Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Clerical Gits

    Meanwhile, religious tyranny is flexing its nasty poxy muscles at us. It is letting us know that it will decide what we can think and say, and that’s enough out of you thank you very much.

    The pope for one.

    In the current international context, the Catholic Church remains convinced that to encourage peace and understanding between peoples and individuals it is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols be respected, and that the faithful not be subjected to provocations injuring their outlook and religious feelings.

    Oh does it. Is that what the Catholic Church remains convinced. That religions must be respected, and the faithful must not have their religious feelings injured. Religions must be respected because – erm – because they have no truck with evidence, therefore their need for and right to mandatory respect are self-evident. The faithful must not have their religious feelings injured because – erm – otherwise they might have to hear that their religious feelings are based on a human-made fiction, and they don’t like hearing that.

    For the faithful as well as for all people of goodwill, the only path that leads to peace and brotherhood is that of respect for other people’s convictions and religious practices, in order to ensure that all societies ensure the free exercise of religion.

    There’s that absurd assumption that we saw Frattini make last week – that ‘the free exercise of religion’ requires everyone else’s respect. What childishly tyrannical nonsense! We’re free to do all sorts of things even if no one else in the entire world respects what we are doing. Freedom to do something does not require oblations and obeisance from other people, and it’s grandiose and demanding to claim that it does. But it’s just typical. Freedom for us and silence for you – that’s what that boils down to. Well, dream on, popey. I don’t respect you or your religious ‘feelings’ and you can’t make me.

    ‘Egypt’s top Muslim cleric’ for another.

    Grand Imam Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi of al-Azhar University, the world’s highest Sunni Muslim seat of learning, said the Danish prime minister must apologise for the drawings and further demanded that the world’s religious leaders, including him and Pope Benedict XVI, meet to write a law that “condemns insulting any religion, including the Holy Scriptures and the prophets.” He said the United Nation should impose the law on all countries.

    Must. Demanded. Law. Impose. All. Bossy stuff! Bossy, demanding, presumptuous stuff coming out of these clerical guys. Well – no. Sorry, bub, but no. And the more you try to order us to, the less inclined we are to ‘respect’ you. There’s a direct equation here, which you would do well to heed. It is precisely because you clerical guys are so fond of trying to tell all of us what to do that some of us don’t ‘respect’ you but think you’re tyrannical shits instead. See how that works? If you want respect, try being respectable. Until then, piss off.

  • But When is That?

    Here’s a terrific piece, which I found via Lipstadt’s blog, that is all about exactly what we’ve been discussing, as well as a good deal more.

    Let me tell you why my grandfather, Alfred Wiener, began this collection. It was because he believed in the power of truth. He believed that the facts would win in the end. He was not a pacifist – you need to be ready to meet force with force. But lies must be fought with truth.

    Daniel Finkelstein’s grandfather was clearly an admirable man (no, there is no ‘but’ coming). I agree with him in a way, perhaps the most salient way; but (there’s the but) I don’t agree in another. (At least, I don’t agree with one way that Finkelstein phrases the matter, which could be his own rather than his grandfather’s.) I don’t agree that the facts will win ‘in the end’ – because I don’t think there is any end (and probably neither do most people, if they pause to think about it). There is only now. There is a series of ‘ends’ which keep coming in, like waves hitting the shore; they are never final, permanent, secure. The facts can win at any given moment, but they are never beyond being altered, distorted, hidden, burned up, lied about. There never comes a point at which we can all heave a sigh of relief because the truth or the facts have been established for all time and no one will ever again dispute them or tell whoppers about them. That just doesn’t happen and can’t happen – humans being what they are, it isn’t possible.

    But I do believe in the power of truth (though in the power of all humans to take it in, not so much), and I do believe lies must be fought with truth. It would be odd if I didn’t, given what I’ve spent the last three and a half years doing! But that’s a different thing. I think the truth is the best answer to lies, but it does not follow and it is not true that I think the truth will always automatically prevail. It’s so visibly not prevailing right now – and why should we not consider this particular moment as ‘the end’ just as much as some hazy time in the future which, when it arrives, will be no more special or end-like than this moment now is? At any given time, there are myriad places and ways the truth is not prevailing; fighting lies with truth is a constant and often losing battle. Depressing but – er – true.

