In this second installment of Zundelsite comments on a new publication, "The New Anti-Liberals", by a liberal Jewish spokesman, Alan Borovoy - head of the Canadian version of the ACLU and an ostensible "free speech" devotee - Borovoy comments on the dangers of putting certain issues to the test of legal scrutiny. Specifically, he writes about what happened in the Canadian Great Holocaust Trials of Ernst Zundel:
Borovoy:
(W)hen you prosecute, you are often forced to debate the merits of the accused's position. Small wonder, therefore, that in the Zundel false news case, there was a discussion in court over the monstrous proposition that Auschwitz was not a Nazi death camp but a Jewish holiday resort. And the prosecutor, not the defense, called a non-Jewish banker to the stand and asked him if he was being paid by an international Zionist/Communist/banker/Jewish/Freemason conspiracy. The question was an obscenity. I am not necessarily blaming the prosecutor for this; he may well have felt that he had to cover all the elements in the accused's defence. I am simply suggesting that the risk of farce is endemic to the very nature of such proceedings and that it materialized in the Zundel case.
Zundelsite:
Looks like Ernst Zundel taught them a few lessons, from which they are still smarting . . . :)
But let's get serious. Two points:
First, nobody ever made the claim of a "holiday resort." That is a typical Talmudic Twist. What was revealed in the Zundel persecution were such documented recreational items at Auschwitz as a swimming pool, a brothel, dance halls, theater plays, a 40 piece orchestra, sculpture classes etc - all for the benefit of incarcerated Jews (and others), most of whom had been incarcerated for real crimes, not just for "being Jewish" - for the duration of the war. Hardly a camouflaged "death camp."
Secondly, the jury acquitted Mr. Zundel on the charge of having spread
false news about the "international
Zionist/Communist/banker/Jewish/Freemason conspiracy" as Borovoy characterizes
it. It must have seemed to the jury that Ernst Zundel was telling true news,
not false news. There was no farce. Evidently, he convinced the jury he
was right about the real nature of international finance. Not even calling
that banker - a vice president of one of the largest banks in the world
- as a witness helped the prosecutor!
For reasons too complex for this ZGram, Zundel could not convince the jury that the Holocaust was a racket. However, seven years later the Supreme Court ruled he had the right to say so.
Borovoy:
It's no secret that the publicity surrounding the first Zundel prosecution was very upsetting to many members of the Jewish community. A number of those Jews found consolation by persuading themselves that it was all a new experience for the media that was bound to be significantly improved in the event of any further such prosecutions.
Unfortunately, however, much of the publicity surrounding the second Zundel prosecution achieved only marginal improvements over what happened the first time.
Zundelsite:
To this day, this gives a lot of Zundel-Watchers ample comfort. On the eve of the Second Great Holocaust Trial in 1988, an entire delegation of the Self-Chosen marched itself right into the Toronto Star editorial offices and extracted a promise from the management that the trial was not to be covered on the first page, as had happened in the First Great Holocaust Trial three years earlier. What happened as a consequence? For an entire four-months stretch, Ernst Zundel had virtually his very own "column", I believe on Page 2, in the same spot in Canada's largest circulation newspaper - 66 columns in all! Without having to pay a red penny!
Borovoy (commenting on the unwelcome visibility of political trials):
Note, for example, the following extract from a Toronto Star report of the second trial:
"Christopher Browning, Professor of History at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, said [Zundel's] pamphlet Did Six Million Really Die? underestimated the number of Jews in Europe before the war and overestimated the number of Jews who emigrated from Europe."
Here, we have the report of a professor calmly and politely treating Zundel's pamphlet as though it had engaged in a mere miscalculation of statistics. The Zundel pamphlet, of course, contained malevolent obscenities. But the very process of prosecution forced the authorities to treat it with a respect that it did not deserve. In the Keegstra anti-hate prosecution, the accused lectured the judge and jury as though they were his high school students. (In that case, James Keegstra, a high school teacher, was prosecuted for propagating, in the classroom, his anti-semitic interpretation of world events.) The courtroom became a forum for further ventilating his fatuities about an international Jewish conspiracy. I do not complain of this publicity because of a fear that these trials created a significant following for the hate mongers. I simply regard such trials as a gratuitous affront to the community's dignity and common sense.
Zundelsite:
This whole paragraph is deceptive. It wasn't "Zundel's pamphlet." It was a pamphlet that had been written by someone else in England, published previously in 18 countries, translated into a dozen languages, that Zundel republished in his Samisdat publishing house - to the displeasure of the Canadian Jewish Lobby. The statistics in that pamphlet were only one bone of contention, as Borovoy well knows.
