THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD: TURKEY AND THE EU
‘Recep Tayyip Erdogan recalls ambassador after Paris's decision to prosecute people who deny killing of Armenians was genocide………he [Erdogan]said this was just the start and "gradually" but "decisively" other retaliation measures would be taken against France. He warned of heavy diplomatic "wounds" that would be "difficult to heal".’*
It is difficult to know what is the most sinister and the most absurd element of this asininity. Is it the attempt to create an element of thought crime into French Jurisprudence, a mirror image of the thought crime current in Turkey, i.e. of declaiming the Armenian Holocaust? Alternatively is it the grotesque overreaction of Mr Erdogan. This reaction provides a further illustration, if one were needed, of the complete unsuitability of Turkey for EU membership; perhaps this was the intention of the French MP’s, in which case, from their point of view, Mr Erdogan played a blinder.
As to Holocaust denial, already a crime in Austria and I believe Germany, though in both countries not denial of the Armenian genocide. Certainly to have people going around denying the Holocaust can create an extremely unpleasant stench in the nostrils, but to my mind the stench of imprisoning people for what they think is equally repugnant. In a country with a free media it is easy enough to counter the propaganda of a variety of right wing fruitcakes and provocateurs. So my advice to the French assembly would be, in good old Anglo Saxon vernacular, chuck it.
*Guardian 23/12/2011
It is difficult to know what is the most sinister and the most absurd element of this asininity. Is it the attempt to create an element of thought crime into French Jurisprudence, a mirror image of the thought crime current in Turkey, i.e. of declaiming the Armenian Holocaust? Alternatively is it the grotesque overreaction of Mr Erdogan. This reaction provides a further illustration, if one were needed, of the complete unsuitability of Turkey for EU membership; perhaps this was the intention of the French MP’s, in which case, from their point of view, Mr Erdogan played a blinder.
As to Holocaust denial, already a crime in Austria and I believe Germany, though in both countries not denial of the Armenian genocide. Certainly to have people going around denying the Holocaust can create an extremely unpleasant stench in the nostrils, but to my mind the stench of imprisoning people for what they think is equally repugnant. In a country with a free media it is easy enough to counter the propaganda of a variety of right wing fruitcakes and provocateurs. So my advice to the French assembly would be, in good old Anglo Saxon vernacular, chuck it.
*Guardian 23/12/2011
