Iran And The Holocaust

If the West repsonds in the way that they're hoping we will ,then they will have achieved their objective
Click to expand...

Wont happen

Bush doesnt rise to the boring infantile baits thrown around by Chavez and apart from a routine comment, that will be the policy here too. Same for the rest of the west

i mean. it was nothing less than we expected was it?

as i said before,..anger comes with disappointment.
 
Originally posted by clivex@Dec 12 2006, 05:30 PM
If the West repsonds in the way that they're hoping we will ,then they will have achieved their objective
Click to expand...

Wont happen

Bush doesnt rise to the boring infantile baits thrown around by Chavez and apart from a routine comment, that will be the policy here too. Same for the rest of the west

i mean. it was nothing less than we expected was it?

as i said before,..anger comes with disappointment.
Click to expand...
I hope, and suspect that you're right. At least if the likes of Grassy and myself can see it for what it is, then one would like to think Washington's finest political advisers and operators can :brows:
 
Originally posted by Grasshopper@Dec 12 2006, 04:33 PM
In your example, you provided a list of eleven countries which do exactly that.

Eight of them are EU member states, one is an acceeding EU state, one is Israel, and one is Switzerland.

That constitutes 'Western' in my book.
Click to expand...
I don't know whether you are missing my point deliberately or otherwise. It was that while I wouldn't agree with prosecuting someone who claimed that the holocaust didn't hapen, it is easy to understand why the first ten countries on the list wanted to introduce such legislation.
 
Bar - winding that argument out a bit (for the sake of continuing an interesting discussion, mostly), then wouldn't one have to add all kinds of 'denials' to the list? Suppose the Arabs were, for example, to deny being part of the slave trade, in spite of historical statistics to the contrary? Wouldn't that be similar to denying the Holocaust, and should that be viewed as every bit as serious?

Aren't there a number of historical markers which are open to denial, against the facts, so where would one seek to draw a line? And why does the denial of the Holocaust deserve special status?
 
I'm not trying to be deliberately obtuse BrainH.

I take your point, and I can understand why some of these countries would feel compelled to make this law (though to be honest, France and Belgium are a bit of a mystery).

Again, the assertion made by Gareth was that "there is no attempt so far by any "Western" power to limit freedom of speech" - in the context of this debate, I felt it was worth pointing out that this was not necessarily the case.
 
Originally posted by krizon@Dec 12 2006, 05:55 PM
And why does the denial of the Holocaust deserve special status?
Click to expand...
Kind of where I've been coming from, Krizon - only you put it better in one sentence than I've managed in several posts.
 
:o

It's not that I don't feel the Holocaust didn't take place, though, Grasshopper. I don't think the films of starved, naked people and the existence even today of some of the camps are works of fiction. It's just that there are so many other dreadful things which have cost the lives of millions down the years, that I wonder why we are especially sensitive to this one (albeit appalling and evil) event, according it no-argument status.
 
The reasoning behind the illegality of holocaust denial has its roots in race hate and the laws against that

There is a very obvious anti-semite subtext to holocaust denial.

I can perhaps understand that legislation but not sure i really support it totally
 
It's just that there are so many other dreadful things which have cost the lives of millions down the years, that I wonder why we are especially sensitive to this one (albeit appalling and evil) event, according it no-argument status.
Click to expand...

Maybe its because there hasnt been much of an industry (with racist motivations) in denying other attrocities

Who has made mileage out of denying that Mao starved millions or that the Tutsi's and hutus slaughtered each other?
 
Originally posted by Grasshopper@Dec 12 2006, 05:58 PM
I take your point, and I can understand why some of these countries would feel compelled to make this law (though to be honest, France and Belgium are a bit of a mystery).

Click to expand...
No mystery - over 25% of both French and Belgian Jews died in the Holocaust.
 
In the case of France and Belgium, I'm pretty certain that the laws were introduced in the early to mid 1990's as the 'denial' issue had become a bit of a rallying point and served to help fuel the rise of the French NF under Jean-Marie Le Pen, who let us not forget, actually got himself into a run off for the Presidency. A similar situation threatend to occur in Belgium, (the name of their leader escapes me) but I'm pretty certain it was a reaction against the rise of some Flemish nationalist group. I'm not sure that race hate, religion is necessarily the thing that underwrites these laws, as much as it's an attempt to cut off the oxygen to those who would seek to manipulate the situation to incite, recruit and grow though Clive. Clearly, the whole Holocaust thing is evocative and emotive and a natural target thus, and given its inextricable link to Nazism, provides an appeal to a certain type of impressionable individual/ fantasist

