written by Yusif Babanly printable version send your friend

Monday, 26 December 2011

Among the most followednews today are the updates onthe gradual severing of Franco-Turkish ties. On December 22, the French National Assembly adopted a bill criminalizing the denial of the “Armenian genocide.” The bill proposes to establish a fine of €45,000 and a punishment of up to one year in jail for denying that what happened to the Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire was genocide. From this point on, the bill will travel to the French Senate and must be voted on by end of February, 2012.

In 2001, France moved to pass a resolution on formal recognition of the “Armenian genocide” satisfying the 500 thousand-strong Armenian community of France. As a part of the expected process, the same legislative body passed a bill in 2006 intending to penalize the “denial of the Armenian Genocide,” but it was duly rejected in the French Senate.

The similar 2011 bill was authored by French MP Valerie Boyer, the frontrunner for Armenian sympathy. Ms. Boyer of the Union pour un MouvementPopulaire party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy explained the unfortunate rejection of the earlier bill of 2006 as having been due to it conflicting with the French constitution, which is not the case with the current document. Ironically, Ms. Boyer herself is an Algerian-born French national, whose family had witnessed the French army commit atrocities in the country leaving thousands of Algerian civilians dead. Asserting that her bill was “not aimed at a particular country,” she ignored the fact that France, which colonized many nations from the Americasto Indochina, has its own plate full of forgotten massacres and genocides. Add to that the most recent Khojaly massacre of Azerbaijani Turks committed by the very Armenianswhose narrow interest the French National Assembly represents. In fact, one of the perpetrators of the massacre was the infamous (but glorified in Armenia) Monte Melkonian, who was imprisoned in France in the 1980s for terrorist acts but released in 1989 for no apparent reason.

The bill proposed by the UMP is believed to have been authored to increase the chances of the current French President Nicolas Sarkozy by collecting support from the half a million-strong Armenian community of France. Needless to say that apart from the traditional ways of political maneuveringand pledges on economic recoveries, defense, improvement of foreign relations and bettering social conditions, politicians in many developed countries resort to the Armenian card. Armenian communities throughout the world have been turned into a last reserve tool to gain momentums in a political race. From the United States to Sweden, France and Uruguay, the losing parties always consider the “Armenian genocide” issue, quietly sizzling on the backburner and used as Plan B.

Consequently, the Armenian communities in these countries, in turn, enjoy and use that status to the fullest. Here is how it works. Ethnic Armenians in these countries get to outspoken politicians promising effective and efficient constituencies and sufficient contributions to fund their campaigns. Next, they are set to achieve the inclusion and eventually passage of non-binding resolutions. Once the prerequisites have been satisfied, the Armenian diaspora rests its case. From that point on, it becomes the trump card available to politicians and political parties to utilize once their other political options are exhausted.

Sarkozy, whose popularity has been in a sharp decline for the last three years due to rising unemployment,the increasing of the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the pension age from 65 to 67 and ignorance of the labor unions using the Armenian card does not seem that bad. After all, the French Armenians are unlikely to remain dissatisfied if they are unemployed and their pension age increased, as long as there is a law punishing for freedom of opinion on the so-called Armenian genocide.

The reaction from the ruling AKP administrationof Turkey was harsh yet straightforward. Prime Minister Erdogan has already promised the severing of bilateral economic ties and a revision of their military relationship on a case by case basis. The government of Turkey which had been challenged on many issues by France, the primary opponent of Turkey’s admission to the EU, had restored many Armenian churches and invited international and specifically Armenian scholars to jointly study the Ottoman archives in a quest for common truth, consistent with the Turkish policy of good will. However, to this day, the invitation is seen by “genocide” proponents as acceptance of the fact that what had happened in 1915 did not constitute genocide. Many Turks believe that the Armenian refusal to form joint scholarly commissions to study the archives derives from the fear that facts about atrocities committed by Armenian bands acting alone or at the behest of the advancing Russian army will be put up for international public discussion. Many historians have contended for years on the role of Armenian armed bands and revolutionaries led by Andranik, Dro, Manukian, Serob and Njdeh in ethnic cleaning campaigns in eastern regions of the Ottoman Empire and the western Caucasus, but the issue had not been discussed at large due to either efforts of the Armenian diaspora or inactivity of Turkic communities abroad.

Despite the efforts of the Turkish government to come to terms with the Republic of Armenia and its own 70 thousand-strong Turkish-Armenian community, the Armenian diaspora in the West has been reluctant to normalize relations short of the so-called Armenian genocide recognition by Turkey, with subsequent territorial concession demands of what is referred to by Armenians as “Western Armenia.” Bills introduced to parliaments of Western countries once again prove that the coordination center for activities in favor of Armenia is not located in the Presidential Administration building in Yerevan, but in Glendale, Watertown, Ann Arbor, Paris, Marseilles, Montevideo and Uppsala.

Although the reaction of the Turkish government to the 2001 French resolution on the “Armenian genocide” was seen as weak and dissatisfactory, this may not be the case from2011 on. If Turkey was just an important geographical gate to the East ten years ago, today it is a political, cultural and educational one, acting as a key regional preponderant arbiter. You want better deals with the Muslim world? Go to Turkey.

Considered an economic powerhouse inthe region with a steadily growing GDP, Turkey is in a position to dictate the rules. Of course, at times, a government party to international treaties such as the WTO is obligated to act within specific guidelines, but on any other levels, a more massive and efficient counteraction is possible. One of the most effective ways to downgrade the profitability of the French budget is boycotting French products and services. Apart from direct government intervention, a boycott constitutes a reverberating collective action, yet also on an individual basis, thus allowing every Turk to act and contribute to the common cause and according to their beliefs individually, rather than just waiting for the government to take measures. With the abundance of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or any other public forum and media, it is an easy path for collective vocal action and can be started by ordinary citizens. If the Arab Spring started with a Facebook post, so can the stripping of French companies of their profits gained from Turkish citizens, in and out of Turkey.

Even if the boycott has a lesser effect on trade turnover and the greater picture of tax collections for the French budget is minimal vis-à-vis other countries, at the very least it will awaken the French businessmen doing business in Turkey, for whom the losses will seem maximal and is therefore likely to mobilize them in lobbying efforts to stop the bill right there in the Senate.

Many historians and scholars do contend the events of 1915 constituted genocide but just as many contend they didnot. Then why not be scholarly and have a joint scholarly commission to decide the whats, hows and whys before these opinions are unjustly penalized?

* Yusif Babanly is the co-founder and secretary of the U.S.Azeris Network (USAN) and a member of the board of directors of the Azerbaijani American Council.