Tweet
IS IT TIME TO LIFT THE TABOO ON HOLOCAUST DENIAL?
by James Kirkup
The Scotsman, UK
December 13, 2006, Wednesday
1 Edition
IT IS difficult to imagine a more grotesque and unpleasant gathering
than the conference taking place in Tehran this week under the
innocuous title of "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision". For all
its pretence of scholarship and objective analysis, the event's true
nature is not in doubt, as a glance at the guest-list makes clear.
Whatever else he is, David Duke, a former imperial wizard of the
Ku Klux Klan, is not an objective scholar of 20th-century European
history. Nor are the rest of the bunch that assembled under the
aegis of the Iranian foreign ministry, among them Michele Renouf,
who reportedly enjoys the remarkable distinction of being considered
"too extreme" to address the British National Party.
The whole nasty affair is the work of Iran's nasty president,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who says it is nothing less than an exercise
of free speech, and one that raises serious questions for the West,
and Europe in particular. Whether he's rattling his sabre at Israel
or persecuting Iranians who criticise him, Mr Ahmadinejad is at least
as unpalatable as his guests this week. But, uncomfortable as it may
be to admit it, he has raised an important point.
The argument he mounts is that Europe is inconsistent in its adherence
to the values of free speech: deny that Hitler's Nazi regime killed
six million Jews and you can end up in prison in several European
countries. But publish drawings or writings denying that Mohammed is
the prophet of the one true god and the authorities will defend you
to the hilt.
Mr Ahmadinejad argues that devout Muslims suffer just as much
distress from the latter as Jews do from the former. On one level,
it's a specious argument, because according to its advocates, banning
Holocaust denial isn't about preventing emotional distress, it's about
preventing incitement to another genocide. But the very fact that Mr
Ahmadinejad can even draw the comparison should ring alarm bells:
extremists of all sorts find the most fertile soil in grievances,
real or imagined. By making an exceptional case of the Holocaust,
we risk handing ammunition to those who falsely claim that western
societies are biased, against Muslims and towards Jews.
By the way, Mr Ahmadinejad has never said how he would treat the
author of the blasphemous or offensive cartoons, but I think I have
an idea. Almost seven years ago in Tehran, I met Nikahang Kowsar,
the country's leading political cartoonist. He'd just finished a jail
sentence imposed because one of his cartoons had offended one of the
hardline clerics who now keep Mr Ahmadinejad in his job. And that
was during one of Iran's more liberal periods; since then, Mr Kowsar,
like a great many inspirational Iranian journalists, has sought exile
abroad, apparently unwilling to entrust his safety to Mr Ahmadinejad's
proclaimed commitment to free speech.
There's another problem with making a legal exception of the German
Holocaust, which is that by giving one atrocity special status above
all others, we make it somehow attractive to the stupid and the
malicious, in a way that other genocides are not.
Not many disaffected European youths are drawn to neo-Stalinist groups
and denials that the Communist tyrant killed 20 million.
Outside Turkey at least, not many demagogic politicians can make
capital out of denials that the Turks killed hundreds of thousands
of Armenians in 1915. Its near-sacred position in our collective
imagination has made the Nazi genocide into a malign cause celèbre,
and its sceptics into martyrs.
CONSIDER one of the missing guests at the Tehran conference,
David Irving. In 2000, Irving was a discredited pseudo-historian,
his amateurish attempts to deny the Holocaust shattered in a London
courtroom by a genuine historian, Deborah Lipstadt, in a defamation
case he brought. But last year, Irving was jailed in Austria,
where his pathetic writings constitute a crime. A quick trawl of the
internet confirms that his jailing has elevated him to the status of
demi-god among the far-right; his name was intoned with reverence at
the Tehran conference.
According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, three-quarters of young
British people know when the Holocaust took place; more have heard
of Auschwitz. That is unquestionably a good thing. But how many of
them have reached the conclusion that Jews were slaughtered in their
millions because they have inspected and weighted the evidence of
the Holocaust, or at least read the work of credible historians who
have done so? Given the parlous state of history teaching in most
British schools, I fear Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List is more
significant here than less cinematic but more objective works such
as Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews or Christopher
Browning's The Origins of the Final Solution.
There's nothing wrong with getting interested in history because of
films. But films aren't history; just consider the ruinous effects
Braveheart has had on Scottish political discourse. True historical
understanding comes only from calmly and coldly sifting the facts
from the assertions, the evidence from the propaganda. Despite the
undoubted good intentions behind them, Europe's social and legal
taboos on discussion of the Holocaust risk suppressing that discussion.
Anyone who believes that the memory of the Holocaust is important, that
it must not be forgotten, should always recall the priceless advice
of JS Mill's Essay on Liberty: "However unwillingly a person who has
a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be
false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true
it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed,
it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.
Western society is nothing if it is not free, and our beliefs are
nothing if they are not questioned. It is regrettable if it takes
someone as illiberal as Mr Ahmadinejad to remind us of that.