    I have always shared this belief. Yet this week, as David Irving begins his sentence in an Austrian jail for denying the Holocaust, my belief, our belief, is being tested. Do I really trust in the power of truth that I have proclaimed so often?…Alfred Wiener retained his belief in the power of the truth. And the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the growing historical understanding of the Holocaust and the triumph of liberal democracy over totalitarian doctrine in Europe vindicate that belief. His library has played a role in all of those things. Yet it is hard to hear the words of Irving and his fellow Holocaust deniers without wishing to be armed with something tougher even than the truth. A baseball bat, for instance, or a pair of Austrian handcuffs.

    This is pretty much what I’m saying. Irving is a real test. It’s just too easy and way too comfortable to say airily that the way to deal with Irving is with facts to counter his lies, and that that will make everything all right. Maybe it will, but at least in some places and with some people, maybe it won’t. It’s really quite simple. Irving can (when and if free to do so) give lectures that tell factual falsehoods, and there is no magical guarantee whatsoever that people who hear him won’t 1) believe his account and 2) fail ever to encounter a corrected version. Note – please, pay attention – I’m not saying therefore he should be imprisoned; I’m simply saying the truth doesn’t always win, and it’s not useful to assume that it does.

    it is difficult not to feel anger, rage at Irving. It is difficult not to wish him behind bars. And I do feel rage. But I do not wish him behind bars, not for giving his opinion, not for delivering a lecture, however warped and horrible his opinion is. I still believe in the power of truth. And my belief in truth is what separates me from Irving.

    But there again – it’s not just his opinion that Irving gives, it’s also his falsifications. His opinion is not just warped and horrible, it’s also backed up by systematic falsifications. It does seem to me that the right to give an opinion is different from the right to tell factual lies. I’m not a bit convinced that there is such a thing as a right to tell factual lies. What one does with that thought I’m not at all sure, but I don’t think we get much forwarder with thinking about it by simply pretending it doesn’t exist, by never mentioning it. I think Irving’s lies should be way more conspicuous than his opinions in this public discussion.

    The admirable author Deborah Lipstadt had it right when she destroyed Irving in the courts, challenging his methods as a historian, undermining his reputation, demonstrating his falsehoods and his distortions. It is always tempting to fear the liar and believe, as Mark Twain did that “A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on”. But I have more faith than that. I believe that by allowing free exchange, by allowing anyone to assert anything, the truth will triumph, provided that its friends are vigilant and relentless.

    But when? When will the truth do that? In the sweet by-and-by? Tomorrow? The ever-postponed future? But that’s the same as never, you know. And looking around us – it is very very difficult to believe that the truth generally does triumph, however vigilant and relentless its friends are. It’s a damn uphill battle, making the truth triumph; it’s certainly one that has to be fought; but it’s no good thinking the outcome is in our pockets. It isn’t.

    But I’ll give Finkelstein the last word, because I agree with it, I’m just not quite as optimistic about it.

    David Irving is the least of our troubles. But through it all we must hold fast to this: that we must always be ready to meet force with force, but lies — lies we fight with truth.

  • Creationism on the Rise in the UK

    Most medical and science students could be creationists, says biology teacher at sixth-form college.

  • AAAS Invites Teachers to Annual Conference

    Teachers say finger-wagging parents insist they abandon biology textbooks for biblical creationism or ID.

  • Aaronovitch Reports from a Parallel Universe

    Dan Brown apologizes and promises to become a monk in a silent order.

  • Pope: ‘Respect’ for Religion ‘Urgent’

    ‘Necessary and urgent that the faithful not be subjected to provocations injuring their outlook and religious feelings.’

  • Religious Tyranny at its Most Blunt

    Imam says UN should impose law condemning insults to religion on all countries.

