Last week, right wing Briton historian and writer, David Irving, was sentenced to a three year prison sentence in Austria. His crime? Free speech. The verdict, concluded within a single proceeding, rested on a speech he delivered 17 years ago, wherein he apparently denied the Jewish Holocaust (although he claimed he was never a Holocaust denier, he pled guilty to the charge of doing so). In Hitler’s War, originally published in 1977, and revised several times thereafter, Irving asserted the gas chambers were non existent in the Nazi death camps and that Hitler was unaware of the Final Solution.
Certainly, an analysis to substantiate the accuracy of his work in regards to these views is unnecessary; as Noam Chomsky has repeatedly said, any attempt at denying the Holocaust will result in “losing one’s humanity.” Indeed, Irving is a racist, chauvinistic scoundrel. That aside, the courts are without moral grounding to restrict his right to free speech. As I’ve I stated previously, in regards to the infamous personas of Muhammad, peace be upon him, freedom of speech cannot and must not be applied only to those views that either we, or those in power, agree with. In fact, free speech is a human right, recognized to protect the very views we detest.
Americans are better off than their European counterparts in this arena. In Britain, for example, albeit technically not in Europe, it remains an offense punishable by law, to insult the Church of England. Although many of us live and die by the concept of our freedoms in the United States, and despite the fact that free speech is protected by the Bill of Rights, wide application in defense of the right to free expression is fairly recent. It was Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle, protesting against state sanctioned racial injustice within the United States and his stance against the war in Vietnam, which allowed free speech to reach its current status as a human right, not to be infringed.
The blaring hypocrisy of the case against Irving is the fact in Austria, it is illegal to publish material defaming Judaism or denying the Holocaust, while on the same token allowing cartoons insulting Muslims under the argument of free speech can freely be published. This is also the case in France, Germany, and a slew of other European countries. What is especially troubling about the Irving case, not discounting his disdainful views, is the idea of the state determining what is, or is not, historical fact.
Few serious historians sympathize with Irving’s historical arguments regarding the Nazi genocide, which is precisely why the state must not be allowed to interfere in or instigate the policing of historical accuracy- indeed, allowing it to do so is tantamount to endorsing the erection of a Ministry of Truth, not unlike what determines fact from fallacy in places like China and North Korea. The point of historical research is not to fall lockstep with the establishment of the ruling party but to enlighten debate, present new interpretations, and challenges, leaving the review process to one’s peers in historiography- a process not unlike what occurs in the sciences.
With freedom comes responsibility, however. Just as the Jylland-Posten of Denmark should not have published the caricatures of the Prophet, insulting an already oppressed minority, their right to do so should also not be infringed, nor should have the writings of David Irving resulted in a prison sentence, no matter how deplorable we may consider them. In the words of John Stuart Mill, “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
Certainly, an analysis to substantiate the accuracy of his work in regards to these views is unnecessary; as Noam Chomsky has repeatedly said, any attempt at denying the Holocaust will result in “losing one’s humanity.” Indeed, Irving is a racist, chauvinistic scoundrel. That aside, the courts are without moral grounding to restrict his right to free speech. As I’ve I stated previously, in regards to the infamous personas of Muhammad, peace be upon him, freedom of speech cannot and must not be applied only to those views that either we, or those in power, agree with. In fact, free speech is a human right, recognized to protect the very views we detest.
Americans are better off than their European counterparts in this arena. In Britain, for example, albeit technically not in Europe, it remains an offense punishable by law, to insult the Church of England. Although many of us live and die by the concept of our freedoms in the United States, and despite the fact that free speech is protected by the Bill of Rights, wide application in defense of the right to free expression is fairly recent. It was Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle, protesting against state sanctioned racial injustice within the United States and his stance against the war in Vietnam, which allowed free speech to reach its current status as a human right, not to be infringed.
The blaring hypocrisy of the case against Irving is the fact in Austria, it is illegal to publish material defaming Judaism or denying the Holocaust, while on the same token allowing cartoons insulting Muslims under the argument of free speech can freely be published. This is also the case in France, Germany, and a slew of other European countries. What is especially troubling about the Irving case, not discounting his disdainful views, is the idea of the state determining what is, or is not, historical fact.
Few serious historians sympathize with Irving’s historical arguments regarding the Nazi genocide, which is precisely why the state must not be allowed to interfere in or instigate the policing of historical accuracy- indeed, allowing it to do so is tantamount to endorsing the erection of a Ministry of Truth, not unlike what determines fact from fallacy in places like China and North Korea. The point of historical research is not to fall lockstep with the establishment of the ruling party but to enlighten debate, present new interpretations, and challenges, leaving the review process to one’s peers in historiography- a process not unlike what occurs in the sciences.
With freedom comes responsibility, however. Just as the Jylland-Posten of Denmark should not have published the caricatures of the Prophet, insulting an already oppressed minority, their right to do so should also not be infringed, nor should have the writings of David Irving resulted in a prison sentence, no matter how deplorable we may consider them. In the words of John Stuart Mill, “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
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