Will boycott on trade with France be a good enough counter-strike for Turkey?

If the French parliament passes the genocide bill on Thursday (22nd Dec 2011) everybody will be holding their breath to see what Ankara has to say.

Many people (Turks to be in the first place) believe Turkey should consider retaliating by boycotting trade with France to include civil boycott of French goods by Turkish people.

Some other say Turkey should pass a bill in the parliament saying what France did in Algeria and Ruanda were genocides and anybody to deny this fact should sentenced to jail (similar to the case in France).

In our opinion, the latter alternative seems to be right on the target as we believe the world has the right to be much more educated about the terrible and cruel handling this country has exercised in those two African countries. In fact, Turkey in such a case should provide all necessary propoganda materials to include documentary films, books, newspaper ads to make sure France suffers all the disgrace it has long deserved for its misconduct in concerned countries in the past.

As for the former alternative, the writer of these lines would without doubt boycott French goods. However he does not believe Turkish people would have the commonsense and solidarity to behave as one and refrain from using products and services having to do with France (to include trips to said country), based on earlier experience when Turkey was cross with France and Italy on another occasion regarding PKK leader Öcalan issue. Turkish people did not prove to display solidarity even then.

Thus, from a realistic point of view the writer believes the result would not be any different to what happened in those 2 cases and a likely boycott on French goods would not bring about any productive results.

At the end of the day however, the author believes this “silly” and phoney move will not contribute much to the future of Sarkozy in a positive manner as he is already close to the end of his political career. But it will have certainly contributed to a feeling of hostility between two nations and the funny thing is, for nothing.

21.12.2011
Editor, BTT