  • Irving Tests Belief in the Power of Truth

    Hard to hear Irving without wishing to be armed with something tougher even than the truth.

  • Amartya Sen on Multiculturalism

    There is no way of escaping foundational questions if multiculturalism is to be fairly assessed.

  • Saying What He Doesn’t Think

    The Irving sentence raises some issues that are, it seems to me, not very well grasped by discussing them in the usual terms of the freedom or right to express an opinion or say what one thinks or similar. Because the thing about Irving is that, surely, he doesn’t actually hold the opinion he peddles, he doesn’t think what he claims to think. He falsifies the record, as the libel trial judge found. Well if he falsifies the record, he doesn’t do it in a trance or a fugue state, presumably – he knows he’s doing it, it seems fair to assume – so if he knows he’s doing it, he doesn’t really believe what he’s saying. If he knows he has to tweak things, he has to know that things weren’t as he says they were.

    The Independent gives some examples:

    “Last week, on the occasion of the Dresden bombing,” he said, “I knelt in my cell and prayed to remember the 100,000 civilians killed there.” The accepted historical casualty figure is closer to 35,000. Irving has traditionally exaggerated the numbers of Germans killed in the war and played down the numbers of Holocaust victims…The state prosecutor, Michael Klackl, remained unimpressed. He called Irving a “dangerous falsifier of history” and a man who often played the role of a repentant sinner.

    A falsifier of history isn’t the same thing as someone who actually believes history was one way when in fact it was another. That’s not to say he should be jailed; it’s not to say either way what should be done about him; but it is to say that he’s actually doing something different from simply expressing an opinion or saying what he thinks.

  • Deborah Lipstadt on the Irving Sentence

    What a good thing it is that Deborah Lipstadt has a blog. It is, needless to say, full of interest right now. She was floored yesterday by Irving’s sentence. She gave us her first thoughts and then further thoughts, she was summoned to talk to the BBC and then unsummoned because they switched to bird flu. Livelier than the average blog, you must admit – and also involved in centrally important issues. Truth, for instance, and evidence, and documentation, records, history, lies and the uncovering of lies.

    After having a long conversation with a reporter who was in the courtroom, I have learned that it seemed to him – quite clearly so – that the judge was really angry about Irving’s claims to have “changed his views” as of the 1990s. “The judge had read every page of every transcript of your trial. He knew the judgment. He knew the experts’ findings,” this reporter said to me. “The judge knew that in 2000 Irving was in court suing you. He knew that Irving’s claims to have seen the light and to no longer be a denier as of the 1990s was rot and that Irving was playing with the court.”

    Once again, as he did at my trial, Irving seemed to behave in a way that said: “I can do whatever I want, say whatever I want and get away with it.” The problem is, he can’t. While I may disagree with Holocaust denial laws, while I may be disturbed by the sentence, David Irving cannot seem to grasp that there are consequences to his actions.

    Judges don’t like it when people play with the court. We saw that in Judge Jones’s verdict, and we see it again here.

  • Why Truth Does Matter

    From Why Truth Matters by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom, Continuum 2006, pp. 18-20.

    But does it really matter? Is it worth bothering about? Academic fashions come and go. Dons and professors are always coming up with some New Big Thing, and then getting old and doddering off to the great library in the sky, while new dons and professors hatch new big things, some more and some less silly than others. Casaubon had his key to all mythologies, Derrida had his, someone will have a new one tomorrow; what of it.

    Yes, is our answer; it does matter. It matters for various pragmatic, instrumental reasons. Meera Nanda discusses in Prophets Facing Backward the way Hindu fundamentalists in India have drawn on postmodernist scepticism and hostility to science in “Hinduising” Indian science, education, textbooks and the like. Richard Evans argues in his book In Defense of History that postmodernist scepticism about historical evidence and truth, along with valuable insights, also has dangerous implications.

