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British "holocaust denier" David Irving has been given a 3-year jail sentence for denying, in 1989, that the gas chambers existed at Auschwitz.
This is important, for a lot of reasons.
Firstly, it's important to note that he's being punished for something he said 17 years ago, and which he retracted 15 years ago. In 1991, he read the Eichmann papers, he stopped saying that the Nazis had not killed millions of Jews, and instead admitted -- and continues to admit -- that they did. So, is it still "holocaust denial" if you retract your statements? Exactly are we punishing here?
And what is the crime of Holocaust denial? Because it seems like you're punishing speech, and a strangely particular piece of speech. Eleven countries in Europe have laws specifically against denying the existence of the Holocaust. That's a very, very specific piece of anti-semitism. Why is it that this piece of speech is so abhorrent as to require specific legislation, while other sorts of speech -- even hate speech -- are okay?
Which is of course where this ties into recent events, specifically the row over anti-Islamic cartoons. I have to tread carefully to avoid upsetting anyone here, and may fail to do so, but one has to ask: what exactly is the difference between these two bits of speech? Why is one so offensive that eleven separate countries passed a law against it, but protests against the other were considered such an attack on free speech that other papers published these extremely offensive cartoons "in solidarity"? Is it simply a matter of degree? How evil does the speech have to be, exactly, before you can write a law against it? Can you give me a number? Because if you can't then it's subjective, and that opens a huge can of worms.
I don't like the concept of the crime of "holocaust denial". It seems like a stupid thing to legislate against, legislating against a symbol instead of the problem itself, akin to banning hoodies in an attempt to bar criminal youths. What you'd really like to punish is racism, but that's a thought, and you can't ban them, and you've already banned racist violence, so instead you find this populist sop of banning one particular piece of speech. You're left with this bizarre situation where it's illegal to say the Nazis never killed 6 million Jews, but totally legal to say "yes they did, and it's great!" -- but only as long as you don't add "And now let's kill some more!" I don't like it that racists say evil things, but I don't think we should be allowed to legally bar them from doing so.
And the reason it's a bad idea to ban one piece of speech is precisely the one we've run into in the last few weeks. If you ban only one bit of hate speech, the people against whom hate speech is not banned will feel justly discriminated against. And if you go the other way, and attempt to ban all hate speech, you will be soundly defeated, because it's a broad enough attack on free speech to piss off everyone. So you cannot ban just one piece of speech, and you cannot ban one type of speech.
So as offensive as it is, you must allow people to deny the truth about the horrors inflicted upon the Jews, and these holocaust denial laws must be struck down. And honestly, is this such a bad thing? What are these laws achieving? Do we think that anti-semites, deprived of the ability to say one particular offensive thing, suddenly stop being anti-semites, or even stop believing that thing? If anything, dignifying these ridiculous denials of reality with specific legislation merely adds credence to those who claim there is some sort of conspiracy -- if it's the truth, then the truth stands for itself, so why do we need a law to back it up?
David Irving does not strike me as a nice man. His speech and his words smack of racism and hypocrisy of the worst kind, and his snivelling words of retraction on television seemed insincere. But being a racist is not a crime, and nor is stating your racist, erroneous opinions, as we widely and correctly decided during the cartoons controversy. You cannot legislate against thought, and all these holocaust denial laws do not end racist thought anyway. All they do is make us look like hypocrites in the eyes of the islamic world.
And until these laws are struck down, the reason we will look like hypocrites is because we are.
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Comments
M
Laurie
Clare
Does the law achieve anything? No, probably not. but I don't think it's black and white.
On one hand, this man is a historian, and he presented an argument that challenged the consensus. Any historian will tell you there is no such thing as historical truth, all we can do is interpret the evidence. What this man did was give a very flawed and biased interpretation of some very flawed evidence. He's by no means the only historian to do this.
tbc
Clare
On the other hand, freedom of speech is not universal, there are several restrictions on it. If I were to publish an article saying that the Muslim Council of Great Britain tortured Christians, I would be taken to court. There are thousands of cases of libel in Britain every year, because it is not ok to publish a lie. And I think we can all agree this is what Irving did.
So should this guy should have been put in prison? No, because I don't think it achieves anything. But it's not simply a case of freedom of speech.
Incidentally on the BBC discussion board on this topic, responding to the question 'Should Holocaust denial be illegal?' one man (a muslim) responded something along the lines of 'No, because it never happened, it was a lie made up by the Jews. The Jews lie and deceive and Europe believes.' now this man has heard this somewhere. In Arab countries articles to the same effect appear regularly in stat-controlled newspapers. Should this kind of preaching be allowed to happen? It's an interesting thought.
Laurie
matthew
Just wondering: what moves you to support the freedom to be racist, but not the freedom to smoke?
Is there a principle behind these views, or is it disliking the smell of smoke more than the sound of racism? Just asking....
ed
Artemis
ah but you see - it does make sense a little. one is the freedom to *say* the other is a freedom to *do*.
marc
I just posted the draft description of the course I told you about (back when you posted about the Brights) on my blog. If you've got a minute, check it out and let me know what you think/if you've got any suggestions. They'd be greatly appreciated.
momeaga dot blogspot dot com
Clare
Separate to this though, people often quote Freedom of Speech as our most important right. I don't want to live in a censored society, but at the same time I don't consider freedom of speech anywhere near as important as my right to live my life without being told I'm deviant, going to hell or unsafe to be around children. There are laws protecting me from having to listen to racist/sexist/homophobic jokes all day in my office, and I'd much rather have that than have a bigotted colleague with free reign to insult as many people as he likes with no recourse. There is no easy answer, and there is not necessarily a clear line to be drawn, but freedom of speech must have its limits.
Racist