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Ireland, Sunday, March 09, 2008 [source] David
Irving: Postscript  [blog
by J C Skinner]
I SPENT this morning driving to
County Down to pick up a very expensive bottle of
whiskey from two lovely older gay gentlemen, then
delivering it to Skinner Senior.
This was justifiable for two reasons - firstly,
because you don't come across Old Comber Whiskey
very often these days, and secondly because you
can't beat driving through South Down on a Sunday
morning for that sense of emulating a car advert
(winding country roads, all but empty, surrounded
by lush green fields and all bathed in glorious
sunshine.)
What wasn't justifiable was the lunacy I ended up
subjecting myself to on Newstalk radio while
driving.
Carol [sic. Karen] Coleman - the former
RTE hack that George Dubya hated - has a
current affairs round-up show which is normally
pretty good.
What let her down was her sudden loss of
journalistic objectivity when David Irving
(above), the historian
associated with denying the commonly accepted scale
of the Holocaust, appeared as a guest on her
show.
Now, in the week that Irving (not for the first
time) was
denied a platform to speak in Ireland by
people who think issuing death threats against
people is a defence of civilised values and free
speech, for Coleman to get him live on air was a
bit of a coup.
Teaming him up with his long-term critic,
Deborah Lipstadt was a second stroke of
potential broadcasting genius.
So what went wrong? Well, Coleman lost sight of her
journalistic objectivity, and rather than quizzing
Irving hard on his beliefs, asking for him to
support his controversial assertions and
conclusions about the Second World War, instead she
simply sided with Lipstadt, who one would have
thought was well able to defend herself against
Irving, having won a libel action he took against
her.
In short, the presenter tag-teamed her guest with
another guest whose sole reason for being on the
show was to refute, ridicule and condemn the guest
who was actually newsworthy.
That's not good journalism, and Coleman is
experienced enough to know much better.
But in another sense,
one can't blame Coleman for doing what she did.
Any broadcaster who could even be
(mis)interpreted as sympathising with someone
like Irving runs the risk of being tarred
themselves as a holocaust denier, a fellow
traveller with fascists and far-right nutters.
It's career suicide for a mainstream broadcaster
like Coleman. And she's too experienced not to
know that.
But once again, I was left pondering the irony
of how people who defend their actions in terms of
freedom of speech are happy to stifle the voices of
those whom they find offensive.
LIPSTADT refused to debate Irving directly, which
is her decision. But one would have thought that
the best way to refute his conclusions is to
present him with contradictory evidence.
She also accused him of being a would-be censor for
taking a libel action against
her book , wherein she accused Irving of being
a holocaust denier. As Irving pointed out, seeking
to injunct the book would have been an attempt to
silence, whereas permitting publication then suing
for libel to preserve your reputation was not.
But Lipstadt is entitled to her position, as she
earned it in court. On the other hand, Irving has
also earned his right in court to present his
historical analysis. His conviction
and incarceration in Austria on charges of
denying the holocaust is one of the great stains on
the Voltairian tradition of freedom of speech in
Europe.
Of course, those who protest David Irving's
speaking engagements, just like the BBC when they
dubbed Sinn Fein spokesmen, argue that with freedom
of speech comes responsibilities, and that no
absolute right to free speech (known commonly as
the 'don't shout FIRE! in a crowded cinema for no
reason' rule).
However, the irony here is that this is simply
fascism with another face. Deny anyone free speech,
and you become the jackboot, the oppressor.
The way to deal with
Irving is with facts. Cold, hard, irrefutable
facts. Not with inane questions like 'Do you
agree that the Nazis were evil?' And certainly
not the way Lipstadt, a woman qualified to
discuss the known facts of the Second World War,
did, by simply dismissing everything Irving said
as 'silly' without bothering to present evidence
refuting it.
For the record, since Irving did not get to
speak in Ireland, he does not deny the holocaust.
