It will get interesting!
We are now gearing up "...to take on Her Majesty the Queen", as I have teasingly announced I would, to the joy of my detractors who like to trumpet verification of my political naivite in the sewers of alt.revisionism and other sundry places where the sun doesn't normally shine.
Perhaps I am naive, but I believe that a novel which took me almost two decades to write spanning two hundred years and seven generations and depicting complex characters - good Russians and bad Russians, good Germans and bad Germans, good Jews and bad Jews - has no business permitting itself to be confiscated by some low-life bureaucrats who could not have possibly read it, much less evaluated it professionally to find in it traces of "hate."
"Lebensraum!" was seized because I am who I am - the owner and maintainer of the Zundelsite.
I believe that other people whose books or tapes etc. have been seized will hear about it and join me fighting this newest censorship attempt; some initial details with other parties are already being worked out. This struggle is expanding and being formalized.
Here is a press release from the Revisionist Institute for Historical Review:
Subject: IHR Joins Fight Against Canadian Customs
News About the IHR
October 7, 1998
Canadian Customs has moved again to censor books entering that country. The latest targets are Dr. Ingrid Rimland's "Lebensraum!" trilogy: "A Passion for Land and Peace," "The Theft of Land and Peace," and "A Dream of Land and Peace." (More information about these books is available at http://www.webcom.com/ezundel/english/ingrids_books/index.html)
The books were published in April and mailed to waiting readers in Canada shortly thereafter. Surprisingly, several books were seized immediately on their entry into Canada; which seems to be some sort of Canadian record for seizing and banning books.
No notice of the seizure (officially known as a "Detention") was sent to Dr. Rimland. However, one brave Canadian protested the seizure of the books and the denial of his rights to read Dr. Rimland's novels.
To protest this move, the IHR has had one of its attorneys intervene to help to untangle Canadian censorship laws. In the past, individual shipments of IHR materials have been seized at the border by Canadian Customs.
Canadian Customs inspectors justify the seizures under the Customs Act. The Notice of Detention laconically noted only that the seizure was authorized under "9899". In fact, 9899 refers to Customs Act Section 9899.00.00, which reads, in part:
[begin quote]
Books, printed paper, drawings, paintings, prints, photographs or representations of any kind that (b) constitute hate propadanda within the meaning of subsection 320(8) of the Criminal Code;
[end quote]
Subsection 320(8) of the Canadian Criminal Code reads:
[begin quote]
(8) In this section "hate propaganda" means any writing, sign or visible representation that advocates genocide or the communication of which by any person would constitute an offence under section 319.
[end quote]
Section 319 reads:
[begin quote]
Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of
(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction (4) Where a person is convicted of an offence under Section 318 or subsection (1) or (2) of this section [319], anything by means of or in relation to which the offence was committed, on such conviction, may, in addition to any other punishment imposed, be ordered by the presiding provincial court judge or judge to be forfeited to Her Majesty in right of the province in which that person is convicted, for disposal as the Attorney General may direct.
(7) In this section, "public place" includes any place to which the public have access as of right OR BY INVITATION, express or implied; "identifiable group" has the same meaning as in section 318;
[end quote]
The phrase "anything by means of or in relation to which the offence was committed" in subsection (b) above is a catch-all that allows the Crown to seize books, computers, photocopy machines, or anything else they deem to have been used in the commission of the "indictable offence."
Now on to Section 318.
[begin quote]
Section 318 (4) In this section "identifiable group" means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion or ethnic origin.
[end quote]
The guidelines for Revenue Canada (Customs) application of all this are contained in Memorandum D9-1-15.
A protest of the "detention" was made, and the entire matter is referred to a Deputy Minister, under Section 60(4) of the Customs Act. The Deputy Minister (or someone in his department in the Prohibited Importation Unit) upheld the detention of the books.
Normally an appeal to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal is allowed under Custom Code section 67. However, because the detention was related to prohibited goods of tariff item 9899.00.00, rights of appeal to the Tribunal are denied. Instead, Section 71 states that the appeal must go to the provincial court rather than the Tribunal.
