Should laws be passed against denying the atrocities of Stalin and Mao?
Interesting question from Petteri Tuohinen of Helsingin Sanomat…
Taking part in the struggle against the far right, Germany, the current holder of the EU Presidency, is also actively at work, demanding the criminalisation of holocaust denial lin all EU member states.
Placing a quarantine on a democratically elected party group is not without problems. Should there also be a boycott against communists, if they are linked with the dictatorships of Stalin or Mao? Should laws be passed against denying the atrocities of Stalin and Mao?
nein.
Comment by liberty advocant — Thu, Jan 25th, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
Phil:
Not to mention the atrocities of e.g. Kissinger&Nixon or Bush&Blair. That HeSa is so “welfare-statist” and “anti-US”, right?
Comment by Thomas — Thu, Jan 25th, 2007 @ 11:51 pm
Not to mention the atrocities of e.g. Kissinger&Nixon or Bush&Blair. That HeSa is so “welfare-statist†and “anti-USâ€Â, right?
Exactly. Should it be a crime to agree with the War in Iraq?
Comment by Phil — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 12:03 am
I’m comfortable with Germnay’s anti-Nazi laws in general, but I don’t agree with the laws against holocaust denial. The revisionists should be exposed to open debate in order to underline what kooks they are, much like, say, anti-IPCC naysayers or flat earthers.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 12:32 am
Phil:
“Exactly. Should it be a crime to agree with the War in Iraq?”
Where is that a crime? In Finland? Where in the “civilised world” is that a crime?
No, IMHO it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be a CRIME to be an idiot.
I’m for free speech. But I’m for it, not only in legal terms (big bad government), but also in the sense that society in general shouldn’t be able to block it. I see no difference really - in terms of consequences for the individual - if it is the FBI (insert yot favourite secret police acronym), or your neighbours/employer/whatever that fuck up your life.
So e.g. Noam Chomsky should have the right of free speech, even if/when he’s defending the right of right of free speech of some anti-holocaust activist. If Noam Chomsky defends THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH of a holocaust-denier, he should damn well be given the right to do so. Not having right-wing (and many other) idiots calling him a “self-hating jew” or “nazi” or …
Comment by Thomas — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 12:33 am
Free speech, good.
These deniers are just plain Liers, especially since many of these people are profiting from the spreading of lies.
How is lying free speech? Where do you draw the line? If a person can be slandered, can’t an act as well. We all know that you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater, or can you now?
This is all just plain stupid. A society with common sense would not need to debate whether a person has the right to deny something that is a fact like the holocaust. Might as well deny gravity.
Comment by Fred Fry — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 6:41 am
Who is to decide what is “fact?” The one with the biggest media outlet? The most political power? The victor of war perhaps?
Or is “fact” just so obvious that we all simply agree? After all, most of us personally witnessed the holocaust, didn’t we?
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 7:54 am
Thomas - I think we’re in complete agreement on this issue.
Comment by Phil — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 8:13 am
Hey, let’s lock up Christians for believing in creationism. Scientists have proved that the earth has been around for billions of years, so if you say otherwise, you goto jail.
Comment by Phil — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 8:15 am
Phil: “Scientists have proved that the earth has been around for billions of years”
Or *round* for that matter. Remember, a few hundred-years-ago, the Earth was flat. That was a “fact” and people were imprisoned for stating otherwise.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 9:22 am
Why is this an EU matter in the first place? I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer it if the EU Parliament had no power to limit freedom of speech in Finland.
Comment by a lamb with no guiding light — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 9:43 am
Might as well deny gravity.
Or global warming. Or the fact that in 2003 Iraq had complied with UN resolutions and no longer had a chemical weapons program…
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 9:46 am
@4,
Quite apart from any moral issues, it’s a good idea for Germany to have a law against Nazi ideas, as any kind of public, legal Nazi presence would be a PR disaster for Germany. A bit like every time some dorks put on their sheets and do a Klan parade (fairly harmless these days, AFAIK), they are not doing the American South any favours. And laws addressing the nasty behaviour of your own nation are not the same as laws pointing fingers at other nations (the French law about the Armenian genocide). But if we need an all-European thought crime, colonialism might be a more useful target. Remind everyone of what the civilizing mission in, say, Africa was really like, lest people forget and start thinking we have a duty to pick up the white man’s burden and set the world to rights.
