Copyright (c) 1997 - Ingrid A. Rimland
"On a beautiful, sunny Monday morning on May 26, 1997 the Zündel team went into battle mode. For me it was battle dress as usual. A new suit, bought at a great discount in a local store for large men, covered my girth and the 17 pound bullet-proof vest, my old companion, the most powerful Kevlar body-armour there is, issued by the US Justice Department. I felt like a medieval knight dressing up for a crusade to the Holy Land.
Then the march to the court house began where friends were waiting with colorful placards. I led the demonstration for approximately 30 minutes. I gave a press conference, interrupted by the shrieks, insults and slogans of the ARA, the by now well-known Marxist-anarchist rabble who have been hounding me with demonstrations, threats, posters etc. ever since the Jewish Defence League was defeated by us through our publicity campaigns during my 1980s trials.
The occasion? The first two days of hearings of the Soviet-style, so-called "Human Rights Tribunal" of political appointees by the powers-that-be who intend to do what Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence has refused to do for four decades: convict me of "hate mongering"-this time via the California-based Internet website called the Zundelsite.
Toronto police were there, mostly clad in bullet-proof vests as well. Even the "Horse Unit" of Mounted Police were present and kept a watchful eye on the demonstrations. Plain-clothes officers unobtrusively busied themselves nearby.
Inside the halls of the court building was mayhem. Leftist demonstrators harassed, beset, stalked, insulted and intimidated Zündel witnesses, friends and even our attorneys. One had even brought a live rat in a bag."
A live rat in a bag.
So much of what we are experiencing in both the Zundel and the Collins cases
before the Canadian Human Rights Commission turns out to be symbolic - glimpses
of what is waiting in the wings by these agenda-driven apparatchiks, to
be let loose on the unwary. One thoroughly surprising element was the unusually
restrained behavior of the media.
In the past, whenever Ernst was in the limelight, it had been "feeding
frenzy time" for the character assassins of the press. Ernst did not
ever have that chance to be portrayed with a modicum of fairness without
the obligatory expressions of distaste. The pack was always waiting and
seldom failed to chomp.
So when, at the conclusion of the first day, our small group walked into
the wall of microphones and exploding strobe lights of more than a dozen
journalists, I visualized the vicious and demeaning headlines: "Zündel
hiding behind a woman who claims she runs the Zundelsite . . ."
Nada.
Not one small deprecating word.
The write-ups the next day, remarkably restrained, referred to me by name
- sans mocking, sneers or ridicule. Some even skipped the name, referring
to me only as "a California woman." Overall, I could not have
wished for a more neutral, even-handed media. The impromptu interview I
gave right in the parking lot was filmed by crews of some of the major television
stations. The print press was good and accurate. Radio was sensational.
TV blanked us out totally. Why? We don't know. Part of the opposition's
lack of strategy and overall control some of us have already noticed?
Since I came home, there has been only one perfunctory inquiry by a computer
magazine as to my role as the creator and webmaster of the Zundelsite -
a call which came too late and was not followed up on. One Zundel watcher
even noticed that Ernst is no longer badgered as a "Holocaust Denier"
any more but, in a write-up in the Alberta Report, as a "Holocaust
Disputant."
Interesting.
So what does all this mean? Who is to say? It could mean that the media
have finally discovered their own code of ethics - which would be laudable
and highly welcome. I say that it means that the thumb has come down hard
on the media because there is a rat in the bag.
For what is happening, in my opinion, is that the powers-that-be are now
caught in a vice of their own making: How can they fight a "hate case"
openly yet at the same time keep under wraps that the rodent in the bag
is not a creature that Canadians will view tolerantly as a "harmless"
critter?
How can what they call "hate" and we call "blatant censorship"
be properly "exposed" if it can't be expressed or described?
What will the people say once they find out that their own freedom of thought
and expression has been turned over to a vague, discretionary, arbitrary
forum called a Human Rights Commission with Bill 33 already on the books
and Bill 32 already in the hopper in B.C.? (Please note: These are provincial
statutes only!)
What will the people say once they have come to realize that the Dark Forces
clamoring for thought control are far more dangerous than Ernst will ever
be?
An editorial in the Edmonton Journal, May 17, 1997, pointed out:
"The law opens up the possibility of a mind-boggling range of censorship. It is inconceivable that such a broad-brush attempt to control public discourse . . .the ENFORCEMENT mechanism for the Human Rights Act, a new bill that comes into effect this year. "
(This could become federal if the current liberal government is re-elected
tomorrow! The liberals already proposed such a federal law, but it died
with the old parliament when it was resolved for re-election)
A Letter From The Publisher [North Shore News, May 19, 1997, defines the
writing on the wall with frightening precision:
"Bill 32 . . . is the enforcement mechanism for the Human Rights Act (...)
"It allows the Human Rights branch to obtain a warrant to enter premises (yours or mine) and determine whether "human rights contraventions" have been committed. They have the power to seize books, records, notes, photographs and other material, and the right to lay charges. (...)
"It must be stressed that there does not need to be a complainant for this to happen. These "inspectors" are charged with the job of uncovering "human rights contraventions."
"George Orwell was right. His timing may have been off a few years. It didn't happen in 1984, as he predicted. But it's happening here, in 1997."
There is your rodent - with teeth bared. That might well be the reason why
media are suddenly restrained and why, all of a sudden, the opportunity
to make mincemeat yet one more time of Mr. Zundel - and, by extension, me
- was tabled.
One Zundel watcher touched on this, referring to one media virtuoso, Catherine
Ford of the Calgary Herald, who had, in olden Zundel-bashing times, stated
audaciously:
"Personally, I'm all for harassing the revisionists through whatever tribunals are available, thus exposing them to contempt and showing children that such ignorance is rightly dealt with through public scorn."
Showing children?
Thinking Canadians are hardly children, although the media in the past have
treated them as such. Canadians are capable of putting two and two together.
In a nation-wide opinion poll, after a one-hour Doug Collins show, 75% of
the viewers voted in favor of Collins, on a show where no Zundel or Christie
supporters made it through - the "vetting" of callers!
The people KNOW what's up. Canadians have noses, and they can smell a rat.
No wonder opposition members are such unhappy campers at the moment when
they are forced to forego their main weapon, character assassination, when
a delectable opportunity such as a California website run by a lady of decorum
flagging the Zundel name and logo presents itself to them right on a silver
platter.
It must have cost them something.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"A 'hate crime' is anything that the powers-that-be hate!"
(A ZGram reader)