--Boundary_(ID_JJ6AAxhp8QC019VzX94V5g)--
by James Kirkup
The Scotsman, UK
December 13, 2006, Wednesday
1 Edition
IT IS difficult to imagine a more grotesque and unpleasant gathering
than the conference taking place in Tehran this week under the
innocuous title of "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision". For all
its pretence of scholarship and objective analysis, the event's true
nature is not in doubt, as a glance at the guest-list makes clear.
Whatever else he is, David Duke, a former imperial wizard of the
Ku Klux Klan, is not an objective scholar of 20th-century European
history. Nor are the rest of the bunch that assembled under the
aegis of the Iranian foreign ministry, among them Michele Renouf,
who reportedly enjoys the remarkable distinction of being considered
"too extreme" to address the British National Party.
The whole nasty affair is the work of Iran's nasty president,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who says it is nothing less than an exercise
of free speech, and one that raises serious questions for the West,
and Europe in particular. Whether he's rattling his sabre at Israel
or persecuting Iranians who criticise him, Mr Ahmadinejad is at least
as unpalatable as his guests this week. But, uncomfortable as it may
be to admit it, he has raised an important point.
The argument he mounts is that Europe is inconsistent in its adherence
to the values of free speech: deny that Hitler's Nazi regime killed
six million Jews and you can end up in prison in several European
countries. But publish drawings or writings denying that Mohammed is
the prophet of the one true god and the authorities will defend you
to the hilt.
Mr Ahmadinejad argues that devout Muslims suffer just as much
distress from the latter as Jews do from the former. On one level,
it's a specious argument, because according to its advocates, banning
Holocaust denial isn't about preventing emotional distress, it's about
preventing incitement to another genocide. But the very fact that Mr
Ahmadinejad can even draw the comparison should ring alarm bells:
extremists of all sorts find the most fertile soil in grievances,
real or imagined. By making an exceptional case of the Holocaust,
we risk handing ammunition to those who falsely claim that western
societies are biased, against Muslims and towards Jews.
By the way, Mr Ahmadinejad has never said how he would treat the
author of the blasphemous or offensive cartoons, but I think I have
an idea. Almost seven years ago in Tehran, I met Nikahang Kowsar,
the country's leading political cartoonist. He'd just finished a jail
sentence imposed because one of his cartoons had offended one of the
hardline clerics who now keep Mr Ahmadinejad in his job. And that
was during one of Iran's more liberal periods; since then, Mr Kowsar,
like a great many inspirational Iranian journalists, has sought exile
abroad, apparently unwilling to entrust his safety to Mr Ahmadinejad's
proclaimed commitment to free speech.
There's another problem with making a legal exception of the German
Holocaust, which is that by giving one atrocity special status above
all others, we make it somehow attractive to the stupid and the
malicious, in a way that other genocides are not.
Not many disaffected European youths are drawn to neo-Stalinist groups
and denials that the Communist tyrant killed 20 million.
Outside Turkey at least, not many demagogic politicians can make
capital out of denials that the Turks killed hundreds of thousands
of Armenians in 1915. Its near-sacred position in our collective
imagination has made the Nazi genocide into a malign cause celèbre,
and its sceptics into martyrs.
CONSIDER one of the missing guests at the Tehran conference,
David Irving. In 2000, Irving was a discredited pseudo-historian,
his amateurish attempts to deny the Holocaust shattered in a London
courtroom by a genuine historian, Deborah Lipstadt, in a defamation
case he brought. But last year, Irving was jailed in Austria,
where his pathetic writings constitute a crime. A quick trawl of the
internet confirms that his jailing has elevated him to the status of
demi-god among the far-right; his name was intoned with reverence at
the Tehran conference.
According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, three-quarters of young
British people know when the Holocaust took place; more have heard
of Auschwitz. That is unquestionably a good thing. But how many of
them have reached the conclusion that Jews were slaughtered in their
millions because they have inspected and weighted the evidence of
the Holocaust, or at least read the work of credible historians who
have done so? Given the parlous state of history teaching in most
British schools, I fear Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List is more
significant here than less cinematic but more objective works such
as Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews or Christopher
Browning's The Origins of the Final Solution.
There's nothing wrong with getting interested in history because of
films. But films aren't history; just consider the ruinous effects
Braveheart has had on Scottish political discourse. True historical
understanding comes only from calmly and coldly sifting the facts
from the assertions, the evidence from the propaganda. Despite the
undoubted good intentions behind them, Europe's social and legal
taboos on discussion of the Holocaust risk suppressing that discussion.
Anyone who believes that the memory of the Holocaust is important, that
it must not be forgotten, should always recall the priceless advice
of JS Mill's Essay on Liberty: "However unwillingly a person who has
a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be
false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true
it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed,
it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.
Western society is nothing if it is not free, and our beliefs are
nothing if they are not questioned. It is regrettable if it takes
someone as illiberal as Mr Ahmadinejad to remind us of that.
--Boundary_(ID_JJ6AAxhp8QC019VzX94V5g)--