Nermin Aydemir JTW Columnist printable version send your friend message to author add comment ()

Friday, 9 January 2009

Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, asked a quite meaningful question to French politicians whether he or one of his colleagues would be punished for rejecting the Armenian genocide. It was a very well advised question indeed. Really how should the Turkish politicians answer questions regarding the so called Armenian genocide? Getting a prison sentence is not a very weak possibility even for political figures. The leader of the Turkish Proletarian Party, Dogu Perincek, was arrested in Switzerland due to his speeches regarding the issue just a few months before.

Such a thing has of course roots in (political) attitudes toward other nations, but it would be missing the entire picture to say that such instances are directed to a certain case, nation, or belief. The situation seems much worse than just blindly opposing a particular group of people. Europe recedes from its tolerant culture in general. Tolerance is not the only value, which we back out of. The humanitarian values, on which the modern Europe is built, are now on a quite splitting base.

The cartoons of Jyllands-Posten led to an intense tension in the world public opinion. Many supported them quite passionately, however people preferred to keep their silence in many similar issues afterwards. The famous historian, David Irving, experienced quite uneasy days when he contradicted the established belief on the Holocaust. Thanks to God, it did not realize but the Austrian court jailed him for three years for the speeches, he gave ten years before. What he said is open to debate but rejecting what someone says is something and abolishing the right to express what he wants to do are two very distinct things. Sentencing an academician for what he said is totally another thing. It is thought provoking that all the process about Mr. Irving took place in February this year, in the middle of all the discussion about the cartoon issue.

Nowadays the Dutch Labor Party discusses introducing a preliminary evaluation and checking of interviews, its members give. The recent abolishment of a commercial Tv advertisement in the Netherlands is even more confusing. The publicity medium was Rita Verdonk (the Minister of integration and minorities) and her strict attitude was criticized in a quite funny approach. Just like in many other cases, she was quite determined in expelling a refugee because his residence permit had expired. The fact that this refugee was a famous footballer, made the case much more popular than the others. In the advertisement, Mrs. Verdonk’s husband was driving crazy when that guy scored against the Netherlands. The Dutch courts will now punish the advertiser 50 000 Euros each time if it continues showing the advertisement. People criticized this repressiveness but it can not be said that there was a remarkable opposition to all these happenings. People did not underline the significance of freedom of speech in many of these instances. Restrictiveness seems to grow silently. The list of examples can be further lengthened…

The point is to be wise enough to be able to form a common platform to discuss this. Opposing or supporting the Holocaust is one thing, but sentencing an academician to prison just because of his speeches is another thing. Maybe the most frightening aspect of all these cases is that, they take place without any noteworthy opposition. Of course not everything can be said, there should be some basic concerns and some exceptions like respect, national integrity, etc but one sightedness should not be the guide.

We, all are on the edge of a gloomy phase indeed and losing something very valuable. It took quite a long time for people to become wise enough to learn the importance discussing rather than blindly promoting their own ideologies. The democratic values thought people the significance of providing a neutral ground, on which different people could express what they believed. We are now edging away from liberal democratic ideology and becoming hostiles again. On the other hand, liberals, themselves also act highly contradictory to their ideologies nowadays. How much liberal are liberals themselves in this context? Or does liberalism just follow a path towards a different form of fundamentalism?  Liberals are quite open when what they believe is at stake but critical and even aggressive when people contradict them. Ayaan Ali Hirsi, the member of parliament of Dutch Liberal Party, recently published an article with the title of confrontation in place of collaboration. She was charging Islam due to being the source of terrorism and radicalization within the society in her article, just like she does in all her speeches. In the meantime, she is chosen as the candidate for the Nobel price for this year.

To conclude, Europe losses its basic principles and exaggerated nationalism, Islamaphobia, exclusionism take their place.  Maybe we should now ask ourselves the question whether systems can survive despite eradicating their core values.