Editorial of december 2000

After the Sénat has recognized the Armenian genocide, the Président of the French Republic and his Primer Minister insisted on assuring to Ankara that "France wishes always to maintain and developp relations of closed cooperation with Turkey at every levels " and it "will continue to work for the rapprochement of Turkey and the European Union" (source : AFP). Why our government does not seem support the vote of the Sénat ? Well, it is clear that as usually, Human’s rights are opposite to financial interests ! Our leaders’ assurances answer to the threats of the Turkish Parliament, valuing that this "vote is going to affect the bilateral economical relations, especially in the sector of Defence industry, where France angles for a big contract for the co-production of 1.000 tanks" (source : AFP).  

Furthermore, this stake of "recognizing" crimes against humanity is quite strange, for it is the one case when a question about Human’s rights can disturb profitable trade links. In general, minorities or individus don’t disturb a lot the march of events. If the leader of a state visit a country that does not really care for democracy, he will "calm down" the defencers of Human’s rights with some such sentences like "It is necessary to"... Like Bill Clinton in Vietnam, like all the Western leaders on tour in China, Africa or anywhere... It is just with these past events that debates has a surprising extent. Deads are heavier in the balance than the livings we could save.

If we examine each of these great cases, we could see that a corpse hides always another one, a more recent one, more disturbing. The American infatuation for Indians nations, this compassion for the massacres of the last century, this White Man’s self-flagellation face to the "natives" does not come with a keen pity for the "afro" and "hispano" who live however in the same land. These disinherited are probably less romantic, and above all more numerous, more visible, more dangerous. 

To make angry at this point Turkey for the recognition of slaughters which the last dated to 1917 puzzle those who care presently to prevent a Kurdish genocide. The same politicians who are reluctant to pronounce too often the word "kurd" because they fear to annoy that great laic and republican Turkish state, do not hesitate to let any prudence for defunct Armenia. And what should we think about the recognition of the Blacks’ trade, this mea culpa about slavery, when it is more urgent to save the African continent of the ravages of war and AIDS, what of the recognition of torture in Algeria, when our prefectures expell shamelessly so much Algerians threatened to death in their country ? Is it a proven tactic, clever, well-tested, for making diversion ?

No, it is not even the case, for in this ambiguous tragedy, the victims play too their own character in the aim to confort guilty feelings, their wound of exile. This cult of memory, this tension about the past is always stronger for members of diasporas, while the Armenians of Armenia, the jews of Israël, the Africans who had not been deported in America face to other problems, more recent and more important for their own survive, and no for their grand-parents’ lives. As for Western people, American or European, who accept so gracefully this play, it is easier for them to wash their conscience of their parents’ crimes than to face their own responsibilities. We are the citizens of countries which the leaders, everyday, shake killers’ hands, without great dammages for the consciences. And our grand-children, one day, will apologize for our guilty links with China, Turkey, Morocco...

Let’s hope that in twenty or thirty years, the Kurds will not be reduced to a dreamy diaspora whose the unique act of self-identity will be to claim the recognition of a genocide by democratic and civilized countries that did not prevent it. A living people find in itself of what founding its own myths and to achieve its mourning for going forward. It does not hope from others the recognition of past offences, except to wash its own conscience of its own present faults and failings. Honouring too much the martyrs of the past could mean too that actually, we miss above all heroes... victorious heroes ! 

Sandrine Alexie & Roxane

Summary