I think the laws that exist in the former axis powers however, might very well have been imposed upon them? I've certainly got it into my head that Austria was 1947, in which case I'd assume Germany was the same. Clearly neither country could repeal them very easily once they were in place. I'm pretty certain Spains got similar legislation (if they weren't on the list?) which must have been introduced post Franco. I seem to recall a Labour private members bill being talked out a few years back (with cross party support) that sought to introduce similar in the UK, and I think its crept onto the party conference agenda occasionally, but with no real appetite

In many respects, it comes back to Brian's rather crude example of offensive racial language and whether it should be banned. or permitted in the name of free speech.

It's not the language or the word that's used that's necessarily important. It's how its used, and thus interpreted, and the raction it can therefore be used to provoke. If people were to use words like nigger, and on hearing it everyone would just dismiss the individual as feeble minded, then it wouldn't matter. The word and its application would be reduced to being completely ineffectual to move people, and therefore of no consequence or tangible use to anyone. However, we haven't quite been able to master the art of turning the other cheek yet as a spiece. The laws might very well be interpreted thus as being designed to protect ourselves against ourselves, rather than protecting the victim or the offended. Its basically a sad indictement of the fragility of their societies and people that countries have to introduce such legislation. Clearly such language can still register, mobilise, and disrupt though.
 
That's not quite what I was asking, Warbler. I was asking why the Holocaust has been accorded a special status (re denial). It's not a question that some factions don't deny it, for racial or political reasons (the neo-Nazis in Germany deny it most vehemently).

There are plenty of people who deny that anything Biblical is true, for example, but there is no signatory that it's a crime to say so. There are people who deny Mao's, Pol Pot's, Amin's, Mugabe's, Hussain's or Stalin's records - there are still plenty of people supporting or defending their activities, even Stalin's in Russia today, for example. But there's still no point of law ready to pounce on Stalin's defenders, as 'politico-ethnic cleansing deniers'.
 
It's just that there are so many other dreadful things which have cost the lives of millions down the years, that I wonder why we are especially sensitive to this one (albeit appalling and evil) event, according it no-argument status.
Click to expand...

Probably because it happened not in a far flung country, but close by, in the "civilised" world. That, and quite a lot of guilt that too many people turned a blind eye.
 
Yes, but Russia's a near-enough neighbour, and was allied to exterminating the Nazis, so you'd think that the entire Russian population would have been loud in its condemnation of the decades of gulags which followed the end of WWII, wouldn't you, Gareth? Instead of which, there are still old-timers who think Stalin did no wrong.

There is also the currently, continuing diplomatic issue of Japan not apologising for its wicked cruelties towards the Chinese following its invasion, pre-War. While the government has managed a slightly stilted term of regret for the war, it's not actually to this day apologised for its mass beheadings and rapine. That would seem to put Japan in a state of denial, yet no-one refuses its exports or calls for it to be isolated until it says a proper, fulsome 'sorry' and coughs up a few dollars for the survivors of its rape camps.
 
I wouldn't underestimate the contribution and sacrifice made by the Soviet Union for one second in defeating Nazism, and I've more than wondered a few times "what if? etc" Popular myth of course is that the Americans saved us (well it is in America anyway). The case for saying that the Soviets did so as well, is equally compelling. We were pretty well isolated in 1940, having lost so much kit at Dunkirk, and hung on desperately in August and September. Even with the heroics of the RAF, the writing was pretty well on the wall. We were surrounded, about 3 weeks away from being starved out at times, and the Germans had inheriited a whole load of new industrial capacity. There is no way we could have continued to fight a war without a second front in Europe. I think therefore, Stalin is given a slightly easier time by history in the West.

The gulags though pre-date WWII, and were initially set up for the Kulak who was refusing to accept the collectivisation agriculture. Events such as the scissors crisis had shown the vulnerabilities in the NEP, and lets not forget that we are talking about a country which had been taken into, and lost heavily an imperialist war, and then followed by a foreign agitated civil war. The economy was wrecked and the infrastructure decidely backward. Stalin needed to industrialise, and to do it quickly. Unfortunately, the Kulak would rather burn grain and destroy food before they'd sell it to the government, so with millions dying of starvation in the cities of the Soviet Union, its not difficult to understand why Stalin did what he did. He essentially needed to feed his population, and to do that he had to seize the means of production, if those who held were wantonly destroying it. What else could he have done faced with such a mounting crisis? Context is everything here I feel. He knew there was a crisis coming in Europe with the emergence of 3 distinct political philosophies which seemed destined to lead at least 2 of the 3 into war in some point in the medium term future. In order to defend itself the Soviet Union had to launch on the most rapid programme of industrialisation in the history of the world. To a lot of the citizens of the Soviet Union the gulag was initially not only seen as an instrument that would assist them in doing this, but more pertinently, it was something that helped to produce a food supply for them, and improve their chances of living. Things had got that bad.

