Fwd: *** Another Zundel-First ***

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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>Two days ago, on February 17, I delivered a keynote address at the 
>University of Colorado, Boulder, at the invitation of Student 
>Advocates for Free Expression (SAFE) and the Coalition for 
>Palestinian Justice, briefly co-sponsored by the local chapter of 
>Amnesty International, glib folks who know how to toe a smooth line 
>- but who predictably, at the last minute, willy-nilly, withdrew 
>their sponsorship.
>
>We sallied forth, regardless!  It was quite an experience - another 
>Zundel-First!
>
>Here is how this event came about:
>
>During the aborted and hastily restructured International 
>Revisionist Conference last year in Sacramento, a young CU-Boulder 
>student, Joshua, learned about Ernst Zundel's kidnapping and illegal 
>incarceration at the behest of the Canadian Holocaust Lobby and 
>decided to do something about it.  I was contacted shortly 
>thereafter and asked if I would speak at an event that would 
>highlight the importance of Freedom of Speech. 
>
>I said I would and asked to be kept "in the loop" as to planning 
>speakers, preparations etc., but my request fell through the cracks, 
>and therefore I had nothing to do with either pre-publicity or final 
>choice of speakers.  This turned out to be just as well, because I 
>thought that if controversial co-speakers were invited, who might 
>help or hurt Ernst's cause, I would have nothing to do with it 
>either way. Frankly, I did not even think that I would be permitted 
>to speak, because ever since I have been associated with the Zundel 
>name, I have had my share of  last-minute, ADL-inspired 
>cancellations - usually after I bought a flight ticket and had my 
>suitcase packed. 
>
>I fully expected this to happen this time as well.  I didn't really 
>care.  It still was nice to claim I had been asked.  It makes all 
>kinds of folks prick up their eager ears. 
>
>Shortly thereafter, I was told that one important speaker, described 
>to me as a "Black Muslim" and a feature/op ed writer of the Los 
>Angeles Times, had agreed to accept a co-invitation to speak.  When 
>I asked what the slant of his presentation would be, it was 
>explained to me that he fully understood Ernst's situation and 
>intended to address the foolishness of the politically untutored 
>Arab community in not including Ernst in their protest publications 
>and events about secret hearings and security certificates. 
>
>That sounded promising to me. Besides, I felt a certain writer's 
>kinship, for once upon a time I had been a grass-green freelance 
>book reviewer for that huge, leftist daily paper, and two of my 
>reviews had even been anthologized in a separate LA Times 
>publication.  I had fond memories of writing for that paper in my 
>politically oblivious days, and I certainly looked forward to 
>meeting this man and learning more about his take on secret trials 
>and security certificate issues in democratic countries always so 
>eager to lord it over others they call derisively "dictatorships." 
>
>Finding a third speaker turned out to be somewhat of a problem, 
>because of what I call the "Zundel Taint" - the fear of rubbing 
>shoulders with a "Nazi" and catching the effect.  I was told that 
>more than 50 name recognition speakers had been approached, and not 
>one of them presumably concerned with the erosion of Freedom in the 
>Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave could work up enough 
>gumption to accept the invitation.
>
>Now what?  The date of the forum moved closer and closer - no 
>Speaker Number Three!  
>
>Virtually at the last minute, fate seemed to favor us.  A huge free 
>speech controversy had broken out on the CU-Boulder campus involving 
>a tenured professor by the name of Ward Churchill who had misspoken 
>himself in the politically incorrect vein.  I had never before heard 
>the name, but I did a quick Google search and found out that this 
>tenured professor had made a rather insensitive comment in an 
>article of his published several years ago about the 9/11 victims 
>being "little Eichmanns."  You can read up on the Ward Churchill 
>controversy by yourself - just search for his name on the Net. 
>There is plenty of heated argument about whether or not to censor 
>the guy for his slur - after all, he is a tenured professor, and a 
>"protected minority" (American Indian?) to boot. 
>
>Joshua went and asked him to speak - and Professor Churchill 
>promised he would! 
>
>I was speechless when I heard about it.  I didn't think he could 
>afford to add to his woes, or we to ours, by appearing in the very 
>same forum.  As it turned out, at the last moment, the good 
>professor got cold feet and simply didn't show up.  Phew!  What a 
>shock!  And here I thought, green ignoramus that I was, that Free 
>Speech was an absolute!  I was all set to invite the gentleman for 
>breakfast to give him a quick Zundel Taint Detoxification Treatment 
>over omelette and coffee, but no such luck!  It just shows up the 
>magnitude of the problems we have - not even a tenured professor, 
>himself on the hot seat for politically incorrect speech and  loudly 
>pleading First Amendment Rights, is willing to give us a break! 
