This is the concluding ZGram of the Alan Borovoy series, commenting on an excerpt in his new book "The New Anti-Liberals", starting with page 44, wherein he chides his tribal brethren for having overreached themselves in their self-serving, unbecoming and thoroughly offensive censorship zeal.
Borovoy:
In 1997, the Canadian Jewish Congress took an even steeper step. The CJC's Pacific region filed an anti-hate complaint under the British Columbia Human Rights Code. The target of the complaint was Doug Collins, a columnist for a neighborhood newspaper whose writings had disparaged the Jews and expressed certain doubts about the reality of the Holocaust. And, in Ontario, the Canadian Jewish Congress appeared before a tribunal in support of a complaint that had been filed under the telephone hate messages section of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The target of this complaint was Ernst Zundel, and the basis for the complaint was the Holocaust-denying messages he was disseminating through his website on the Internet.
Zundelsite:
Now! Alan Borovoy! As if you didn't know better!
I am not going to re-hash the entire Zundelsite quagmire, but all of Canada knows by now that the Zundelsite is not a telephone and does not belong to Ernst Zundel. And as for Doug Collins' column wherein he spoke so poignantly of "Swindler's List" - had the Holocaust Lobby left this incorruptible and independent columnist alone, that column would long have been forgotten. Now sparrows chirp it from the roof. :)
Borovoy:
The factor that makes these cases so significant is the sheer breadth of the prohibition against speech in both of the human rights statutes. They address statements that are "likely to expose" people to "hatred or contempt" on grounds that include race, creed and ethnicity. Unlike even the anti-hate section of the Criminal Code, these provisions do not require a guilty intent and there is no defence of truth or reasonable belief in the truth of the statements at issue.
On this basis, truthful discussions of racial, religious, and ethnic warfare in Bosnia, Rwanda, or Northern Ireland could very well run afoul of these human rights statutes. Couldn't such discussions be seen as "likely to expose" Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Hutus, Tutsis, Catholics or Protestants to hatred or contempt? Or suppose a complaint were filed regarding Daniel Goldhagen's recent book, Hitler's Willing Executioners? Since the book argues that German people by the thousands participated eagerly in the Holocaust, might it not be said that the book is "likely to expose" a whole generation of Germans to hatred or contempt? Indeed, considering how much anti-semitism existed in Nazi-occupied Europe during the war, these human rights statutes might render it unlawful simply to tell the truth about the Holocaust. After all, truthful accounts of the anti-Jewish collaboration the Nazis received from some of the indigenous populations in the countries they occupied could well be seen as "likely to expose" the people of those countries to "hatred or contempt".
Zundelsite:
The Goldhagen book wasn't "likely to expose a whole generation of Germans to hatred and contempt." It did so - with bits of saliva flying from Goldhagen's lips!
It is a vicious book exposing Germans to hatred and contempt - and not the only book. And these "hate laws" are going to be the very instrument that will break the camel's back, because this Jewish hate mongering has been so unopposed - for far too long. In fact, a little bird has told me that, even as we speak, that legal moves are being planned that will take some people by surprise - legal moves that won't come from the humble, embattled Zundel-Haus either.
Borovoy:
If such complaints were ever filed, what position would the Canadian Jewish Congress take? In view of its support for the complaints against Collins and Zundel, what positions _could_ it take? The CJC might find itself handicapped in its attempt to defend constructive, truthful discussions of these historical episodes. Such sad ironies not infrequently accompany the infringement of liberal values.
For the Canadian Jewish Congress, irony was further compounded in the spring of 1998. A New Brunswick judge held that newspaper cartoonist Josh Beutel had defamed former New Brunswick school teacher Malcolm Ross in a cartoon presentation to a 1993 teachers' seminar. Ross, who had been removed from his teaching position because of his anti-semitic writings, sued Beutel for depicting him as a Nazi. While acknowledging the racist and anti-semitic nature of Ross's beliefs, the judge held that calling the former teacher a Nazi "goes too far". Beutel was ordered to pay Ross $7500.00 in damages.
Zundelsite:
That was a token award - but a victory nonetheless, and one that set a precedent and sent a not inconsiderable message that even judges are beginning to be fed up to the hilt with this overbearing attitude of these people.
Borovoy:
The Canadian Jewish Congress reacted with understandable anger. According to the Globe and Mail, a CJC representative charged that the judgment would "put a chill" on commentators wishing to criticize public figures. In the reported words of CJC lawyer Hall Joffe, "How are commentators to determine how something like this will impact them? As a result people who have appropriate comments to make may just shy away from making them." (...)
The Canadian Jewish Congress sees the problem clearly when the speech of its supporters attracts legal sanctions. But its perceptions become clouded when the shoe is on the other foot. The CJC's criticism of this court decision is almost a replica of the criticism that has been made of the anti-hate law that the CJC supports. Murky criteria wind up imperilling legitimate expression.
Incredibly, according to the Globe, Mr. Joffe went on to advocate a still wider law of defamation. He reportedly proposed changing the law in this area to give groups such as the Canadian Jewish Congress a right of legal action against individuals who attack Jews. Having so correctly analyzed the problem, the CJC recommends making the situation even worse. A not unexpected consequence of straying so far from liberal values.
Zundelsite:
Dear Mr. Borovoy - you said it with a flourish! My hat is off to you.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"They hold one principle on which they depend and in which they trust so much. That is, they are born of the highest people on earth, of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob etc. ... That is This is their argument, and in my opinion the foremost and strongest. Therefore, God must suffer them in their schools, prayers, songs, doctrine and entire life; there they stand before Him and pester Him!"
(Martin Luther - almost five centuries ago!)
Back to Table of Contents of the Aug. 1999 ZGrams