The Turkish parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman, Hasan Murat Mercan, has asked Isreali to stop discussion of the Armenian genocide. This move should surprise no one. The Turks have been avidly asking people to stop this discussion for years. This request even came with a slightly veiled threat: “We would prefer if this discussion would not take place at this time in the Israeli parliament because it may harm the relations between the two countries.”
The threat to cut off relations is not new in international policy and the stick constantly looms in most discussion between nations. The interesting part is that they are requesting a country to stop speaking about something– they are threatening to end diplomatic relations for the spread of genocide ideology. They want to stop the discussion. (Are we seeing a trend here in my recent posts?!?)
However, what harm will really come from allowing a third party discussion? I’m not sure the Turkish government has given that position any real thought. Instead they are just wanting to suppress….. Maybe the governments of Turkey and Rwanda should sit down together and discuss the fallout from suppression or the potential results of open dialogue. While my comment is a tad glib, my point remains– let them talk, no government has ever benefited from prevasive and brutal attempts at secrecy. The fallout is always worse than open exchange.
Your thoughts?
December 19, 2008 at 4:50 pm
The site looks great, hope you keep updating it. Check out our discussion forums for genocide at http://www.genocideisreal.org and our genocide scanner at http://genocideisreal.wordpress.com