Austria's Big Mistake
David Irving, British historian, publicity whore, and all-around asshole, was convicted in Austria of denying the Holocaust and sentenced to three years in prison. Irving is a professional historian, who somewhere along the way threw away his respectable career to promote the fantasy that the Holocaust was a myth. Irving is pro-Hitler, and his denial of one of the greatest atrocities in human history is despicable.
He is an example of what I call the Big Fish In A Small Pond Syndrome, where a respected academic takes an outlandish position to make a name for himself. Most people would never have known of David Irving if he had been a mainstream World War II historian. He reminds me a lot of Michael Behe, the opportunistic biologist who claims to deny evolution (actually Behe admits evolution is probably right, but where's the notoriety in that?). Irving and Behe crave attention - they want to cast themselves as the renegade scholars, fighting the "establishment."
Of course, these d-bags aren't Copernicus and Galileo. They will eventually get the obscurity they deserve IF we ignore them and their attention-grabbing lies. The Austrian court, in a well-meaning but misguided decision, has done the opposite in the case of Herr Irving. The Austrian jury that convicted him has turned him into a martyr of the most odious kind. Neo-Nazis and anti-Semites around the world now have something to rally around - the unjust persecution of a man who dares to deny the Holocaust.
By the way, I mean it when I say Irving's sentence is "unjust." I so strongly believe in freedom of speech that I absolutely believe David Irving has the right to say whatever he wants to about the Holocaust. His deceitful bile sickens me, and I shudder to think some people are stupid enough to believe his bullshit, but we have to allow unpopular opinions to be heard. If I agreed with the Austrian jury, I would be no better than the Islamic radicals that want to burn down their own cities over some cartoons, or the Bush Administration's sanction-happy FCC that terrorized American media in recent years, or Irving himself, who sued a critic for libel for saying he was a Holocaust denier (he lost).
Understandably, Austria is extremely sensitive about the Holocaust and Nazi issues, but there's a terrible irony there. Austria is jailing someone for their beliefs, and Austria's native son Adolf Hitler, a noted opponent of free speech himself, would be proud.
He is an example of what I call the Big Fish In A Small Pond Syndrome, where a respected academic takes an outlandish position to make a name for himself. Most people would never have known of David Irving if he had been a mainstream World War II historian. He reminds me a lot of Michael Behe, the opportunistic biologist who claims to deny evolution (actually Behe admits evolution is probably right, but where's the notoriety in that?). Irving and Behe crave attention - they want to cast themselves as the renegade scholars, fighting the "establishment."
Of course, these d-bags aren't Copernicus and Galileo. They will eventually get the obscurity they deserve IF we ignore them and their attention-grabbing lies. The Austrian court, in a well-meaning but misguided decision, has done the opposite in the case of Herr Irving. The Austrian jury that convicted him has turned him into a martyr of the most odious kind. Neo-Nazis and anti-Semites around the world now have something to rally around - the unjust persecution of a man who dares to deny the Holocaust.
By the way, I mean it when I say Irving's sentence is "unjust." I so strongly believe in freedom of speech that I absolutely believe David Irving has the right to say whatever he wants to about the Holocaust. His deceitful bile sickens me, and I shudder to think some people are stupid enough to believe his bullshit, but we have to allow unpopular opinions to be heard. If I agreed with the Austrian jury, I would be no better than the Islamic radicals that want to burn down their own cities over some cartoons, or the Bush Administration's sanction-happy FCC that terrorized American media in recent years, or Irving himself, who sued a critic for libel for saying he was a Holocaust denier (he lost).
Understandably, Austria is extremely sensitive about the Holocaust and Nazi issues, but there's a terrible irony there. Austria is jailing someone for their beliefs, and Austria's native son Adolf Hitler, a noted opponent of free speech himself, would be proud.
posted by David Bowden at 8:42 PM
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