One might ask: Is it not appropriate to argue these statistics - whether or not they are true? Were these statistics, in fact, based on truth, or were they merely "malevolent obscenities"?
Read the court transcripts. It's all so neatly parked, right at the Zundelsite. <http://www.lebensraum.org/english/dsmrd/dsmrdtoc.html>
Borovoy:
There is yet another consideration. Not only is this law dangerous to Jews and other victims of discrimination, not only is this law potentially offensive to the dignity of the very groups who seek to enforce it in the courts, but it is also unnecessary in order to contain the influence of the hate mongers themselves. In this regard, we should consider the actual developments in the James Keegstra hate case. When the public became informed about his anti-semitic activities as a teacher, he was removed from the classroom by the school board, decertified as a teacher by the professional association, and ousted as a mayor by the voters of Eckville, Alberta. In short, he was denuded of his clout and standing in the community. All this happened to him before any charges were laid against him.
At the time of the charge, he was working as a garage mechanic. I don't want to disparage the importance of fixing cars, but an auto garage is hardly a centre of political influence in our society. At that point, Keegstra should have been allowed to wallow in the obscurity he so richly deserved.
Zundelsite:
Here Borovoy is hitting on the truth: The anti-hate law is dangerous to the advocates of the Holocaust Lobby because nobody but nobody has left such a slime trail of hate, invectives and lies. In the future, these people will have their days, months, or even years in court. It is only a matter of time.
Borovoy is wrong, however, in thinking that the old "smear-and-vilify" alternative still works. In large segments of the population of Canada, Ernst Zundel is rapidly becoming that country's much-admired anti-hero. I have repeatedly observed the spontaneous admiration accorded him wherever he appears - and trust you me, it's not just disenchanted Whites. He seems to speak for Everyman who's had his fill of propaganda coming from self-serving quarters.
That's why we have this hue-and-cry by the Lobby, to turn the thumbscrews even tighter by strengthening the hate laws - demands which are now echoing the length and width of Canada. Borovoy seems to be scared that his hate-driven, censorship-happy friends from the B'nai Brith, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre et al will succeed in brow-beating the politicians to change that law - and walk themselves into a mine field of their own making.
Borovoy, still speaking of "smear-and-vilify" as an appropriate tactic to counteract the influence of political dissidents:
This basic approach has demonstrated its utility on numbers of occasions. Certain persons in respected positions make racist or prejudiced statements in public and their fellow citizens pressure them to retract or resign. We all know of people in high places to whom this has happened - judges, politicians, and journalists, among others.
Zundelsite:
Ah, yes! Remember when Ian Binnie mouthed off about homosexuals a few weeks after becoming a Supreme Court judge? Immediately, there were noisy calls for him to resign. That is only a recent example.
Borovoy:
In general, therefore, democracies should seek not to muzzle racists, but to marginalize them. It's too dangerous for the law to censor; it's appropriate for citizens to censor. Instead of trying to stop racists from speaking, it's usually better to focus on reducing their impact. In this regard, it would also help to improve the administration and enforcement of our anti-discrimination laws that deal with the serious racial and ethnic problems - in areas such as jobs and housing. A stronger program against racist deeds will weaken the impact of racist words.
In any event, there is no need for a choice between prosecution and doing nothing. There are other weapons that can be used to contain the influence of society's hate mongers. Such other weapons are significantly less dangerous than are curbs on freedom of expression. At least at this stage of history and in the foreseeable future, Canadians have more to fear from the censorship powers of their governments than from the racist invective of these extremists.
Zundelsite:
The people behind government, namely the Holocaust lobbyists, are what Canadians have to be made aware of - that very exposure is what these people fear! But what is a self-respecting Chosenite to do if he discovers, to his horror, that hissing "Racist!" and "Supremacist!" no longer has the stopping power of a bullet - to borrow an expression from a letter to the Zundelsite?
Such a one, in agony, will lean on every legislator, prosecutor, judge and journalist to do his bidding. Pronto!
Which will be the subject of several more ZGrams on the topic.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"Your ZGram reminded me of a great turn of phrase that deserves repetition. Somebody in one of the newsgroups used it. I loved it - ". . . stampeding the sheeple".
(Letter to the Zundelsite)
Back to Table of Contents of the Aug. 1999 ZGrams