He queries the accepted facts of it and the scale
of it. He believes it happened primarily on the
Eastern front, and without Hitler's knowledge or
approval.
This may well be a profoundly silly position for a
historian to assume. If so, then all it requires is
refutation. Lipstadt could and should have spoken
directly to Irving and cited documents to prove him
the liar she claims he is.
But more importantly, Carol Coleman should have
assumed the critical perspective of journalism she
knows well, by quizzing Irving closely on his
beliefs without permitting her own evident distaste
to colour and distort the interview.
What came across on radio was exactly what Irving
wants - the sound of an elderly patrician gentleman
speaking quietly in reasonable tones while being
ambushed by two women competing in shrillness. Anyone with an Armenian background, anyone from
Rwanda older than fourteen, anyone with a Roma
background, anyone familiar with the mid-century
history of European homosexuality has already got
good reason to query the consensus explanation of
the holocaust as a solely Jewish tragedy that is
somehow elevated above all other historical events
of suffering.
There have been other holocausts , and more
than Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Irving
cleverly uses these self-evident facts to gain
leverage against the monolithic sacrosanct concept
of The Holocaust as a unique event that solely hurt
Jews. Arabs in particular feel that this
interpretation is often used as justification for
the Zionist state.
Now, there's no doubt Irving is dubious. His
association with Neo-Nazis betrays his true
sympathies and casts a shadow over his position as
a historian of the Nazi era. He has been refuted
factually in relation to his
Dresden death tolls, and the reasons for
the
destruction of convoy PQ-17.
On the other hand, he was instrumental
in uncovering the truth of the Hitler diary
forgeries, and has repeatedly been praised,
albeit with reservations, by other historians who
patently do not share his political sympathies. He
has also been the
target of dirty tricks and silencing tactics by the
far-left for over 40 years . That lineage
continued this week in Cork, with death threats
issuing against Irving over the internet from far
left sources.
It seems to me that dealing with Irving's work
requires careful sifting of his evidence, and
conscious consideration of his political
sympathies when examining his conclusions. But
permitting Irving to present himself,
accurately, as someone who does not get a fair
hearing only opens the door wider for people to
consider his views more seriously and much less
critically.
If people wished genuinely to discredit Irving
and deny his ideas a platform, they ought to simply
disprove them with supporting evidence. That would
shut him up for good. But it's not that simple. A
lot of David Irving's work has worth. It's
perfectly possible to examine it and come to
objective conclusions based on facts.
Wikipedia managed it. Why couldn't Carol
Coleman?
Calling him a holocaust denier when he doesn't deny
that the holocaust occurred merely erodes the
credibility of those who say so. Locking him up in
Austria as a holocaust denier merely made a martyr
of the man. Irving says the holocaust happened differently
to the consensus understanding of the event. That's
his interpretation as a historian. And it should be
refuted as such, with historically verifiable and
irrefutable data and evidence, not with childish
namecalling that merely adds substance to Irving's
line that he is the ongoing victim of
censorship.
Calling him silly is not a refutation of his
argument. And without factual refutation, it will
only gain in influence. Posted by JC Skinner at
11:39 PM 
Our
dossier on the origins of
anti-Semitism
Irish
Republic mounts security operation for the Cork
debate
-
now cancelled
| Outrage
of traditional enemy
-
nice folks call for violence | anti-Irving
leafleting
| Who
is David
Irving?
asks Ireland's Socialist Youth (and we might ask
who is funding them?), and answers its own
questions with lies 
| Irving
speech to Cork students
cancelled-
Postscript: a
blogger evaluates Mr Irving's Irish Radio
Broadcast on March 9, 2008
-
David Irving: A
Radical's Diary. In Dublin's Fair
City
| Lipstadt's
non-debate with Mr Irving
-
Holocaust
denier prompts University College Cork to up
debate security
-
Deja Vu: This is not the first time Mr Irving
has tried to speak in Cork: Kicks
and punches fly in riot at
college
|
write to David
Irving