Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYArticle 5, paragraph 2, introduced three restrictions of free speech.The first refers to “general laws.” According to common sense as wellas various verdicts by the German Constitutional High Court, this preciselydoes NOT include such laws which prohibit only certain opinionsor which regulate only certain topics. Already for this reason those paragraphsof §130 of the German Penal Code which intend to regulatehistorical views are unconstitutional – and besides, they are of coursealso in conflict with Kant’s categorical imperative. The question reallyimposes itself why this law regulates only this one genocide. Why notall genocides of human history? And why is it restricted to genocides?Why aren’t all views on history regulated which can evoke displeasurein people against others? This would, of course, amount to outlawinghistoriography as such, as one can always find somebody who feels offendedby certain views or which may motivate them to feel displeasureagainst others.The massacre of the Armenians in Turkey during World War I exemplifiesthe absurd situation which can be created with the attempt toregulate historiography by penal law. A short while ago France enacteda law prohibiting the denial of the above genocide. At the same time itis currently illegal in Turkey to claim that those events constituted genocide.Let us for a moment assume that Turkey will become a member ofthe European Union in the foreseeable future. Imagine, for instance, anEnglishman living in Germany who denies the genocide against theArmenians in an article. He subsequently gets arrested due to a Frencharrest warrant and put into a French prison. Since the Briton has learnedfrom this experience, he publishes an article after his release in whichhe emphatically confirms the genocide against the Armenians. He subsequentlygets arrested again, this time due to a Turkish arrest warrant –the European arrest warrant makes it possible! – and put into a Turkishprison. And since our English fellow citizen is a role model in teachability,yet like me cannot shut up, he publishes another article after hisrelease from Turkey, in which he once more denies the genocide againstthe Armenian, upon which he ends up once more in a French jail. Andso he spends the rest of his life alternatively in French and Turkish prisons,as he cannot please everybody at once.And now imagine that all European countries would raise to a normthe German pathological behavioral pattern of prescribing discussion oftraumatic events of their national history by penal law. Then everybody125