>
>However, to the last minute of our scheduled forum, I did not know 
>that he had backed out, nor did I know that my other co-speaker, the 
>Black Muslim/LAT writer, was nowhere to be seen.
>
>Panic-stricken also, not to my great surprise, was the local 
>representative of Amnesty International, an overweight young girl 
>but with a pleasant, friendly face and the prettiest long, black 
>curls that I had ever seen.  I asked if they were natural - they 
>were!  Further, judged by her name and looks, I pegged her to be 
>Jewish.  Somebody introduced us and I shook hands with her, 
>wondering what she might say to the Zundel demo clip and to the 
>story I was about to tell.  After a few pleasantries, during which I 
>shook hands with a few other students who welcomed me to their 
>campus, she went to her seat and sat down, looking a bit thrown off 
>balance.  After a decent interval to give her a chance to regroup, I 
>joined her there and intended to have a small chat. 
>
>Originally there had been a promise of Amnesty International 
>sponsorship as well as a promise of token financial support, which 
>surprised me, given the blatant hostility of Amnesty 
>International/Canada who had refused to include Ernst in their 
>intervention program for Prisoners of Conscience.  I had been told 
>this campus sponsorship was genuine - in fact, their original token 
>offer of $200 had been increased to a hefty $1,000 - and that AI 
>would have a table with literature in one of the main student 
>traffic areas to help to publicize the forum.  When I expressed my 
>doubts that they would carry through, given that the ADL thumbscrews 
>would be applied the moment news leaked out that I would be the 
>speaker, I was told this student AI representative was a "pretty 
>level-headed girl" - that she knew who I was, that she was 
>thoroughly familiar with the Zundel Case, it being controversial. 
>Absolutely!
>
>Well, no such luck!  I sat down next to her.  She shifted a bit and 
>avoided my glance.  But then she took a strangled breath and told me 
>that she had been up 'til 2 A.M. and to her great dismay had found 
>"such hate, such hate" (big gasp!) in cyberspace that she simply 
>couldn't handle it, it was too traumatizing!
>
>I said, "Hate?  On my site?"  and she said, yes, but "not only" on 
>my site.  She had consulted "other" websites.  (Nizkor?)  And there 
>she found that Mr. Zundel had been quoted, to her great distress and 
>utter horror, "Š that Hitler was a great man."  It was too much! 
>She had no choice but to withdraw the AI sponsorship.
>
>I looked at her and almost laughed.  She so reminded me that, 
>several years ago, in one of the more memorable moments in the 
>grindingly dull Human Rights Tribunal Hearings in Toronto, the 
>one-time Mayor of Toronto had claimed that she had spotted Zundel 
>"hate" as well.  When prodded by Zundel Defense Attorney, Doug 
>Christie, to point to the document allegedly containing "hate," she 
>sat there with a beet-race face and simply couldn't find it!  She 
>cut such a pitiful swath in her desperate search that even the 
>Zundel Defense Team felt sorry for her!  Even the judge took mercy 
>and called a quick recess to give her time to find the "hate" she 
>claimed she knew she had spotted.  Somewhere!  Not even a coffee 
>break helped kick-start her memory, and when this Hate Detector VIP 
>of the Great City of Toronto left the witness chair, she left behind 
>the very clear impression that she had not even looked at anybody's 
>website.  She had simply taken someone's word for it that there was 
>"hate" - somewhere! 
>
>So here was this girl who went by selfsame smear-sheet "evidence," 
>having no qualms of conscience to prejudge an innocent man! 
>
>I likewise took mercy on her and told her that I merely wished that 
>she might want to listen carefully and then make up her mind if Mr. 
>Zundel really was a hateful man as claimed so fervently by all and 
>sundry of her tribe.
>
>She did do the dutiful thing.  She stepped up to the microphone, 
>sputtered that she didn't think Ernst Zundel was a Prisoner of 
>Conscience, gave no clue how she had come to that conclusion, and 
>took a hasty exit.  
>
>I had asked my U.S. immigration attorney, Bruce Leichty, to be at my 
>side as a back-up in case there would be hassle from censorship 
>quarters. To my great relief, he agreed.  I didn't tell him this, 
>but being the consummate lady I am, I intended to wear a white linen 
>suit, and in my darker moments I could already see it spattered with 
>rotten tomatoes and such. Bruce's presence was a big comfort to me - 
>just knowing that he was there. I didn't know what to expect, and I 
>thought I might need legal help if worst came to worst, as often it 
>does where Revisionists gather. 
>
>After Joshua spoke a few opening words, Bruce Leichty stepped 
>forward and graciously introduced to one of the biggest state 
>university campuses in the entire country a large-screen 14 minute 
>demo of our Zundel documentary-to-be. The screen lit up.  A truly 
>historical moment!
