[...] There are plenty of reasons to punish Papon for his crimes over his career. As chief of the Paris police in 1958, he massacred protestors at student and leftist demonstrations, and the “disappearance” of colonial dissidents. Yet when it comes to the European view of war crimes, it’s almost as if the statute of limitations works in reverse: the incident has to “ripen” before anyone gives a shit. At least the case of Papon was one where the investigation was undertaken before he was dead… but to engage in an exhaustive investigation, followed by a trial, conviction, and then early parole on “health issues” (he lasted more five more years), seems absurd to me. [...]

I thought you’d be all over this. And I agree entirely on this absurd theme in European law and jurisprudence, as previously noted here and here.

I’m one of many who believes that the campaign against the Armenians was a brutal guerilla war in which the Russian Empire used the Armenians to fight a proxy war for Moscow. The leaders of the Ottoman Empire, facing implosion and threats on all sides, deported as many as a million of Armenians, many of whom died. That’s a conclusion I draw from a review of the evidence, as opposed to well-organized propaganda. And it’s an ongoing debate in academia that hinges largely on the definition of genocide, and many scholars would agree with the above view:

A number of Western academics in the field of Ottoman history, including Bernard Lewis (Princeton University), Heath Lowry (Princeton University), Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville), Gilles Veinstein (College de France),[36] Stanford Shaw (UCLA, Bilkent University), J.C. Hurewitz (Columbia University), Guenter Lewy (University of Massachusetts), Roderic Davison (Central European University), Jeremy Salt (University of Melbourne, Bilkent University)[37] and Rhoads Murphey (University of Birmingham) have expressed doubts as to the genocidal character of the events. They offer the opinion that the weight of evidence instead points to serious intercommunal warfare, perpetrated by both Muslim and Christian irregular forces, aggravated by disease and famine, as the causes of suffering and massacres in Anatolia and adjoining areas during the First World War. They acknowledge that the resulting death toll among the Armenian communities of the region was immense, but claim that much more remains to be discovered before historians will be able to sort out precisely responsibility between warring and innocent, and to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or removal of large numbers in eastern Anatolia.

But so much for free speech as a basic principle of Western civilization. This is a discussion that, more than likely, we won’t be able to have in France soon.

The best comment I heard about this was on the radio. A Turkish Armenian (oxymoron?), who does believe it was a genocide was proclaiming that the whole law was a croc. He stated his belief that France was only passing this law now as a ‘poison pill’ for Turkey joining the EU. He also said that if France passed the law, he was going to France and was going to deny the genocide on principle.

Actually, the Turkish government tried to prosecute Pamuk for what he said; fortunately the matter was dropped. They also attempted to prosecute Hrant Dink, a Turkish Armenian, for discussing the genocide; I am not certain of the status of this prosecution at present. Interestingly, Dink has publicly condemned the proposed French law and said that he would violate it if he visited France.

I believe in free speech and hate censorship. I think freedom of speech includes offensive and false speech (e.g. that the Holocaust never happened or that 9/11 was a “controlled demolition” by the US government) and this law offends me on that grounds.

However, the fact, accepted by most historians (note that Lewis and Lewy are in a distinct minority on this issue) is that what happened to the Armenians in the last years of the Ottoman Empire was a genocide by any accepted definition of the term. It was not the Nazi Holocaust, but neither was Rwanda and neither is Darfur. But who would deny that those two events were genocide?

Yes, it is good that the Pamuk proescution was dropped. It is worth noting that Pamuk, albeit controversial (he is particularly disliked by nationalists and Islamists) is a celebrity; attempts were made to prosecute others (Dink and Shafat) after charges were dropped against him.

But the fact that Turkey has a law that forbids people from stating what is generally accepted by historians outside the country is evidence of a problem. So is the fact that France just passed a law criminalizing the statement of the opposite opinion.

The only connection between France and Armenia is that France has the largest Armenian community in Europe (possibly close to the size of the Armenian community in the US) and both communities have their origin with refugees from the Genocide.

Another aspect to this is that public opinion in France (and many other European countries) is very much opposed to Turkey’s entry into the EU. The Europeans do not see the secular character of the Turkish state and the relative moderation of Islam in Turkey as things that will persist into the near future. Also they do not want to add to the problems they are having with integration of Muslim minorities by importing more Muslim immigrants.