For me, sitting in the solitude of my computer/cyberworld, it is next to awesome to observe how what used to be a crude, all-purpose question mark that got Ernst Zundel into so much trouble with the self-appointed censors - "Did Six Million Really Die?" - is changing into something that globally defines society vis a vis the "Holocaust".
Within the intellectual circles, this question mark is now beginning to take roots in the definitions of what separates "us" from "them".
I will show you by example what I mean in yet another 3-part ZGram special that deals with the concept of "hate" - with some Jews on the Internet defining "hate" by equating it to ***any*** questions pertaining to the "Holocaust", and most on-line Gentiles concerned with these issues, particularly Germans or German-descendants, defining "hate" as the ***reaction of the Jewish pundits and Holocaust Enforcers to the existence of the question mark***.
The three essays that I am running in this ZGram series are written from the Gentile point of view. I invite the Jewish point of view and will publish it if it is written in a civilized manner and intelligently addresses the points that are raised in these series.
These three ZGrams were triggered by two posts in one of the Germanic list news groups where a contributor commented on the famous German writer Martin Walser who has recently become controversial (and admired) in Germany for his outspoken views:
First contributor:
". . . the distinguished novelist Martin Walser - if his name means nothing to you, blame the anti-German stigma that has turned the West's other major literary world into unknown territory for English speakers who mostly haven't learned German or studied German literature in 80 years - recently spoke out against the use of the Holocaust as a ". . . routine threat, a tool of intimidation, a moral cudgel or just a compulsory exercise."
(Not too incidentally, that is precisely what Ernst Zundel has done and why he is before the Canadian Human Rights Commission - he repeatedly and forcefully spoke out against the Holocaust as a political tool of global intimidation!)
Second contributor:
"Something is going on in the political-commercial elites with respect to attitudes about Germany, "the H", and the abusive exploitation of associated moral claims. It is not quite clear, though, exactly WHAT is going on. It's like trying to decode the obscure messages of the Chinese cultural revolution and the slogans of the Red Guards.
Putting two and two together, I would speculate that General Motors, and other large corporate interests are taking a sterner and less supine view of the class action lawsuits and other claims for free money that are being lodged against by the tort industry."
Third contributor, whom many of us know as "Ehrlich" (who, incidentally, writes from a European perspective because that's where he lives) :
Ehrlich:
I don't know if it's that deep. I think we just endured Act XXXII of the Second World War and people have had enough.
I think the watershed was Goldhagen and the reaction to his book. Initially, this retelling of 1944 morality was accepted by those inclined to accept it, and they clucked their tongues smugly. Over time, everyone else has rejected it.
The consensus appears to be: Enough is enough.
Another part, as you note, has been the Swiss thing, and its consequences. Al D'Amato used himself up backing the attack; the Jewish voters of New York thanked him by voting against him in the general election.
The Swiss thing has also led to a fight over the money already allocated, of which hardly any will go to survivors, as I predicted long ago, and it has also awakened the greed of many others - not just some Jews, but also many lawyers - who now are demanding a share for whatever it was that they suffered. It's easy to see that the picture is a little skewed; I think you are right that there will be more resistance and a bit more of the "what exactly are we talking about, anyway?" down the road.
Meanwhile, all the familiar props are failing to take hold. TV station goes to interview the 15,000th "Last Nazi" in Kansas City, the old (man) ends up being shot by police and dies a vegetable in a hospital. In Lithuania, a 92 year old man is wheeled into court in a hospital bed to face charges for persecuting and killing Jews and then is wheeled right back into intensive care. At the same time, the ADL of B'nai Brith is doing battle with, in succession, Superman comics, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, and Rugrats.
Meanwhile, high profile Jewish groups are protesting the proliferation of revisionist information on the web, and the career of David Irving in general, they call for de facto or de jure censorship. That doesn't sit well with a lot of Jews, who tend to be libertarian, and young Jews have to be asking, since when did being Jewish mean being pro-censorship? I know a survivor, and his son and grandsons. The grandson went to a Yom Ha'Shoah thing last April: lots of older guys taking the podium, and delivering sincere but difficult to endure encomiums on their lost families - I've been to funerals like that! Afterwards, the young one, late '20's, turns to his Dad, and says, "That was a little bit too heart on the sleeve for me." His father was angry, but -- what can you say?
A study of the sociology of religion shows that the ritualization of the original epiphany, whether ecstatic or painful, whether crucifixion or massacre, lowers the emotional response. You can formalize remembrance but you can't formalize the esthetic reaction. It just becomes one of those things. The more you talk about what you are losing the more you accelerate the growing distance.
There's a passage in the Diary of Samuel Pepys where he's walking into London and he sees some guy sobbing in front of a memorial to the London Fire, which had happened a generation before. It doesn't make any sense to Pepys. It made me think of the Holocaust straight off when I read it, almost 20 years ago.
Germans are just tired of answering to the Holocaust. From my experience, so are most Jews. Again, from my experience, the only people who hype the Holocaust are Jewish true believers who eventually do Aliyah, young idealists who are looking for a cause and an evil (so perceived) with which to do battle, and World War II vets who still think the war was the greatest experience in their lives, which tells you something about the quality of their lives.
The problem of course is that the change in perspective affects everything else. One reason the Standard Holocaust Interpretation held court for so long was that it fit the Cold War needs of the various powers. But the reality today is that without Germany, Europe has a power vacuum. The reality today is that without Germany Eastern Europe will fall under the sway of some future Russian totalitarianism without a peep.
And the Holocaust is becoming increasingly less relevant to Jews. Yes, I know, it is said to be a "main prop" in today's Jewish self-identity. But tell that to the three million or so American Jews who will marry outside of the faith (even if their spouses convert.) Tell that to the overwhelming majority of American Jews who are Americans and Jews and not the other way around.
Tell that to the Soviet Jews, who, when they leave with Israeli passports, invariably go somewhere else, Rome, the US, and now even Germany, rather than being just another engineer picking up cigarette butts in Tel Aviv.
Sea change. Nice people will anticipate the change and attempt to help it along as painlessly and with as much dignity as possible. Bad people will continue to be bad.
(end of Ehrlich post)
Thought for the Day:
"Tell that to the macabre jerks who go around to the schools instilling death images into the minds of children, starting in kindergarten."
(A cyber snippet sent to the Zundelsite)
Tomorrow: Part II: "A less sanguine look: How two kinds of humanoids, the Gentiles and the Jews, glare at each other across a not-so-invisible abyss."