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Turkish Community Reacts to Paris´ Double Standards

By Ali Ihsan Aydin

Published: Sunday, December 11, 2005

zaman.com

Paris, which closed its ears to Turkey’s suggestion “to resort to historians” while enacting the so-called Armenian genocide law, is now resorting to historians, causing a wide range of reactions among the Turkish community in Paris.

Reminding the French President Jacques Chirac’s remarks, “To write history is the job of historians not the job of laws”, the Head of Paris Anatolian Culture Center Cardiologist Demir Onger told,” When the same issue disturbed them, they remembered their principles. They had not listened to us in the year 2004.” Oger expressed that Chirac’s attitude “demonstrated the hypocrisy of the European politicians once more” as he added,” when the issue disturbs them, they react in this way”. Onger, who ran for the Radical Party during the last European Parliamentary election but did not win a seat, emphasized the French Constitution does not give a chance to the parliament to pass laws concerning historical incidents, saying as long as the Turkish society keeps doing their best, the 2001 Act of “1915 Armenian Genocide” might be drawn back. Complaining about the passivity of the Turkish society in France, Onger said they will issue declarations in the upcoming days to the French officials and newspapers. The French politicians are being hypocritical about this particular subject as they have been so in other fields, said Umit Metin, the Council President of the Turkish Migrant Associations and Turkish Citizens Association told Zaman.

Strasbourg University Instructor Stephane de Tapia admits political intervention in history is very dangerous and added France exhibits controversial and meaningless attitudes in this frame. Tapia also supports Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin who said “History is not written in parliaments,” and added: “The job of historians is clear, so is the politicians’. There should not be a special law for the history of a particular group of people. This is quite dangerous.” The French researcher said there can be laws for racism, denial and revisionism in general, however, the discussions “who did, what happened” and “how did it take place” should be left to the historians. De Tapia asserted the French Parliament’s accepting a law about the Armenian Genocide is not proper.

Meanwhile, Tapia defends the law about explaining the benefits of colonialism in schools will cause another problem after the conflicts in the suburbs and emphasized the people living in the suburbs come from former colonial countries. Chirac had noted a commission including the historians will be established in order to get rid of the crisis which took place due to the reactions against the law for explaining the benefits of French colonialism in schools. Chirac expressed, “Writing history is historians’ job, not the laws” after the rising reactions.

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