Nermin Aydemir JTW Columnist printable version send your friend message to author add comment (1)

Friday, 9 January 2009

The Armenian issue is nowadays quite popular in Europe. The French brought legislation to the parliament, placing all the counter arguments against the so-called Armenian genocide out of bounds. If it is passed, rejecting the so-called genocide will be penalized either by casting into prison or imposing substantial fines.

Discussions go on in the Netherlands after the three Turkish originated MP candidates (Erdin Sacan-labour party, Ayhan Tonca and Osman Elmaci from Christian democratic party) have been removed from the candidate list just for not accepting the existence of so-called Armenian genocide.  A similar thing had happened to Derya Bulduk, who was a candidate from the FDF (Democratic front of the Francophones) in Belgium.

The two mainstream parties claim that the Netherlands accepted the so-called Armenian genocide and base their[1][1] claims on the recommendatory decision on 21 December 2004, recognizing the existence of the so called genocide.

According to the General Assembly decision of the UN in 1948, genocide is defined as; killing members of a group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The chair of ISRO, Sedat Laciner (Laciner, 2005) defines genocide as “the worst crime a human being can ever do”, which I completely agree with. Nevertheless, the ugliness of the case does not give the right to accuse people without substantiating such arguments on valid evidences. We need to post a clear difference between widely confused themes. Being against genocide is one thing, using genocide for some political ends is another thing. Sometimes we put critical thinking completely aside and defend democratic values and norms so blindly that this adherence itself becomes a deficit to democracy.

We have evidences of the Holocaust and see it as among the worst, maybe the worst case in humanity. But do we really have such proofs regarding the Armenian issue? What if, the Armenians were not tortured?!

Thousands of people die in Sudan right now, Israel killed thousands of other just two months before. People died in Rwanda, former Yugoslavia and many other places for just being a member of a particular group. Why do we turn blind eyes to all these and are so much insistent on punishing people denying  an unproven case?

The Turkish side has opened all its archives and is very much eager to form common committees for searching the issue. Turkish PM Erdogan has underlined the willingness of searching this topic in many occasions. Despite all these, keeping away from all scientific enquiries and imposing such a heavy accusation leads to many suspicions.

The Armenian state does not recognize the Lausanne treaty, on which the Turkish Republic is grounded. In other words, Armenia does not accept the current borders of Turkey. The country names the North East part of Turkey as the West Armenia and makes claims on these territories in its constitution. Robert Kocaryan, the PM of Armenia, states that these territorial gains can be done in peaceful manners (Ibid).

Are all these done for the sake of democracy or is the democratic sensitiveness used for further aims?! It is highly confusing; why do not we talk about what the Dutch did in Indonesia and Surinam, French did in Algeria, Spain did in South America if we are so eager to account for our faults in past ?

Apart from these, the migration policy of the Ottoman Empire is very irrelevant to the genocide claims. Ottomans failed in providing healthy conditions during this depart but why should a send all the members of an ethnicity away if it really aims a genocide? The Nazi rule did not send the Jews away, but brought the Jewish to its concentration camps from all around the world.

The Netherlands

A very critical approach is on rise in the Netherlands in particular and Europe in general. Although it is not very acceptable to discriminate openly, discrimination becomes legalized when it is made by reference to “democratic values”. For instance, if someone criticizes Moroccans in some way under the general classification of Moroccans, s/he will probably be strictly criticized. Nevertheless, when Fortuyn said that gays were under threat due to the Moroccan gangs he was very much backed. Similarly, opposing Islam itself will be not so much welcomed. But people get credit if they manage to hinder such points of view under the democratic doctrine. Specifically, the argument of the repression of women under the Islamic doctrine is in many times welcomed without a slightest degree of critical thinking. The same thing is valid for the expel of the Turkish originated candidates. The party leaders are really appreciated as the guardians of democratic principles!!!

With regard to the decisions of the CDA and the PvdA; has a party have the right to ask its members to share a common vision on this topic? Party members have more or less similar positions and it is quite natural to demand from these people to share a common vision. For instance, there is no point in defending capitalism in a highly communist party. Or members of a highly natioanlistic party will probably not be welcomed if they act against the nationalism doctrine. The so-called Armenian genocide is just a very slight issue in those two parties and it is quite natural that their members can have different opinions on that. All in all, we need different opinions in democratic systems, also within the party.

The party position can not legitimize removing candidates from a party list just because they have a point of view on a particular topic; which is not a central in the party doctrine, open to debate, and apparently not against the party doctrine. In the EP report, Turkey is criticized due to the 301th article, which limits the freedom of expression. It is true, Turkey has to improve its conditions in such aspects just as the other European states have to. However, people can be sent to jail or  removed from candidacy lists in the founding member states. This is a shame indeed.

The Armenian lobby is certainly quite effective in the international field. But I personally do not believe the high influence of an Armenian lobby in the Dutch society. The so-called Armenian genocide has become quite trendy (!) in European politics. Nevertheless some interior political aspects take place, as well. People still talk the rise of Pim Fortuyn in 2002. Even the most liberal parties have shifted to an anti immigration perspective afterwards.

The Dutch Christian Appeal and labour party make some miscalculations at this point. According to the official givens, 300 thousand Turkish people live in this country, and many have the Dutch citizenship. A substantial number of Turkish originated people has the right to vote in this country. Expelling Turkish candidates will evidently not give way to support by the Turkish society in this country. It is not a very well advised stance to annoy such a big proportion just before the elections.

No doubt however, the Turkish minority in Europe is very less interested in politics and away from defending their interests in discussions. The Turkish MPs carry great importance for both their ethnicities and their residual countries at this point. These people need to be represented on the parliamentary level as well as many other aspects of life. Integration of these people and a peaceful co-existence in this country cannot only be provided by sociological researches, no matter how successful they are. We need successful Dutch-Turkish people in politics, academic field, business, sport, arts, etc.

At this point, it is worth bringing into attention that while cars were put into fire in France and several other neighbor countries, the Netherlands was quite still. This was not a coincidence. All in all, the minority groups in the Dutch society are much better integrated to the major society in many aspects. However, we do not have a guarantee that this will be the case forever. The removed MP candidates do not only carry significance for the Turkish minority, but are also very much important to the Netherlands. The Dutch government has gold in its hands indeed. We cannot continue living within boundaries. Countries need bilinguals in the contemporary world.

Concluding Remarks:
The Dutch society made important progression after the uneasy days regarding the tension between minority and majority. The Dutch establishment and society are among the most tolerable people with their multicultural doctrine. Therefore, it is highly disappointing that all these occur in this country. The decision of those parties is rather ill-given in the stressful atmosphere of elections than representing the Dutch opinion in general. The Netherlands is geographically little, but there are many other indexes of measuring how big a country is. A country, sending its soldiers to Uruzgan, one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan, apparently has some significant ambitions in the international arena. The Netherlands can take many initiatives in line with its worldwide positive reputation rather than just copying what the trends without searching the reality.  

References:

Albayrak Nebahat and Timmermans Frans, Zie de Fouten uit het Verleden onder Ogen, Trouw, 4 October 2006.

De Armenisch-Turksche Kwestie, Algemeen Handelsblad, 25.05.1920. (The name of the reporter is not given)

Laciner, Sedat. (2004) Turkler ve Ermeniler, ISRO Publciations, 2004.

www.elsevier.nl

www.zaman.com.tr