Turkey’s worst enemy is the volatility of its reactions. Some people have already come up with weird ideas such as abandoning French classes in schools, boycotting French tourists, or even boycotting Turkish companies that are joint-ventures with the French. These are not healthy indications. Turkey must realize that in the tumultuous times ahead, its allies are nothing but common sense and freedom of expression.

Exercising common sense means that Turkish people have to think and act in a cool-headed manner. This might sound like a strange suggestion, but they have to behave in such a way that they would advise their kids to behave in stressful situations. “He who stands up in rage sits down at a loss” is a common proverb that every Turk hears while growing up. Everybody should adhere to this principle. Everybody should see that the larger goal is to refute the claims that what happened to the Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire in the 1910s was not genocide by the definitions of international law, but a massacre of another sort, which was reciprocated by the Armenian side. Everybody should see the bigger picture that only by expressing their views in a civilized manner can Turkish people expect to succeed.

Another way to disarm the claims of the French parliament and the Armenian Diaspora is for Turkey to bring forward its other potential super-ally, freedom of expression. The American founding father Thomas Jefferson once said “it is error alone which needs the support of government; truth can stand by itself.” In this light, Turkey must realize that any laws that punish non-violent forms of speech hurt Turkey more than its adversaries in the long run. Last week, the Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan called Turkish reactions to the French vote “hypocrisy” because Turkey still curbed discussions on certain aspects of its past.[3] As much as the Armenian government has its own share of hypocrisy in this debate,[4] Mr. Oskanyan has a point.

Putting intellectuals on trial for speaking their mind is unacceptable and unbecoming of a country like Turkey. Only by granting opposing voices an audience and nurturing meaningful discussion on the subject can Turkey thwart the baseless allegations. Indeed, this will comport with Atatürk’s legacy. It will be to the point to bring a story that was discussed in this column a few weeks ago: During the 1930s, President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Prime Minister İsmet İnönü assigned the eccentric apparatchik Recep Peker to draft a report that would give a new sense of mission to Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP-Republican Peoples’ Party). Peker’s 1936 report, which proposed the reorganization of the RPP along the lines of the Italian Fascist Party, met Atatürk’s bitter resentment. Atatürk reportedly exclaimed “what the hell has Recep done again?” and elucidated his vision for Turkey to his aide Hasan Rıza Soyak as follows: “Should an anti-monarchical current take over the world in the future, even those who demand a sultanate can form a party in this country.”[5] Today, I believe, even those who call the Armenian tragedy “genocide” should be able to have their say.

Turkey must stop doing some of the things that it is doing right now. It should stop racing the French to stupidity. It is a contest that is hard to beat. Turkey should refrain from passing futile laws about French imperialism in Algeria (that it was tantamount to genocide). The point is debatable and precisely for that reason Turkey should gather a conference of scholars from both sides in a posh location in Istanbul or the Aegean coast in order to garner international attention. The juxtaposition would be too hard to miss for anyone: Whereas France forcefully curbs freedom of expression, Turkey is promoting it. But in order to augment that overture, all laws in the penal code that criminalize anything other than an open call to violence must either be changed or stricken out. By taking that last step, Turkey can go traverse vast distances.

Turkey’s strongest allies in its struggle against the senseless and fruitless allegations by France and the Armenian Diaspora are common sense and freedom of expression. At the moment, by behaving the way that they are behaving, Turkish people are weakening these two partners. If their problems are addressed forthwith, they will help Turkey prevail.

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Barın Kayaoğlu is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia and a regular contributor to the Journal of Turkish Weekly. www.turkishweekly.net

E-mail: kayaoglu@virginia.edu