The secularism of genocide

France has enacted a Bill that makes any denial of the Armenian genocide punishable by law, with deniers earning up to a year in prison and a EUR 45,000 ($58,600) fine. While most countries recognize the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 in Turkey to be a genocide, Turkey contests the numbers and, more importantly, that the characterization of the event (as a genocide or not) should be historians, not legislators. Here, I agree with Turkey.

Let's get the political angle out of the way: the conservative government of President Nicolas Sarkozy aims to garner support from the sizable local Armenian population in its run up to the elections next year. Beyond that, sealing the event by law to be of a particular nature heavily influences debate on the subject. I don't deny that the event happened, and going by the scale of things, I can't deny that it was genocidal, but both these facts have been established by reason. Reason is secular. Facts become facts only when established by way of logical reasoning and scientific evidence. When jurisprudential factitude is attached to it, the fact's secular character becomes sidelined. Now, argumentatively, I can't even debate the genocidal aspect of the Armenian genocide.

That well-informed French politicians have voted to pass the Bill unanimously means nothing: when there are political rewards or sanctions become involved, politicians will move guided only by them. On the other hand, that the Bill was drafted in the first place is a dubious act of gaining political leverage because it comes at the cost of the rejection of historical evidence. From this point on, the Armenian genocide in French debate will be a law-point, not a factual point.

What stops the French from labeling future events as genocides even though they may not have been so? It will be making that decision based only on what it chooses to know, not what it should know.