Recognising Genocide is a collective exercise

There is a written declaration floating around the EP at the moment which, in its opening clause, "Deplores the French National Assembly’s decision to adopt a draft law criminalising denial of the ‘Armenian genocide of 1915’"

Of course, qualifying something as Genocide has important implications. It implies a kind of global recognition, an attempt at reconciliation by acknowledgement, an expression of collective regret, but also about making it an historical event, by way of retrospective recognition. It is a step that cannot be taken if it would only be partial.

So if everybody agrees that a crime against humanity has been committed, and everyone is sorry for it, why shouldnt it be written into law?

As Esther Benbassa writes (rough translation): "Diplomatic pressure on Turkey to officially recognise the Armenian genocide is one thing - criminalising denial in a third party country neither the scene nor the instigator of the events in question, is another." Placing a large no-no on the freedom of speech of an entire population might even be regarded as incitement to deny, and a source of acrimony.

My personal view is that individual holocaust denial is merely a provocation, where freedom of speech is used to justify what is merely an attempt to get attention, a protest statement, a means out lashing out at the establishment, and winding a lot of people up.

It seems to me, the essential point of recognising "genocide" is to do with writing it into the collective memory. This is something a particular state can acheive on various levels, by commemorating it, making official statements, issuing apologies or admissals of responsibility, investigating & locking up the right people, publishing it in the history books, teaching about it in schools, etc. These are the logical & necessary reactions to coming to terms with atrocities and making sure they aren't lost, repressed or forgotten about. But must the additional step of ideological constraint, and consequently ideological persecution, necessarily form a part of that? I'm not sticking up for the nutcases, I'm saying freedom of speech is too important and valuable to be left to them, for them to associate themselves with it, to become martyrs when they really don't matter.