Historical Truth Speaks for Itself

Christopher Caldwell wrote an interesting comment piece in the FT Weekend on February 17th an interesting piece on the whole problem on free speech and Holocaust denial, called Historical truth speaks for itself

At the height of the worldwide demonstrations over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, some protesters claimed the west did not value free speech as much as it said. After all, the argument ran, many western countries ban Holocaust denial. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the Iranian leader, has recently thumbed his nose at the west by denying the Holocaust himself. A Belgian Arab group released a cartoon showing Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. "Europe, too, has its sacred cows," said the group's leader, Dyab Abou Jahjah, "even if they are not religious sacred cows."
The gesture may be tawdry, but the point is essentially correct. In much of Europe, there is a legislated "official truth" about the Holocaust. France passed its so-called Gayssot law, making Holocaust denial a crime, in 1990. Germany and Switzerland soon followed suit. Denying or minimising the Holocaust is now also a crime in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia.

The rest of the excellent commentary is regrettably for subscribers only, but my home edition of the FT has his interesting catalogue of the consequences of laws which now make it illegal to deny Armenian genocide and the evils of French colonialism, and commit "hate crimes," to name only major French infractions against freedom of speech.

The gist of Caldwell’s piece is that all sorts of new "memory laws" and other "hate crimes" have sprouted, even including a member of French National Assembly convicted of homophobia for venturing the opinion that "heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality on the moral level."

Caldwell notes that

"once the state admits that there are other prejudices in society besides anti-Semitism, other minority groups …reason that the principle of protecting minorities by restricting certain utterances about their history, and new groups pop up to agitate for special protections against the prejudice that threatens them most."

UK legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin suggests using the European Convention on Human Rights to strike down laws banning Holocaust denial.

This now becomes more topical than ever because noted Holocaust denier David Irving has been sentenced to three years in jail in Austria for statements made fifteen years ago. He has written thirty books of history and even Sir John Keegan was on the record as saying that Irving is unparalleled in his command of primary documents of the Nazi era, adding that his opinions are "perverse." Irving now has recanted some of his views, citing new documents that came his way after his remarks in 1989 that have now sent him to jail.

The problem, of course, is that once historical opinion becomes entangled in legal tangles, freedom of speech is the first to suffer. The Muslims have a point that freedom of speech depends on the strength of political lobbies in various countries and is a sham when used to excuse inflammatory words or pictures of cultural or religious icons.

Caldwell finishes up his piece on laws and free speech

Mr. Dworkin’s case for abolishing laws against Holocaust denial on grounds of political legitimacy is the right one. Of course, no one should be under the illusion that being able to go out and deny the Holocaust will add much to any "debate."....... So those western countries with laws against Holocaust denial are now in a tricky position. They must undo laws that have proved unworkable and counterproductive---and at a moment when some of those laws’ most vocal detractors are violent people of ill will.