@6,
They do not need to lie, a misleading truth will work well enough. It is quite true that many concentration camps had no gas chambers and some that did never used them. This is because they started as holding tanks for political prisoners and not as places of extermination, and many were not used for genocide at all. Most people have a fairly vague idea of what happened and will be confused by facts like this. And then there are frauds like ‘Benyamin Wilkomirski’, who got a couple of prizes for his Holocaust memoirs (in France and the US, IIRC) before being exposed as a fraud, they make easy targets for deniers. But the intent of these guys is evil. I like Iain Banks’s idea in one of his books, which was to beat up a Holocaust denier in a live TV broadcast and deny it ever happened.
What’s your position on Intelligent design, BTW? Do people have the right to deny evolution, a well established scientific fact? Religious freedom allows for belief in creator Gods etc., but Intelligent Design pretends to be science, not religion, and cannot claim that excuse.
@10,
people did not believe that the Earth was flat (that we know of - no-one bothered to write down the opinions of the illiterate majority). Flat earth views were held by about two individuals in the entire western history (Celsus, Cosmas Indicopleutes) and they had no influence worth mentioning.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 12:37 pm
“Why is this an EU matter in the first place? I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer it if the EU Parliament had no power to limit freedom of speech in Finland.”
It is an EU matter because they are not interested in thousands of neo-natzis, Hitlerites, and just plain old Germans remembering the ‘glory days’ of the third Reich where Germany rose up from the mess of post WWI defeat, before they started losing the war. Just as the ex-Soviets gather in Estonia and fly the USSR Flag to memorialize their dead, you can bet that lots of Germans (and Europeans in General) would come out of the woodwork to have ceremonies to memorialize the dead and the past.
Then once they are done paying respect, they might do something a little more violent.
Just saying.
Comment by Fred Fry — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
Phil:
“Thomas - I think we’re in complete agreement on this issue.”
Yes, I think we agree on free speech. Nice to agree on something for a change.
But do you agree that Kissinger ought to “hang” (I’m against the death penalty, so therefore the quotation marks) for his crimes, or do you consider him a STATESMAN? What about B&B?
I’m so tired of these columnists bringing up the same dead horses to flog. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic … and so on. Aren’t they able to bring up something new for a change. Everybody - at least in Finland - know that Mao and Stalin were not very “humanistic” in their approach.
Why doesn’t the HeSa columnist attack somebody whose “evil status” brings up some further questions. Like e.g. (what a joke) Nobel Peace Prize winner, and mass-murderer, Henry Kissinger. That would be more interesting than these tired old analogies. So if Kissinger would be used (as he certainly should) as an example of EVIL, what political movement should be boycotted in his case?
Comment by Thomas — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
More than worrying about officially banning a single opinion I’m worried about the increasing number viewpoints that Finnish (and EU Commission) social scientists cannot express and expect to be taken seriously professionally and to receive funding for further studies. I’m worried about the “socializing of truthâ€Â, i.e. the tendency that most social science research funding has to go through such a politically correct, consensus seeking process that by the time a project gets funding, we all can safely guess its results and policy recommendations.
The outright banning of a single opinion is the logical outcome of this development in funding, but before we can observe any bans, there has most likely been blurring of freedom of thought on a much wider list of topics.
