Arguments against the existence of the Holocaust are nothing new, but an officially sponsored “conference” where the issue is “debated” only among those already in agreement takes bigotry and intentional ignorance to a new level.
From The New York Times:
Iran held a gathering that included Holocaust deniers, discredited scholars and white supremacists from around the world on Monday under the guise of a conference to “debate” the Nazi annihilation of six million Jews.
As expected, much of the Western world expressed outrage at this event. The irony of the timing of this event was highlighted in the White House’s statement:
While people around the world mark International Human Rights Week and renew the solemn pledges of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which was drafted in the wake of the atrocities of World War II, the Iranian regime perversely seeks to call the historical fact of those atrocities into question and provide a platform for hatred.
I don’t have a problem with people thinking, asking questions, talking about, or even holding conferences about pretty much whatever they want. What I have a problem with is when fear is used to enforce a position or when other voices in contention with a position are silenced. Anyone have any doubt that a dissenter would be allowed to speak freely at this event, which is supposed to “celebrate” Iran’s political freedom?
Not to mention the stupidity of this position–the willful lunacy and hatred that has to drive this position.
Of course, I’m caught here by my own belief that voices must be heard–which means we must allow this voice, too, if we want to avoid slipping down into the same well.
Nevertheless, this reminds me of the agenda behind any act of genocide: the desire to silence another permanently and to refuse to acknowledge any “other” voice. But any position that relies on silence to maintain itself only reveals its own weakness, and a foolish will to persist in that weakness.
But such weakness and such foolishness can be powerfully terrible.
December 13th, 2006 at 2:46 am
I just started reading Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost: In Search of Six of the Six Million. I suggest you do the same. I’ve read the first 30 or so pages and I can already tell this book will be amazingly intense.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:50 pm
While I agree that we should encourage other points of view, debate issues, etc., I draw a line with promoting ignorance and racism. With photos, first hand accounts, it’s hard to argue the Holocaust didn’t happen.