Note: Daniel Finkelstein is Features Editor of The Times, London. [Original post] London, Monday, October 29, 2007   October 29, 2007 Should David Irving be a guest of the Oxford Union? HE HAS been invited to appear at the end of November together with the BNP's Nick Griffin. Alexander Lukoshenko, the Belarussian accused of human rights abuses, has also been invited. This is the comment of Luke Tryl of the University debating society: The Oxford Union is famous for its commitment to free speech and although I do think these people have awful and abhorrent views I do think Oxford students are intelligent enough to challenge and ridicule them. I fear he misses the point. I have defended the free speech of David Irving myself. He ought not to have been incarcerated in an Austrian jail. But nor ought he to be invited to dinner and debate at Oxford. Extending an invitation to such a man, indeed to such men, is giving their views a legitimacy they should not be accorded. Both Irving and Griffin crave the respectability such invitations provide. There is a vast moral difference between acknowledging, say, that Irving should be allowed by law to publish a book and being Irving's publisher. This is the difference the Oxford Union has failed to appreciate. Posted by Daniel Finkelstein on October 29, 2007 in Education   Comments Piffle. The example of Oxford contrasts with the petty, immature and intolerant attitude of some of the students at the University of Leeds and the craven acquiescence of that university's administration, towards their own lecturer, Dr Ellis. Institutions should simply be neutral in extension of normal courtesy and refreshment to invited speakers - legitimacy is not awarded by courtesy and refreshment. Who would support the American official of some university who was so rude to the President of Iran recently, following his invitation to speak there? Posted by: David Bowker | 29 Oct 2007 15:00:03 Dear Mr Finkelstein, the UK just secured an opt-out from parts of EU law. You don't have an opt-in to Austrian law. Got that? For the rest, I couldn't care less. If enough people want to listen to this clown, so be it. Posted by: brux | 29 Oct 2007 15:09:45 "...is giving their views a legitimacy they should not be accorded." Well it seems the Education establishment is also giving such views some sort of legitamacy by banning teaching of the holocaust in schools, or so an email claims which I received last week:- MEMORIAM -- This week the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it "offended" the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 60 years since the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German  and Russian peoples looking the other way! Now more than ever, with Iran among others claiming the Holocaust to be "a myth," it is imperative to  make sure the world never forgets. This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide! Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world. Please send this e-mail to 10 people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain. Please don't  just delete it. It will only take you a minute to pass this along - Thanks! Mark Dowdle I do not know Mr Dowdle nor whom he represents, nor the veracity or otherwise of his claim. Perhaps you can comment? Posted by: John Gregory Flinn | 29 Oct 2007 15:16:45 Legitimacy was conveyed on David Irving byt he British courts, in stripping him of his assets following a failed attempt to sue a detractor for libel. (Almost certainly a techncial miscarriage of justice. The normal process is that the man with the bee in his bonnet convinces himself that his few strands of evidence outweigh the vast mass of contrary indications. He doesn't deliberately mislead his readers). He is no longer a lone eccentric, but someone the establishment takes extremely seriously. He fully deserves an Oxford Union invite. Posted by: Malcolm McLean | 29 Oct 2007 15:32:28 "There is a vast moral difference between acknowledging, say, that Irving should be allowed by law to publish a book and being Irving's publisher." I haven't studied ethics formally, so could you perhaps explain why the latter is so terrible, if the former holds good? Posted by: Zareen | 29 Oct 2007 15:53:32 Still not clear why David Irving should not speak at the OU provided he is not libelous or abusive. The "Holocaust" is not a sacred unquestioning religious event but a historical one and all historical events are subject to inquiry, revision etc. Some revisions are ridiculous some are plausible. It wasn't that long ago that the Russian Revolution [was seen] as a positive occurence. Posted by: Simon O'Brien | 29 Oct 2007 16:05:06 Burn his books. Posted by: Guido Fawkes | 29 Oct 2007 16:26:03 Unless the members of the Oxford Union are stupid, how is David Irving going to disprove the existence the Shoah? I have not taken him sufficiently serious enough to know about what he wants to say, but I do know that the most he can possibly do is to create doubts about the existence of the Shoah; I know he can´t possible disprove the existence. So, word to all Jews: Why worry? Shalom aleichem. Posted by: Kong Kek Kuat (Malaysia) | 29 Oct 2007 16:33:30 Unless his views can be publicly debated, they cannot be publicly disproved with fact nor shot down with argument. 'No platform' policies do more damage than simply allowing extremists to claim crazed legitimacy for their views (on the spurious grounds of 'they don't want you to know the truth'). They also deny the opportunity for those view to be comprehensively rubbished in front of witnesses. (One might even argue that if you hold freedom of speech to be important and no-one else is prepared to publish his books AND you find his views abhorrent, then the best way to fight them is to agree to publish yourself...) Posted by: Mr Gisoad | 29 Oct 2007 17:13:11 Last I heard, he didn't say there wasn't a lot of dead people in the camps, merely that it wasn't a systematic programme and that it was "only" one millon dead. Which would obviously be monstrous anyway, but is blatantly not true and, more worryingly, gives those who seek to downplay the crimes of the Nazi era a valuable hand-hold that simple denial of any crimes doesn't offer. The OU are just prats trying to make a name for themselves (and in the process, incidentally, confirming that the putative British ruling classes are largely self-important nob-ends). But they're playing with fire. All of these chancers will use the OU appearance to create credibility in other quarters, where the "challenge and ridicule" will be invisible. I'm also very disappointed that Times readers are dumb enough to swallow obvious urban myths about "PC gone mad" distributed via email (yes, you, John Gregory Flinn, of course its "veracity" is suspect...). If that's not reason enough to stop them accidentally hearing the bile spouted by people like Griffin and Irving, I don't know what is. Posted by: Richard Young | 29 Oct 2007 17:15:52 If the OU invited Irving to speak why not? Posted by: viola | 29 Oct 2007 17:33:33   Our dossier on the Lipstadt Trial   David Irving issues a warning letter: "I shall without further notice issue a Claim in Defamation" Jewish Chronicle editorial, "Irving and the JC" Why Irving regretted his days in court A Radical's Diary: The Jewish Chronicle is becoming Irving-obsessed Previously: Jewish Chronicle expresses Outrage of Traditional Enemies of Free Speech at David Irving's UK tour: pulling out all the stops to get the meetings banned and cancelled | Its leader-writer gets tangled in a twist: "Freedom of speech is one of the principles our society holds most dear. ... That is why we urge any public-hall booking clerk, university administrator or private landlord to refuse to give Irving a platform"   David Irving's Books The Deborah Lipstadt Libel action   Divided loyalties - Board of Deputies of "British Jews" demanded of the Austrian ambassador in 1992 that his country imprison British historian David Irving David Irving: A Radical's Diary: On The Forward interview on the Holocaust, and the interesting "Mel Gibson" theory that Jews have been behind many of last century's wars | Jewish Telegraph Agency blurts out: George W Bush's Pro-'surge' group in Iraq is almost all Jewish - Coincidence, says one, "half of the donors contributing to its $15 million ad campaign are not Jewish" - and most of the GIs, too David Irving: A Radical's Diary: Hysterical efforts by the don't-debate-them, anti-free speech gang meet some success

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