Differences between cultures

[Rev. Rye]

Rev -

Just a thought. How can you really stop people from denying the holocaust, or anything else? All you can really do is punish people if you catch them coming out with it, but you can't stop them from thinking it. And the thing is, when anyone has a thought about anything, sooner or later they'll communicate it. I don't see the point.

I was just trying to make a rhetorical point: When the Germans committed genocide, they owned up to it. When the Turks did it, they not only did not, but tried to pressure other countries to not, and even made it illegal to acknowledge it (See Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code "Insulting Turkishness.") Even a Nobel Prize-winning author, Orhan Pamuk, got prosecuted for acknowledging that there was a plan to wipe out the Armenians a few years ago.

As for genocide denial laws, I admit that it's hard to enforce the laws, and I personally think that, ideally, such laws shouldn't even be necessary (indeed, it took 40 years for the law to happen.) I brought it up to show how willing the German people are to admit that their people committed an act of genocide against 6 million Jews and at least four million others sixty years ago, and contrast this with the way the Turks feel about owning up to their killing 1.5 Armenians ninety years ago. And, if not for the "Insulting Turkishness Law," I wouldn't have even mentioned the law banning Holocaust Denial.