Making a hero of a man best ignored?
 

Hasan SUROOR

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: The case of British historian David Irving, who was jailed for three years by an Austrian court for denying the Holocaust, is likely to cloud the current debate on freedom of expression just when the liberals seemed to be winning the argument.

A Martyr in the cause of free speech? Or a dangerous voice that deserved to be silenced? The case of the controversial British historian David Irving, who was jailed for three years by an Austrian court on Monday for denying the Holocaust, has given a new twist to the debate on freedom of expression currently raging in Europe following Muslim protests against the cartoons of Prophet Muhammed.

Because of his odious views on the Holocaust, Mr. Irving has few friends outside the extreme Right and there is no sympathy whatsoever for his personal plight as he prepares to spend his time behind bars.

But there is worry that his case will play into the hands of those who want free speech to be curtailed to protect all sorts of religious and cultural "sensitivities."

The signs are already there: many Muslims, embroiled in the cartoons row, are asking if there are different standards to judge the sensitivities of different communities; and whether free speech is to be interpreted differently in relation to groups whose sentiments are regarded as more "sacred" than those of others?

They point out that, in sharp contrast to the prosecution of Mr. Irving, the leader of the far-Right British National Party Nick Griffin was acquitted by a British court recently for making racist comments against Asians, particularly the Muslims.

"We are happy that Mr. Irving has been punished for offending Jewish sentiments but the same criterion should be applied to people who offend the sentiments of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs," one Muslim campaigner said.

Liberal opinion-makers are concerned that the Irving verdict has come at an awkward moment and is likely to undermine the high moral ground that Europe has felt entitled to take on people's right to hold dissenting views even if others may find them distasteful.

"How are we going to defend free speech next time there is a protest over a book or a cartoon," asked one commentator.

A leading Prague newspaper, 'Mlada Fronta Dnes', said the Irving episode showed that even the freedom-loving Europe had its taboos and "certain thoughts cannot be publicly declared"' just as they could not be expressed in less democratic societies.

"It only looks like there is a difference between the rioting of furious Muslim activists and a sophisticated court in Austria," the newspaper noted pointing out that while Mr. Irving deserved "moral contempt" for his offensive views there was no need to prosecute him.

There has been widespread criticism of Austria's "Banning Law," under which it is a crime to deny the Holocaust.

One European sociologist, Christian Fleck, called it "democratic censorship" by another name. He said if Austria wanted to be seen as a modern democracy it should use argument, not the law, against people like Mr. Irving.

"Are we really afraid of someone whose views on the past are palpable nonsense, at a time when every schoolchild knows of the horrors of the Holocaust?

Are we saying his ideas are so powerful we can't argue with him? Irving is a fool. And the best way of dealing with fools is to ignore them," he told the BBC. The most absurd aspect of the case is that it relates to something Mr. Irving said some 17 years ago.

In two speeches during a visit to Austria in 1989, he called the Nazi gas chambers a "fairy tale" and made a series of other highly offensive remarks while dismissing the Holocaust of Jews.

It was on the basis of warrants issued at the time that he was arrested last November when passing through Austria, and has now been jailed raising questions about the wisdom of what one critic described as "exhuming old corpses."

Even Mr. Irving's worst critics have reservations about the verdict, which they believe would only make him a "martyr" in the eyes of his neo-fascist supporters.

"However nauseating, these people should be confronted in debate rather than chucked into jail and turned into martyrs," said a British historian echoing the view that what the verdict has done is to provide fresh oxygen to a man who, in recent years, had been reduced to being a figure of ridicule.

Moreover, it is likely to cloud the current debate on freedom of expression just when the liberals seemed to be winning the argument.

(Courtesy - 'The Hindu')