Egalité, Fraternité and Stupidité

Egalité, Fraternité and Stupidité, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Well, it seems as if the French Lower House passed a Bill yesterday to make denial of the so-called Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottomans an offence punishable by a fine of € 45,000 and eight months in prison. Very verty stupid of them, notably the Socialists who put up and voted for the bill. At least the Prime Minister there showed some sense in saying that it is not right to legislate on issues of memory and history. Again, I am thinking what right does a governemnet have to legislate over what one is allowed to think. Verty very dangerousThe Bill not go any further, however the fact that it got so far has rightly managed to offend Turkey and Turks.

This episode goes to show just how dangerous a well-organised lobby group, such as the one in France of 400,000 Armenians, can be, in pushing legislators to advance their cause against the run of good sense and fairness. In Holland, where we have a similar issue, where a small Christian party proposd to make it illegal to mock a so-called genocide, was also heavily infuenced by a very small but very noisy group of Armenians. Put together, it would look like a concerted effort on behalf of the Armenians to undermine respect for Turkey and ultimately their efforts to become members of the EU.