, given the economic strife the EU finds itself in, Turkey, which plays increasingly influential political and economic roles in the Middle East, might be just as well off outside it.

At the heart of the row is the accusation, mounted by Armenia and backed by many historians and parliaments, that about 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed in a deliberate policy of genocide by the Ottoman Turkish regime in eastern Turkey during the First World War.

Turkey flatly denies this, arguing there were heavy casualties by both sides during fighting at this time. Furthermore, it considers the charge an insult to the nation.

Where the truth lies is still fiercely debated by historians and academics, among others.

The issue is doubtless of particular resonance for France given its belated recognition of its own role - under the Vichy government during the Second World War - in deporting Jews to Nazi concentration camps. But whether passing a law making it a crime to deny genocide - punishable by a one-year jail sentence or a 45,000 fine - is the answer is debatable.

While this may be news to French politicians, history is not written in the legislature of any particular country. It is arrived at by historical and academic consensus, as far as possible removed from the hothouse of politically loaded rhetoric.

 

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