THE FUTURE IS IN OUR PAST
Audrey Manning

Beacon, Canada
Oct 2 2007

Battle for free speech

The Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations called the Iranian
president a bigot and a murderer, and the invitation to Columbia
University shameful and scandalous. One wonders how an Iraqi
ambassador would be regarded if he were to make similar statements
about a president.

Canada is waging a war in Afghanistan to bring liberty to the Afghan
people yet, when Liberal Jim Combden apparently referred to Danny
Williams as the Fuehrer, the weight of his words threatened to derail
the Liberal election campaign. It didn’t take long for the Jewish
community, the Premier and others to shame Jim Combden.

If free speech is free speech, one cannot pick and chose what can
be said under its banner? Yet, for more than 60 years. No one has
dared question the Holocaust. There is no free speech surrounding
the Holocaust. Holocaust denial is punishable by jail terms across
the European Union. In 2006, David Irving, the controversial British
historian, was sentenced to three years in prison in Austria for
denying existence of the holocaust.

Every time anyone calls into question the creation of the State of
Israel, or wishes to honour people, other than Jews, who lost their
lives during Hitler’s rampage across Europe, the axe falls. We have
been convinced that Hitler’s genocide tops the list of atrocities
committed by humans against humans. This seems to have been done in
order to make impossible any discussion about the State of Israel.

It has been generally accepted that the Holocaust, 1938-1945, resulted
in the deaths of 6,000,000 Jews. Yet, there were 5,000,000 souls of
other ethnic origins, killed by der Fuehrer, that lie forgotten on
the scrap heap of history. Thousands killed in Russia and Western
Europe by German soldiers, lie beside them.

Why is the Holocaust not equated with all the other massacres that
occurred during the 20th century – the Armenian genocide 1915-1918: 1,
500,000 deaths; Ukraine famine 1932-1933: 7, 000,000; Nanking massacre
1937-1938: 300,000; Rwanda genocide 1994: 800,000; Bosnia genocide:
2,000,000 (united human rights) and others? Why are there no special
sensibilities toward the corresponding states? Pres. Ahmadinejad is
a shrewd politician, and knew that he could attract attention only
by quoting the one sensitive case.

No one is allowed to bring attention to the misery of the people of
Palestine who were displaced when the State of Israel was created.

One can almost be certain that had Pres. Ahmadinejad or Mr. Combden
used another example for their criticisms, their statements would
have gone unnoticed.

What’s wrong with inviting Pres. Ahmadinejad to Columbia University?

Universities are supposed to be the bastions of free inquiry. Don’t
we want all sides of a story, even the side that we don’t wish to
hear? Or, are we content with being told what to believe and accept
it as truth?

Had Jim Combden likened Premier Williams to another of the world’s
dictators, would anyone have been outraged? If Mr. Combden had cited
Kim Jong-Il, who would have cared? As it was, everyone rushed to the
defense of the Holocaust.

Many people, too, are rushing to support Jim Combden, saying that
they don’t believe he meant to insult. According to a CBC online
article, Mr. Combden says it was just a joke. Whatever his intention,
Mr. Combden was making a political statement. Political statements
are expected during election campaigns.

Danny Williams, according to the CBC, said that Mr.Combden’s remarks
were [obviously] condoned at the highest levels of the Liberal party.

He also said that he had expected the Liberals to get personal. Was
the premier making a political statement?

Perhaps the Premier’s remarks could be examined for what they might
contain of a personal nature. If Mr. Williams thinks Jim Combden’s
remarks were condoned at the highest levels of the Liberal party,
who condoned them – the leader, the campaign manager, the president?

If free speech means free speech, should people be able to say
anything they wish about the nature of politics and the political
leaders? Otherwise, who decides what is acceptable? In a free society,
politicians have always been fair game for satire and parody.

Rightly or wrongly, Premier Williams is widely regarded as the
hard-nosed Donald Trump of Newfoundland and Labrador. The perception
is that the premier brooks no nonsense from his cabinet ministers,
or the critical public. Rightly or wrongly, some people are afraid
of being sued, if they speak their minds. The Premier’s campaign ads
have the Premier trying to dispel that conception.

Remarks about the Holocaust aren’t funny, but neither is stifling
free speech.

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people
what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

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