At this point, the only recourse is to the Canadian Courts. It should be emphasized that the entire procedure of "detaining," reviewing, and banning the books was done without notice to or testimony by the book's owner and author, Dr. Rimland. Comments by officers of the Prohibited Importation Unit in Ottawa indicate that third parties were allowed to submit comments and information to "help" the banning of the three novels.
The IHR is also helping Dr. Rimland to obtain legal representation in Vancouver. She has until October 18th to file legal action. The Prohibited Importation Unit will hold the books until the appeal period is passed and then burn them.
Anyone who wishes to help, either with legal expertise or financial support, should contact Greg Raven at:
Rimland Legal Aid Fund
Institute for Historical Review
PO Box 2739
Newport Beach, CA 92659 USA
fax: (949) 631-0981
e-mail: greg@ihr.org
>--
Greg Raven (greg@ihr.org)
http://ihr.org/index.html
===============================================
Now you will want to know how Ingrid Rimland advocated "genocide" in "Lebensraum!"
Here is the latest Book Review by Tom Blair / The Jubilee
In America, where our rulers use the term "diversity" as a code word behind which to demand uniformity, Dr. Ingrid Rimland speaks for one part of our diversity that is not allowed a voice. Dr. Rimland is a celebrated Internet editorialist who has achieved world-wide fame (and vigorous persecution ... ) for the defense of the German and Eastern European peoples and in a deeper way - all of Christendom. Her defensive strategy has been primarily the defense of their history.
Lebensraum! is an epic novel. The word means, literally, living room, space, land, a place for one's children to inherit and grow. I loved Lebensraum! for its folkishness; its love of the earth; and the author's love for the people whose modern history she chronicles.
How very nice to read an epic novel completely outside of the smutty (and profane) world of modern American publishing. Briefly, the story is a chronicle of the German and Eastern European Christian people who came to America in the late 19th century. It covers seven generations and 200 years.
It focuses on the tribal cluster of several families of Mennonites who come to America bringing their religion, values and dreams and contributing mightily to our history and to the values that we have all come to think of as American - the desire for frontier (Lebensraum) love of the soil, independence, self-sufficiency, trust in God.
Dr. Rimland is marvelous at conveying a sense of fate. One senses success in the steady growth of the Mennonite farmers in their new Kansas homeland. One also senses keenly impending doom, in the strange family of gypsies who come and will not leave the community, and the growing unrest swirling about those who stayed behind in the Ukraine as the Russian revolution and World War I approach.
Lebensraum! is a women's novel. There is little of the external action/adventure/conquest that marks the works of male authors. Like the books of Jane Austen, the action takes place inside - inside of homes, inside hearts, minds, and wombs. The central characters of Lebensraum! struggle with passions and homes, not muscle and weapons.
A male author would draw characters who think they can make their fate. Dr. Rimland draws characters caught in the forces of something much greater and stronger.
The real protagonist in Lebensraum! is faith. It runs throughout the epic to be called upon in times of trouble and joy. There is nothing sappy, starry-eyed, or modern about this faith. It is a deeply rooted anchor to the past. It is at once the hero that holds the people in community, and a villain that later is all too easily manipulated to convince the people to hate their past. All Christians today can relate to this portrayal of faith.
Dr. Rimland breaks the tension of history with little folkish descriptions from everyday life from a woman's point of view; the gossip, the recipes, the folk remedies. These are at once stories of long-gone past yet timeless in the way women relate to their lives, their community, and to each other.
There is no surer way to commit genocide than to destroy the history which binds people into a nation. Such destruction is the modern technique used against Eastern Europeans by the forces of the New World Order. To them, World War II was a racist war of genocide against the Teutonic people, and they fight it as fiercely today as they did 50 years ago, albeit on a different battlefield.
Dr. Rimland's Lebensraum! is fine writing. It harkens back to an age when European peoples owned their culture and defined themselves by their own standards. Ironically, in this age of rampant anti-German racism, Lebensraum! is a deeply American book because it embodies that oldest of American traditions - rooting for the underdog.
(Jubilee, July/August 1998 issue)
By Tom Blair
News Editor
The Jubilee
PO Box 310
Midpines, CA 95345
=====
Thought for the Day:
"How many Jews saved non-Jewish victims of Judaeo-Communism?"
(Letter to the Zundelsite)