    Nazi Germany seemed to postmodernism’s critics to be the point at which an end to hyperrelativism was called for…There is in fact a massive, carefully empirical literature on the Nazi extermination of the Jews. Clearly, to regard it as fictional, or unreal, or no nearer to historical reality than, say, the work of the ‘revisionists’ who deny that Auschwitz ever happened at all is simply wrong. Here is an issue where evidence really counts, and can be used to establish the essential facts. Auschwitz was not a discourse. It trivializes mass murder to see it as a text. The gas chambers were not a piece of rhetoric. Auschwitz was indeed inherently a tragedy and cannot be seen as either a comedy or a farce. And if this is true of Auschwitz, then it must be true at least to some degree of other past happenings, events, institutions as well.[1]

    That passage is in a book published in 1997. Three years later Evans saw his point enacted in a court of law.

    In the David Irving libel trial held two years ago, in which I served as an expert witness for the High Court in London, Irving was suing Penguin Books and their author Deborah Lipstadt for calling him a Holocaust denier and a falsifier of history. It was not difficult to show that Irving had claimed on many occasions that no Jews were killed in gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He argued in the courtroom, however, that his claim was supported by the historical evidence. The defence therefore brought forward the world’s leading expert on Auschwitz, Robert Jan Van Pelt, to present the evidence that showed that hundreds of thousands of Jews were in fact killed in this way. Van Pelt examined eyewitness testimony from camp officials and inmates, he looked at photographic evidence of the physical remains of the camp, and he studied contemporary documents such as plans, blueprints, letters, equipment orders, architectural designs, reports and so on. Each of these three kinds of evidence, as the judge concluded, had its flaws and its problems. But all three converged along the same lines, creating an overwhelming probability that Irving was wrong.

    Just as important as this was the fact that it was possible to demonstrate that Irving’s historical works deliberately falsified the documentary evidence in order to lend plausibility to his preconceived arguments, principally his belief that Hitler was, as he said on one occasion, “probably the best friend the Jews ever had in the Third Reich”. Falsifying documents involved not just leaving words out from quotes but even putting extra words in to change the meaning. For example, quoting an order from Himmler that a “Jew-transport from Berlin” to the East should not be annihilated as if it were a general order that no Jews at all, anywhere, were to be killed, by the simple expedients of adding an “e” to the German word Transport, making it plural, and omitting the words “from Berlin”, and hoping that other researchers wouldn’t trouble to check the source, or if they did, wouldn’t be able to read the handwriting (which is actually very clear and unambiguous). Or by adding the word “All” to the note of a judge at the Nuremberg Trial in 1946 on the testimony of an Auschwitz survivor which actually said “this I do not believe”, after a small part of her testimony, to make it look as if he did not believe any of it. If we actually believed that documents could say anything we wanted them to, then none of this would actually matter, and it would not be possible to expose historical fraud for what it really is.[2]

    Notes

    [1] Richard Evans, In Defense of History, W.W. Norton and Company 1999 pp. 106-7

    [2] Richard Evans, Contribution to the ‘Great Debate on History and Postmodernism’, University of Sydney, Australia, 27 July 2002, published as “Postmodernism and History” at Butterflies and Wheels, October 22, 2002.

  • Distortions Are Not Worth Debating

    Deborah Lipstadt looks at the decision by the editors of the student newspaper of Northwestern University, The Daily Northwestern, to publish an article by Arthur Butz.

    Things at Northwestern seem to be going from bad to worse. Electrical Engineering Professor Arthur Butz has, after many years of total obscurity in anything but the world of Holocaust deniers, once again grabbed headlines by praising Iranian President Ahmadinejad for his Holocaust denial. Mr. Butz has as much expertise on the history of the Holocaust as I do on building bridges. But he has tenure and this means that, as long as he does not introduce this false information into his classroom, he cannot be fired.

    But Butz is an old story. He just manages to roil the waters periodically. What is surprising is the lack of common sense shown by the editors of the Daily Northwestern. They recently decided to run a column by Butz in order, they said, to “facilitate a more educated debate over Butz’s beliefs.” After being subjected to serious criticism for doing so, they defended themselves in an editorial in which they said that they took “considerable care before publishing [Butz’s] column. All the facts used were all verified.”

