ZGram - 2/11/2002 - "Intellectual Terrorism"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

Copyright (c) 2002 - Ingrid A. Rimland

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

February 11, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

How things have changed!  Eastern Europe used to look to the West for
Freedom.  These days, citizens of the West flee to Eastern Europe,
especially to the Ukraine and Russia, so they can think, write and speak
freely!

The brilliant Swiss Revisionist, Juergen Graf, and the outspoken American,
David Duke, are two high profile examples.

You will find this article useful in understanding how the persecution of
"Holocaust Denial" was the opening door for the suppression of Freedom of
Speech.  In the beginning, few people were willing to speak up for
so-called "Holocaust Deniers" for fear of being smeared with the
all-purpose "anti-semitism" smear.

The cost of that lack of courage and social apathy translated into the
suppression of freedom for all.

[START}

   TOMISLAV SUNIC: INTELLECTUAL TERRORISM

   The modern thought police is hard to spot, as it often seeks cover under
soothing words such as "democracy" and "human rights." While each member
state of the European Union likes to show off the beauties of its
constitutional paragraph, seldom does it attempt to talk about the
ambiguities of its criminal code.

Last year, in June and November, the   European Commission held poorly
publicized meetings in Brussels and   Strasbourg whose historical
importance regarding the future of free speech   could overshadow the
recent launching of the new euro currency.   At issue is the enactment of
the new European legislation whose objective   is to counter the growing
suspicion about the viability of the multiracial   European Union.

Following the events of September 11, and in the wake of   occasionally
veiled anti-Israeli comments in some American and European   journals, the
wish of the European Commission is to exercise maximum damage   control,
via maximum thought control.

If the new bill sponsored by the   European Commission regarding "hate
crime" passes through the European   parliament, the judiciary of any
individual EU member state in which this   alleged "verbal offence " has
been committed, will no longer carry legal   weight. Legal proceedings and
"appropriate" punishment will become the   prerequisite of the European
Union's supra-national courts.

If this   proposed law is adopted by the Council of Ministers of the
European Union,   it automatically becomes law in all European Union member
states; from   Greece to Belgium, from Denmark to Portugal. Pursuant to
this law's   ambiguous wording of the concept of " hate crime" or "racial
incitement,"   anyone convicted of such an ill-defined verbal offense in
country "A" of   the European Union, can be fined or imprisoned in country
"B " of the   European Union.

   In reality this is already the case. In hindsight, the enactment of this
EU   law appears like the reenactment of the communist criminal code of the
late   Soviet Union. For instance, the communist judiciary of the now
defunct   communist Yugoslavia had for decades resorted to the similar
legal   meta-language, such as the paragraph on "hostile propaganda " of
the   Criminal code, Article 133. Such semantic abstraction could apply to
any   suspect - regardless whether the suspect committed acts of physical
violence against the communist state, or simply cracked a joke critical of
communism.

   For the time being the United Kingdom enjoys the highest degree of civil
liberties in Europe; Germany the lowest. The UK Parliament recently turned
down the similar "hate crime" law proposal sponsored by various pressure
groups. However, numerous cases of mugging of elderly people of British
descent in English cities by foreign, mostly Asian gangs, either go
unreported, or do not have legal follow ups. If a foreign suspect, charged
with criminal offense is put on trial, he usually pleads innocent or
declares himself in front of often timid judges as a "victim of racial
prejudice". Thus, regardless of the relative freedom in the UK, a certain
degree of de facto self-censorship exists.

The proposed EU law would make   this de facto censorship de jure. This
could, possibly, trigger more racial   violence, given that the potential
victims would be afraid to speak out for   fear of being convicted of "hate
speech" themselves.

   Since 1994, Germany, Canada and Australia have strengthened laws against
dissenting views, particularly against revisionists and nationalists.
Several hundred German citizens, including a number of high- profile
scholars have been accused of incitement to racial hatred or of denying the
holocaust, on the basis of the strange legal neologism of the Article 130
("Volkshetze") [actually, a better translation would be "Volksverhetzung" -
meaning "goading the people"] in the German Criminal Code. From this poorly
worded yet   overarching grammatical construct, it is now easy to place any
journalist   or a professor in legal difficulty if he/she questions the
writing of   modern history or if [he/she] happens to be critical about the
rising number of   non-European immigrants.

   In Germany, contrary to England and America, there is a long legal
tradition that everything is forbidden what is not explicitly allowed. In
America and England the legal practice presupposes that everything is
allowed what is not specifically forbidden. This may be the reason why
Germany adopted stringent laws against alleged or real holocaust denial. In
December of last year, a Jewish-American historian Norman Finkelstein,
during his visit to Germany, called upon the German political class to
cease to be a victim of the "holocaust industry" pressure groups. He
remarked that such a reckless German attitude only provokes hidden
anti-Semitic sentiments.

As was to be expected, nobody reacted to   Finkelstein's remarks, for fear
of being labeled anti-Semitic themselves.   Instead, the German government,
via its taxpayers, agreed last year to pay [a]    further share of 5
billion euros for this fiscal year to some 800.000   holocaust survivors.

Such silence is the price paid for intellectual   censorship in
democracies. When discussion of certain topics are forbidden,   the climate
of frustration followed by individual terrorist violence starts   growing.
Can any Western nation that inhibits speech, and the free   expression of
diverse political views - however aberrant they may be - call   itself a
democracy?

   Although America prides itself on its First Amendment, free speech in
higher education and the media is subject to didactic self-censorship.
Expression of politically incorrect opinions can ruin the careers of, or
hurt the grades of those who are "naive" enough to trust their First
Amendment rights. It is a growing practice among tenured professors in the
USA to give passing grades to many of their minority students in order to
avoid legal troubles with their peers at best, or to avoid losing a job at
worst.

   In a similar vein, according the the Fabius-Gayssot law, proposed by a
French Communist deputy and adopted in 1990, a person uttering in public
doubts about modern antifascist victimology risks serious fines or
imprisonment. A number of writers and journalists from France and Germany
committed suicide, lost their jobs, or asked for political asylum in Syria,
Sweden or America.

  Similar repressive measures have been recently enacted in multicultural
Australia, Canada and Belgium. Many East European nationalist politicians,
particularly from Croatia, wishing to visit their expatriate countrymen in
Canada or Australia are denied visa by those countries on the grounds of
their alleged extremist nationalistic views. For the time being Russia, and
other post-communist countries, are not subject to the same repressive
thought control as exists in the USA or the European Union. Yet, in view of
the increasing pressure from Brussels and Washington, this may change.

   Contrary to widespread beliefs, state terror, i.e. totalitarianism is
not   only a product of violent ideology espoused by a handful of thugs.
Civic   fear, feigned self-abnegation, and intellectual abdication create
an ideal   ground for the totalitarian temptation. Intellectual terrorism
is fueled by   a popular belief that somehow things will straighten out by
themselves.   Growing social apathy and rising academic self-censorship
only boost the   spirit of totalitarianism.

Essentially, the spirit of totalitarianism is   the absence of all spirit.

[END]

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   TOMISLAV SUNIC FOR PRAVDA.Ru

   The author is a writer and former political science professor in the
USA.   He is also a former Croatian diplomat. Mr. Sunic writes from Europe.
His   website can be found at
<underline>http://www.watermark.hu/doctorsunic/   </underline>
Pravda.RU:Editorial

   Copyright (c)1999 by "Pravda.RU". When reproducing our materials in
whole   or in part, reference to Pravda.RU should be made.

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Thought for the Day:

"To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory."

(Pierre Corneille)