Ahmadinejad and Holocaust Denial: a Follow-Up
Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 11:52:34 AM PDT
A follow-up, now that Ahmadinejad has demonstrated at Columbia, that, yes, he's still spouting Holocaust denial.
He pulled a number of things from the standard-issue Holocaust denier trick-bag that I thought might be worth holding up to the light a little bit. In particular, I wanted to look at the "why shouldn't there be more research" bit and the "why throw historians into jail" bit. (I know, as if Ahmadinejad has room to complain about throwing dissenting academics into jail, but there you go.)
Update: interestingly, if you read the comments you can see someone going, step by step, reproducing the various mendacities I mention in the article. And check out his more persistent upraters, if you'd like some excellent examples of what it means to be a useful idiot.
Second Update: say goodbye to one purveyor of standard-issue Holocaust denial patter and two useful idiots.
The label "Holocaust denier" comes from Deborah Lipstadt's book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory." The book is a history of the denial movement -- such as it is -- from its earliest roots to the mid '90s; this is the book that David Irving sued Lipstadt and her publisher for, leading to the most famous legal Holocaust denial case that went to court in early 2000 and destroyed Irving.
As the label implies, the movement is about denial -- denial of the gas chambers, denial of the scale of the genocide, denial of the state-sponsored status of the genocidal program, and so forth. But the label also brings a predictable reply: "I don't deny the Holocaust. Clearly the Nazis did something bad to the Jews. I just think there remains reasonable doubt about the existence of the gas chambers, the existence of a state-sanctioned genocidal program, the existence of Hitler's leadership role in the program, and so forth."
In other words, "Don't call me a Holocaust denier; I don't deny the Holocaust, as long as I get to define what 'Holocaust' means. The Holocaust I think happened may or may not have Zyklon B, may have five million fewer Jews in it, may have been just a few rogue elements getting trigger happy -- but my version should be treated with the same respect as anyone else's."
In other other words, he portrayed Holocaust denial as nothing more than a scholarly battle between two equally valid schools of historical interpretation. That's an egregious misunderstanding of what it means for a historian to say we know something to be true.
What's more, there's usually an additional bit of rhetorical fog blurred into it. Everyone would agree that there are some facets of the Holocaust which could benefit from additional study. So Holocaust deniers in their opening rounds will gladly play the "there should be more research" card while -- and here is where the deception comes in -- being as nebulous as possible over two key points: research of what, and for what purpose? Do they want to ask "what more can we find out about the folks at DEGESCH who manufactured a special version of their fumigant Zyklon B for homicidal purposes?" Or do they want to ask "Did the Holocaust even happen at all, or is it just a big Jewish fraud?" The rhetorical legerdemain is to appear like you're talking about the first kind of question while actually -- as Ahmadinejad does -- trying to open the window for the second kind.
Again, this is all standard Holocaust denier stuff. Ahmadinejad isn't the first to do this, and he won't be the last. You just don't normally hear it from heads of state.
They do it this way because -- as even some useful idiots here demonstrate -- it works: some people will indeed say, after a moment's reflection, "gee, that sounds reasonable enough. Study is a good thing, right?"
Of course it sounds reasonable. Holocaust deniers have had forty years to practice making their glop sound reasonable -- at first blush, at least -- in this case, by obscuring what they really mean. Americans like to believe in fair play, at looking at both sides of a question. But some questions just don't have two sides. Some questions -- like the one in my sig line -- just don't bear further investigation.
The Holocaust deniers do have one good, solid argument they can always be counted on to make, and which Ahmadinejad didn't pass up: why do some nations make it illegal to question the historicity of the Holocaust? Doesn't that smack of Orwellian thought crime? People like Ahmadinejad paint such laws as being the repressive tool of the Great Jewish Conspiracy, designed to ensure that the truth about the Holocaust is never known. But you don't have to be an Ahmadinejad to have deep reservations about laws against Holocaust denial.
This is a solid enough point that it deserves a reply. So I'll give three.
- With the exception of Israel and Switzerland, every country on earth that has laws against Holocaust denial shares one historical fact: they were all either part of the Third Reich or occupied by the Third Reich. That is, they all saw Nazism up close and personal, and know how many of their Jews are gone. Those states which have Holocaust denial laws weren't pressured into it by the Great Holocaust Conspiracy. They are reacting to their own history.
- In most cases, laws against Holocaust denial -- although cited in isolation -- are simply part of larger codes against racially provocative speech. That is, they recognize that Holocaust denial isn't the scholastic school of historical interpretation it tries to paint itself as, but a kind of hate speech whose pecularity is that it tries to disguise itself as scholastic inquiry. These laws are generally about hate speech, and consider Holocaust denial as one among many categories.
- Most people I know don't think such laws should exist. I agree. I don't think Irving should have been jailed, and not for the pragmatic reason that it lets folks like Ahmadinejad call him a martyr to the Great Conspiracy and, but for the core liberal stance that people shouldn't be thrown into jail for what they think. Even Deborah Lipstadt, dragged through the better part of a decade of legal proceedings after Irving sued her -- and therefore better entitled than most to hate him -- called for Irving's release when he was imprisoned for hate speech in Austria a couple of years ago.
However, given point 1 above, I can also understand why the nations of Europe would be particularly sensitive to the dangers of hate speech, since that was all Hitler had to begin with, and so I can see why places like Austria or the Czech Republic don't see it through my eyes.
My experience with Holocaust deniers is that they fall (concentrate?) into two camps: the ones who know they're lying, and the ones who don't.
The "9-11 controlled demolition" crowd, which I consider equally nutty but less evil, although not without its own antisemitic elements, is full of true believers from top to bottom and side to side. Conversely, the leaders of the Holocaust denial movement know that you don't have to drink the Kool-Aid to sell the Kool-Aid.
I think Ahmadinejad is an example of this, someone who's decided, for purely political reasons, to sell the Kool-Aid he doesn't believe himself. He's balanced off the massive credibility hit he takes internationally against the rah-rah boost at home in his calculations. I think that Irving is another example; he knows the contours of the evidence too well not to know how solid the case for the Holocaust is, but his antisemitism leads him to use that knowledge to cleverly play the role of someone who thinks it's a fraud, with the strategy that if he can plant enough seeds of doubt, no matter how stupid, with enough industry and perseverence, there will always be those for whom the balance tips.
Does the distinction matter? Does it matter whether the Kool-Aid seller drinks it himself? Not very much. But I've seen it argued here that because Ahmadinejad probably doesn't, in his heart of hearts, reject the historicity of the Holocaust -- he's just consistently careful to always leave open the rhetorical possibility that he has -- it's wrong to attack him for trying to recommend the Kool-Aid to others. The point is practically self-refuting.
Why does Ahmadinejad do what he does when it comes to Holocaust denial? I think he sees three tactical advantages.
- It makes Jews mad.
- There's always the chance that he'll get some woolly-minded folx to buy his bill of goods, which will also make Jews mad.
- He thinks that anything that makes Jews this mad helps him make his pro-Palestinian case.
