Alexander Chancellor: Should Holocaust Denial Be Made a Crime?

Alexander Chancellor, in the Guardian (2-5-05):

...You would have thought that, by now, because of the overwhelming evidence, everyone would have accepted that the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews and came terrifyingly close to achieving their purpose. Yet the Holocaust deniers still cling so tenaciously to their belief that nothing much happened, and that Hitler, poor dear, was just a victim of malicious propaganda by the victorious allies, that eight European countries, including France and Germany, have made denial of the Holocaust a crime.

Tony Blair has considered doing the same - he said in 1997 that there was "a very strong case" for it - but luckily he seems to have decided not to. For once you start legislating against the falsification of history, where do you stop? Do you declare it a crime to describe the Irish potato famine as an English attempt at genocide, or to claim that the Americans never landed on the moon? And what if a person persists in saying that cigarettes are good for you, or that there is no such thing as global warming? Should denial of science be an offence as well?

As DD Guttenplan points out in an article in the current issue of Index On Censorship, there is a special case for criminalising Holocaust denial in countries such as Germany and Austria, where it "is not 'mere' Jew-baiting but also a channel for Nazi resurgence much like the Hitler salute and the display of the swastika, which are also banned".

But, in general, Guttenplan favours free expression of even the vilest point of view. He quotes approvingly a comment by the renowned radical American journalist IF Stone on the decision in 1949 of the US Supreme Court to overturn, by a five-to-four majority, the conviction of Arthur Terminiello, a Roman Catholic priest, for committing a breach of the peace by making anti-semitic speeches. Stone described himself as "exactly what Terminiello in his harangues meant by an 'atheistic, communistic, Zionistic Jew' " but added: "I would not demean myself or my people by denying him the right to say it." Stone also denounced those Supreme Court judges "who would have permitted some measure of suppression in my protection" as "not men whose championship I would care to have".

The problem is not just that few of us learn any history (one in 10 Britons even thinks that Hitler is a fictional character), but that even professional historians interpret it as they wish. Who's to know what's true and what isn't?

We are brought up as children on fantasies - that Santa Claus brings us presents at Christmas, that Tinkerbell will die if we refuse to believe in fairies - so why should we trust anything we are told thereafter? We resort to interpreting events in whatever way makes us feel comfortable....