ZGram - 4/12/2003 - "Intellectual terrorism"

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Sat, 12 Apr 2003 18:18:42 -0700


ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

April 12, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

For your weekend reading from one of the younger Revisionist intellectuals:

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Intellectual terrorism

By DR. TOMISLAV SUNIC

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.

In June and November, 2002, 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 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, 2001, and
in the wake of certain veiled anti-Israeli comments in some American and
European journals, the European Commission is aiming to exercise maximum
damage control, via maximum thought control.

If the new bill on "hate crime" sponsored by the Commission passes through
the European parliament and is applied by the EU Council of Ministers, the
judiciary of any individual EU member state in which this alleged "verbal
offense" 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.

When the law is adopted, it will automatically become law in all European
Union member states, from Greece to Belgium, from Denmark to Portugal.
Pursuant to the 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.) The
enactment of this EU law would be matical construct, it is now easy to place
any journalist or professor in legal difficulty if he questions the writing
of modern history or the rising number of non-European immigrants.

In England and America the legal tradition presupposes that everything not
explicitly forbidden is allowed. By way of contrast, in Germany a legal
tradition of long standing presupposes that everything not explicitly
allowed is forbidden. That difference may underlie Germany's adoption of
stringent laws against alleged or real Holocaust denial. In December 2002,
during a visit to Germany, Jewish-American historian Norman Finkelstein
called upon the German political class to cease being a victim of "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 agreed last year to pay, courtesy
of its taxpayers, a further share of 5 billion euros for the current fiscal
year to some 800,000 Holocaust survivors. Such silence is the price paid for
intellectual censorship in democracies.

When discussion of certain topics is forbidden, the climate of frustration
starts growing, followed by individual terrorist violence.
Can any Western nation that inhibits 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 or hurt the grades of
those naive enough to rely on their First Amendment rights. Among tenured
professors in the United States it is becoming more common to give passing
grades to many minority students in order to avoid legal troubles with their
peers, at best, or to avoid losing their job, at worst.

In a similar vein, according to the Fabius-Gayssot law, proposed by a French
Communist deputy and adopted in 1990, a person publicly uttering doubts
about modern antifascist victimology risks serious fines or imprisonment in
France. A number of writers and journalists in France and Germany have
committed suicide, lost their jobs, or asked for political asylum in Syria,
Sweden, or America. Similar repressive measures have recently been enacted
by 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 visas 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 repressive thought control that exists in the United States
or the European Union. Yet, in view of the increasing pressure from Brussels
and Washington, that 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 the 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.

April 10, 2003

Dr. Tomislav Sunic is a writer and former political science professor in the
United States. His Website may be found at
http://www.watermark.hu/doctorsunic.

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