France's Armenian Ghosts

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Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler question the French legislation of punishment of the expression of denial. That is, why France would address Turkey on Armenians when they have delayed addressing themselves about Algerians, or European complicity in the holocaust. What pushes this legislation as Turkey hopes to join Europe's Union?

 

Moral ghosts of the Holocaust still haunt Europe. Now in new guise, moral ghosts are playing havoc with France’s capacity for moral discernment. Draped under the absolutist mantle of virtue, France’s legislators have lost their moral compass. The nation which charted the first Human Rights Act has done a perplexing turn-about in order to confront these other ghosts, others’ ghosts.

 

Is the French National Assembly’s sweeping law which would punish any expression of denial that Turkey committed ‘genocide’ against Armenians evidence of France’s own malaise, a reluctance to grapple morally with admission of its own ghosts, and politically with the admission of Turkey into Europe?

 

Over recent years Europe has expanded its boundaries so that Auschwitz is now fully integrated into its midst. Europe is defining a new moral identity for itself. Does France see itself part of that new moral self-definition, or is France seeking to expand Europe’s moral boundaries while contracting those boundaries in geo-political terms?

 

Europe is remembering too much, and too little. Too little, since all Europeans have yet fully to confront their Holocaust ghosts; too much, in that when they grapple with those ghosts they often embrace collective expiation of guilt, re-defined by the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida as “dissolution of guilt…If one starts to accuse oneself by begging forgiveness of all crimes of the past against humanity, there would not be a single innocent left on earth.”

 

After attempting to bury memories by long choosing not to remember 60 years on, Europe does commemorate the Holocaust, acknowledges a shared guilt. But commemoration has not stilled the ghosts. They creep further on -- crossing historical and geographical boundaries to tackle national memories of colonialism and slavery. The moral pressure of the ghosts also induced Europeans to confront contemporary moral challenges in Bosnia and Kosovo, while 9/11 compelled them to relate to ’the other’ in their midst.

 

What then drove this French insistence on a purist cross-border law with regard to Turkey’s ghosts -- an attempt perhaps to gain comfort by turning away from confronting their own sins?

 

This imperative of grappling with ‘the other’ within their midst complicates European attitudes on how to relate to ‘the other’ beyond their realm, the other who would like to become part of their realm. This is especially true of relations between some Europeans and Turks -- as Turkey negotiates to become a full part of Europe, negotiates to stop being “the other’.

 

Could the enacting of a genocide-denial law committed by a country which is not yet included in their midst be intended to help Europeans avoid an historical grappling with ‘a European crime’ -- if Europe be enlarged to Turkey? Let rather Turkey remain beyond Europe, let its ‘genocide’ remain beyond Europe.

 

But if the French purpose was both to keep Turkey out of Europe politically and Turkey’s tainted past out of Europe historically, it is backfiring. Turkey’s ghost is doubling up as France’s Armenian ghosts.

 

Europe is at a crossroads between its past and its future orientation -- both political and moral. The French law seeks to put an indelible stamp on the choices which define Europe, the basis on which Europe ought to constitute itself.

 

With respect to Holocaust guilt, Derrida wrote: “If everyone is considered guilty there will be no-one left to judge what then cannot be adequately judged; if there is no-one to judge, then there is no need for soul-search.” France’s insistence on a legalistic measure to tackle the “Armenian genocide” takes the Derrida stricture to an illogical conclusion.

 

The law is patently not the same as legislation against Holocaust denial -- as many European nations have done. Holocaust deniers still try to ply their wares, their anti-Semitism meant to thrive on that denial. Denial of the Armenian genocide is, however, a non-issue in this respect: No-one in France, nor in Europe, nor indeed within Turkey, uses denial to foment hatred.

 

Morally, it’s perfectly acceptable for France to prod Turkey to confront its ghosts, as many Turks themselves demand of their country. But beyond suspect political motives, is this legal rush merely an attempt by some in France to cover-up refusal to confront their national ghosts -- from France’s colonial past?

 

Hardly surprisingly, aghast Turkish critics of the French action now pursue a counter-challenge: What about your Algerian ghosts? France is coming to terms with those ghosts, but "slowly" and "belatedly" are the operative words. It took the film Indigenes by French-born filmmaker Rachid Bouchareb about the role of Algerian conscripts in World War II to gain those French veterans belated recognition.

 

As France attempts to impose a soul-search on others there is another unexpected result: France, already under demand that it address its own ghosts, is under pressure at home to reflect on the demand it has made of Turkey. The ultimate injunction would seem to be “Judge not the moral ghosts of ‘the other’!”’

 

Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler are Jerusalem-based reporters and documentary filmmakers.