Put another way. If you were starving to death because of Kulaks, and subsequently discovered that your Party Chairman was taking steps to force a supply of food for you, I'm not sure you'd denounce his methods. Survival is an instinctive thing, and imprisoning a class of agricultural 'quasi land owner' who a lot of people will have held responsible for their plight, wouldn't send you onto the streets to protest about their treatment I'd suggest? Quite the opposite

I can't think of many historical examples where rapid industrialisation hasn't involved harsh and brutal decisions and frankly horrendous living conditions for the masses. We went through it about 100 years earlier with the forced collectivisation of labour in the 'work houses', escape from which was close to impossible once you'd been dragged into them. The Soviet expereince was more desperate and brutal for a host of reasons, not the least of which being the necessity and time scales involved, but factors such as the deep divisions in the population, the size of the country, and its climate made it much worse.

It might be as well to reflect on what might have happened in Europe in the 1940's if the Bolsheviks hadn't prevailed between 1919 - 1921 and the White Russsians had ursuped the Reds. Even to day, there's a discernable sympathy for fascist philosophies in Russia, and indeed there were no shortage of ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Georgians etc who were happy to join the invading Nazis who they saw as liberators. Had the Bolsheviks failed to consolidate October, and a fascist leaning autocracy assumed power, we might very easily have found ourselves facing an enemy considerably more powerful than the one that we did a few decades later.

In short, we'd have lost long before Pearl Harbour brought the Americans into the war.

All of which is about as relevant to the thread as......... :brows: urm.... bedtime me thinkz
 
Unfortunately, the Kulak would rather burn grain and destroy food before they'd sell it to the government, so with millions dying of starvation in the cities of the Soviet Union
Click to expand...

As I understood it, they destroyed the production because the resources were being destroyed because the grain was costing a lot more to produce than they were receiving in payment.

Why destroy the means to rpoduce (and put yourself at a natural disadvantage) just to spite the goverment? might happen here and there, but on a totally widespread scale? I think the economic reason is far more persuasive

and we know how well communist economics work dont we?
 
What saved us was Hitler's decision to start a second front in the east and postpone the invasion of Britain. This latter was influenced mainly by the work of our fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain which prevented Goering's Luftwaffe taking control of the skies.
 
Now there is a matter for discussion many modern historians take the view that the might of the Royal Navy was that they would not have risked it in any event .
 
The German paratroopers however would have been rather vulnerable if all their infantry colleagues, supplies and tanks had been sunk .

It is a fascinating topic . I tend to think the Battle of Britain is overstated as being the reason that the invasion was abandoned but that it was probably what tipped the scales once and for all . With air superiority it would have been a dangerous but possible undertaking without it hopeless
 
Whether it was The Royal Navy or British fighter pilots, its their fault I got a D- in German.
 
although it may sound like flag waving, Hitler was distinctly uneasy about invading what at that time was a major very confident power.

Britain was not exactly used to losing battles and respective military power or not, this was going to be a very difficult battle psychlogically

He certainly wavered and if im not mistaken was very keen to secure a treaty

Interestingly, it could be argued by the cynically minded that such a treaty would have been a great option (think it was along lines of Britrain keeping empire etc etc) but its to this countries eternal credit that it was barely considered by those that mattered in goverment
 
Barely considered !! It was more than that Halifax , the Foreign Secretary , almost certainly would have gone for it .He owuld have been Chamberlain and almost certainly King George VI's choice . World history could have been horribly different had Halifax rather than Churchill taken over after the fall of France
 
In March, 1939, the German Army seized the rest of Czechoslovakia. In taking this action, Adolf Hitler had broken the Munich Agreement. Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain, now realized that Hitler could not be trusted and their appeasement policy now came to an end.

After the outbreak of the Second World War Lord Halifax remained as the country's foreign secretary. When Neville Chamberlain resigned in May, 1940, the new premier, Winston Churchill kept Lord Halifax as foreign secretary in order to give the impression that the British government was united against Adolf Hitler
Click to expand...

or maybe not
 
Back
Top