Ernst Zuendel was convicted of 14 counts of inciting racial hatred and for
denying that the Nazis killed six million Jews during World War II. He
received the maximum sentence under German law which bans Holocaust denial.
The New York Times notes that Germany is attempting to make Holocaust denial a crime across the European Union and that British author David Irving was recently released on appeal after serving time in an Austrian prison on similar charges.
So what does Jewbiquitous (I love referring to myself in third-person using the blog name, it makes me feel so powerful, almost regal) think of this news? Holocaust denial: undeniably wrong. Yet, I'm a stickler for free speech. And I think that forbidding deniers from speaking gives credence to their cause. As does responding. Our response should be to continue, to the best of our abilities, to educate people on the Holocaust, its causes, and its effects. And to ensure that history is not repeated. Sigh. Idealism is so nice.
3 comments:
Its a tricky issue, the problem is that in countries where the tradition of free speech is much shakier than ours, hate speech tends not to be repudiated loudly enough and that leads to acceptance of the intolerance.
Denying the denier is a slippery slope. I am not sure if it really helps our case.
We cannot be selective about what speech is "free." No speech should be censored, including hate speech.
-TR
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