    They want to facilitate a more “educated debate” over Butz’s beliefs? That is akin to facilitating a debate between flat earthers and scientists or between people who said there was no slavery and historians of slavery. Butz’s beliefs are documented lies. Don’t take my word on it. Take that of the Royal High Court of Justice and two different Courts of Appeal. I spent over six years defending myself against David Irving, once the world’s leading Holocaust denier. He sued me for libel for calling him a Holocaust denier in one of my books. He waited until the book appeared in the U.K. where the burden of proof is on the defendant.

    I do not believe history belongs in the courtroom. Historians conduct their “battles” in scholarly journals and at conferences. Mr. Irving thought otherwise and due to the nature of British law I had no choice but to defend myself. Had he won, my books would have been pulped and his version of the Holocaust would have been declared legitimate.

    Rather than face any legal obstacles, Irving freely repeated his – and by extension Butz’s – arguments in court. The world press reported on them daily. No one faced any legal obstacles. A dream team of historians closely examined Irving’s claims about the Holocaust. They found his work to be a “tissue of lies.” Many of Irving’s claims come straight from Butz’s work and from that of other deniers Butz praises in his article in the Daily Northwestern.

    Yet these editors protest that “all the facts” in Butz’s article, including his claim that there were no gas chambers, “were verified.” What are they talking about? Butz cites Fred Leuchter’s findings that that “the alleged gassings were not possible at the alleged sites.” He describes Leuchter as “our foremost execution technologist.”

    Leuchter, who falsely claimed to be an engineer, is not an execution technologist but a scam artist. He told different penitentiaries that if they did not hire him to check their execution facilities he would offer his “expertise” to the condemned person and testify that the execution process at these prisons was faulty. The Alabama Attorney General [now a Federal judge] warned other states about his scam.

    Moreover, Leuchter’s findings were all proven by scientists and forensic specialists to be utterly wrong. Even the lab which did the testing for him said his conclusions are all wrong. His mistakes were so fundamental that a high school student would not make them.

    All this information is available in the transcripts of my trial and in Richard Evans Lying about Hitler, Robert Jan van Pelt’s The Case for Auschwitz and my History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving.

    Let the likes of Butz and Irving go on talking to neo-Nazis and other deniers. That is their right. Neither the Daily nor any other paper has an obligation to publish such lies. Then let them all slip into the obscurity they so well deserve.

    And let the Northwestern student body decide whether the student editors at the Daily are to journalism as Arthur Butz and David Irving are to history. Of these editors, the best that can be said is that their minds were so open their brains fell out.

    This article was first published by Deborah Lipstadt at History on Trial and is republished here by permission. Deborah E. Lipstadt is Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. Her book, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving, was rated by Amazon.com as the 4th best history book of 2005. Professor Lipstadt, who is currently teaching at the Gregorian Pontifical Institute in Rome, can be reached at her blog ‘History on Trial’.

  • David Irving Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

    Deborah Lipstadt dismayed. ‘The way of fighting Holocaust deniers is with history and with truth.’

  • Lipstadt on the Irving Verdict

    Irving can’t claim ‘to have changed his mind in the 1990s when he took me to court in 2000.’

  • Irving Revises History for the Jury

    Hard to claim he stopped being a Holocaust denier in 1992 after 2000 libel case exposed his distortions.

  • ‘I Made a Mistake’ Didn’t Do the Trick

    Lipstadt says, ‘The one thing he deserves, he really deserves, is obscurity.’

  • Ian Traynor in Vienna

    Irving was arrested after returning to deliver more speeches despite being barred from Austria.

  • The Historian Who Rejected Plain Facts

    Would-be martyr using free speech arguments to peddle myths.

  • The Pope of Holocaust Deniers

    But not all Jews welcome the sentence. ‘Personally I prefer to treat him with disdain.’