Holocaust Denial

Should it be made a crime?

It is almost universally accepted that the Holocaust was the mass extermination of the Jews and other “undesirables” at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. It has become a symbol of evil in our time because of its uniqueness.

It is unparalleled because it was the systematic murder by a so-called civilized and cultured European country, where it became government policy to murder the Jews, and where the entire effort of the state was channelled into obliterating an ethnicity. Yet it is one that has come under scrutiny at the hands of holocaust deniers or "revisionists" as they prefer to be called. Holocaust deniers, for various reasons, allege that the genocide of Jews did not occur in the manner or to the extent described by the current literati.

The key claims of Holocaust deniers centre on the assertion that the Nazis had no official policy or intention towards exterminating Jews. Other allegations include that Nazis did not use gas chambers to mass murder Jews, and that the figure of 5-7million Jewish deaths is a gross exaggeration.

On the question of whether Nazis targeted Jews, there is overwhelming evidence to confirm that there was a concerted attempt at annihilating Jews. Such evidence includes the Nuremburg Laws, designed to strip Jews of citizenship and basic rights, Pogroms, the worst of which was Kristallnacht (night of broken glass), ghettoisation, use of concentration and finally extermination camps.

Today, one would think that only a person in a state of appalling ignorance or advanced dementia can deny the facts of the Holocaust. Yet if the facts are true, then why is legislation needed to make the denial a crime?

Free speech is integral to this debate, and while it may be a mainstay of democracy, it stops at the point of crying "fire!" in a crowded theatre. Of course, all governments restrict some speech, but free expression is so fundamental to democracy that there is usually a strong bias against restricting speech unless it poses a compelling and even imminent danger to others. The most pervasive and durable restrictions meet that test, applying to things like child pornography, false statements that result in demonstrable harm (defamation), the exposure of national security information, and commercial fraud.

In other words, free speech is conditional because it only exists until a point. But should the right to speak out be taken from those who cling to a false or perverse ideology? Freedom of Speech has some undesirable consequences, because it gives everyone a platform, even if their views are offensive and wrong. However, I feel that the best way to combat the apocryphal tales that emerge from the holocaust denial camp is to engage in rational debate. The lineage of that theme traces back to the Old Pauline, John Milton, who wrote that if Truth and Falsehood were to grapple in a free and open encounter, Truth would always win.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu's dad used to say, "Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." I say; don't silence Irving, let him speak so we can prove him wrong. By bringing the issue out into the public domain, we crush the myths that surround the Holocaust, and we stand up for what is right, rather than seeking the cowardly option of crushing resistance with forceful methods. Even on major historical events men and women rarely agree upon a single truth. Was Napoleon a hero or a tyrant? Each generation must interpret history anew and discover its own truths as well as accept competing versions can coexist. There will always be those who hold views diametrically opposed to that of the status quo, and instead of hiding we should choose to examine and analyze these views before reaching a decision. All informed decisions require the makers to scrutinize all the evidence rather than selecting bits which suit their argument. Galileo was considered by many to be a heretic, although what he postulated and then proved eventually became truth. The same should apply to holocaust deniers. We should give them access to a platform rather than locking them away. Liberty needs dissenters, and equally it needs us to stand up for the rights of others. It needs us to recognize these people are wrong in a humane way so as not to aggravate the situation.

Yet there are also valid arguments for punishing Holocaust denial. The Holocaust was a methodical effort to exterminate an entire people; it plunged far deeper into the maelstrom of human depravity than anything before it.

Strictly speaking, the state has no right to forbid speech unless it will incite imminent lawless action. While Holocaust deniers do attract followers, they are largely ignored by the general public and, at least to date, have not incited or produced imminent lawless action. However, indirectly in any case, denying the holocaust has a cumulative effect. The recent Holocaust-denial conference hosted by the Iranian president is a good example. The emotive message was both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. That was in fact its whole purpose. Holocaust denial can thus be seen as a way to incite hatred against Jews and the Jewish state. And inciting hatred, whether religious, ethnic or racial, is generally deemed to be unprotected speech.

What some people fail to realize is that locking people up, such as with David Irving for branding the holocaust a “fairytale”, creates martyrs and suggests that we, as jailors have something to fear. The very fact that we have something to be alarmed about suggests there may be an element of truth in the assertions. While finding Irving’s views repulsive, I believe that he should have the right to air them. But there is a more profound reason why silencing critics is a dangerous route to go down. I firmly believe that when governments begin to legislate what is true and what is false, they embark upon what has historically been a very slippery slope, as the state develops a taste for restricting our rights. Not only this, but by suppressing the issue you create a state of ignorance. And this is the thing which must be avoided at all costs; because when people forget the holocaust ever happened, Europe and indeed the world, reopens itself to another inexcusable calamity.

The issue is where to draw the line. Jailing David Irving would be counter-productive, but ignoring him is also problematic. He may have been speaking to a bunch of crackpots in a cellar in Austria, but his malignant lies have wider distribution. People who were not in that cellar still hear the lies; they become a part of the general hum of misinformation that circles the world.

All this leaves me wondering what the law would seek to do. Would it be to silence the quacks who deny the fact or to prevent false information from influencing others?