>
>There was stunned silence after the 14 minutes were over.  The kids 
>just sat there, not saying a word.  Nobody stomped out of the chapel 
>in protest.  There were no hoots, no catcalls, no spitballs, no JDL 
>punks throwing eggs at their favorite targets of hate.  Just 
>silence.  Utter silence.
>
>Then I stepped up to the podium and started to speak.  I was amazed 
>at the calm in my heart.  I felt no hostile vibes at all from the 
>audience.  This is something that every professional speaker 
>intuitively feels - whether an audience is "with us or against us." 
>This young audience was "with us" - they were eager to learn 
>something new. 
>
>It was easy to address them, and I felt that I did well.   I 
>recounted simple vignettes from the long and bitter struggle that 
>led to several "Great Holocaust Trials" because the Canadian 
>Holocaust Lobby had targeted Ernst, wouldn't leave him alone, hated 
>his truth campaign, hated his gutsy energy - just plain all-around 
>hated his guts.  I told how again and again they had tormented him 
>in various open terror campaigns, unleashed even arson on him - and 
>when I told of the murderous complicity of CSIS, the very spy agency 
>that now keeps him in chains with secret evidence he can't inspect 
>and faceless witnesses he can't dispute, you could have heard the 
>proverbial pin drop in that audience.
>
>As I spoke, I kept the Amnesty International girl in the corner of 
>my eye.  She stayed to the end of our program, which oddly even 
>touched me because I knew that she would learn a thing or two and 
>think about some principles such as Free Speech, allegedly 
>championed by outfits such as AI that batten on taxpayers' largesse. 
>She even had a question afterwards, asking why Ernst had taken up 
>his Cause against the Holocaust - the answer to which she should 
>have been able to deduce, after I had spoken of the many years of 
>vicious persecution at the hands of his Jewish opponents.  She spoke 
>so softly that I had to ask twice just what it was that she wanted 
>to know.  I then told her that through more than half a century's 
>worth of incessant Holocaust anti-German hate campaigns via media 
>and in schools, not only grown-ups felt abused - even young 
>German-descent children were being abused. German-Canadian parents, 
>I told her, had sought out Ernst Zundel, then a young ethnic 
>activist speaking up for his demonized people.  It was the vicious 
>hate of his opponents that make him start investigating the 
>so-called Holocaust - and did not find it to be what it purported to 
>be. 
>
>I ended my presentation by throwing out an activist's idea to the 
>kids. While on the plane to Colorado, thinking how I might involve 
>the youngsters in the audience in the campaign to free my love, I 
>had come upon a plan.  There is on one hand, so I reasoned, the 
>widely lauded liberal hero named Martin Luther King who, once 
>maligned, had fought so bitterly for his own kin - and on the other 
>hand, there is the still maligned Ernst Zundel who still fights for 
>his people.  What is the difference, I would ask, between the ethnic 
>persecution then - and now?
>
>I didn't say it quite as well as I can formulate it now, but I 
>believe I said enough.  "How would it be," I asked the youngsters in 
>so many words, "if I were to charter a bus, load some of you up on 
>that bus and take you on a Freedom Ride to Canada?" This could be, 
>with a little work and dedication, become a ready-made analogy to 
>the Selma Freedom Riders almost two generations ago. These kids who 
>might not even have been born when Ernst fought his first Holocaust 
>Trial, might see this as their chance to become today's Freedom 
>Riders.  Only this time they would be heading North instead of 
>South.  Was that a good idea?
>
>When I was finished, their was a pleasantly hearty applause - not 
>the kind of applause I was accustomed to as a professional 
>convention speaker before I knew Ernst Zundel, but still -   there 
>was genuine, respectful applause.  Nobody fainted or turned into a 
>frog.  I believe that I touched many young hearts.
>
>Our documentary film maker was there and taped the entire event. 
>He, too, spoke a few words and told about the stresses of working in 
>his censored industry on a politically incorrect film.  The program 
>was further enhanced by a brief synopsis of the Zundel Case by my 
>talented, hard-working immigration attorney. Bruce explained the 
>difficulties from a legal point of view at a time where a government 
>can seize, deport, and imprison anyone - without accountability. 
>This was followed by a short speech by a local attorney, whose name 
>escapes me now, who specializes in Constitutional Law. Then followed 
>a Q/A period during which the questions, almost exclusively, dealt 
>with the Patriot Act and its destructive impact on the erosion of 
>Freedom of Speech. 
>
>I am very pleased with the outcome of this event held in the Old 
>Main Chapel, CU Boulder Campus, and want to thank the CU-Boulder 
>students who didn't look over their shoulder, who stuck out their 
>necks and worked very hard to show that, as far as they are 
>concerned, freedom of speech IS freedom of speech - "indivisible", 
>so they assume, "with liberty and justice for all!"
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