I’ve compiled a (not comprehensive!)list of results that I fear one should not get if one wishes to work / to receive consultancy jobs/ to receive grants or data in social science research:
â€ÂCommunism was at least as bad as nazismâ€Â
“A large part of Finns want to be able to buy health services with their own money instead of supporting the welfare state and relying on its servicesâ€Â
“Finns are not exceptionally honorable people. Instead, Finns tend to either not even realize when some behavior is racist, sexist, or corrupt, or deny the interpretation of those incidents.â€Â
“Finns have lower than the western European standard of living. The explanation for this state of affairs is not the utter poorness of the population after WWII, but the slower than the European average recuperation speed from the devastation of WWII.â€Â
“War remunerations and the Soviet era were devastating for the development of Finnish industry and we still suffer from the state of mind that era has imprinted on us.â€Â
“Finnish educational system fails both taxpayers and the students.â€Â
“Higher education is a not good investment if one wishes to make a career in Finland.â€Â
“If you care about the climate change, you should not support rail transportation for packaged goods or passengersâ€Â
“Metro provides lousy metropolitan planning but plenty of opportunities for mutual back scratching for developers, politicians and bureaucrats.â€Â
“Single family housing increases welfare-enhancing social interaction between people.â€Â
Comment by Mara — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 3:42 pm
Good idea. That should also include Bush and Blair.
Comment by bafana — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 4:52 pm
Fred, since you seem to support the EU squelching our freedom of speech, can I assume you also support the US restricting speech of the KKK?
That is, you’d favor ditching the First Amendment of your Constitution?
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 5:52 pm
Fred, while I’m not sure that there’s a positive correlation between Holocaust denial being legal and Nazi riots, why can’t individual countries deal with the issue on their own should it become a problem? There are two questions here: 1.) Is a ban on Holocaust denial a good idea? 2.) Should the EU parliament be allowed to limit freedom of speech in member countries? You seem to be arguing #1, whereas I was questioning #2.
Comment by a lamb with no guiding light — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 9:44 pm
How does one even “measure” the evil of regimes. Do you measure it in deaths? Well then Stalin’s regime WAS really worse than Hitler’s. But do you also measure it in means? Is the gas chamber a more odious manner of death than the gulag? Do we measure it by ideology? Is it less acceptable to commit genocide based on racist principles than “egalitarian” communist principles? If the numbers add up in the end, does it matter if you were killed by the Nazis for being a Jew, or killed by the Soviets for owning a farm?
I think people should be able to think and say whatever they want. I mean the Russians still deny that the Soviets occupied Estonia. They get up in front of PACE or the UN and say that they somehow liberated the country, when the Soviets killed more than 60,000 Estonians, and the Nazis killed 7,000 - and that’s just in the 1940s. Yet were the Nazis worse? And again, how does one measure such a thing?
It seems like an impossible task.
Comment by giustino — Fri, Jan 26th, 2007 @ 9:57 pm
“Fred, since you seem to support the EU squelching our freedom of speech, can I assume you also support the US restricting speech of the KKK?”
Take a look at my comment again. I was just explaining why I thought the EU saw this as an issue. Let them talk all they want. It is easier to avoid them that way.
Comment by Fred Fry — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 12:41 am
Facts are facts only when they are supported by facts. Otherwise they are nothing more than fiction.
If one doesn’t have access to all the data and documents that is needed to review something, that is said as fact by someone and fiction by others, how can we be sure what is fact and what is fiction.
Fictions are used as facts to achieve some targets by governments, that are proved wrong later.
Vietnam war was ignited because it was said they attacked U.S.S. Maddox, and another ship ..and in reality we never know was it even attached by them.
Iraq war started because it was a fact by that time that Saddam had WMD.
US committed bigger war crimes in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq than any other country.
So, who knows what was the reality that time when we were not born at all. Let new generation discover the fact for everything, freely, and let us decide what was right and what was wrong.
The one who wins is always right in this world.
Comment by Mil — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 10:22 am
Fred—in #6, you seemed to equate yelling fire in a movie theater with denying the holocaust, implying that both should be illegal. If not, then sorry I missed your point on that one.
Anyway, I see restrictions on speech to be dangerous for Europe. I wish we’d all adopt American-style First Amendments here.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 10:41 am
Mara, #16, you are right in saying that there are some “taboos” that people are not supposed to utter to be able to stay “politically acceptable” in Finland. Such is the case in all countries. But I think (or rather hope) even our leftist/multiculturalist-consensus society cannot reject the results of good and sound research. My question to you is, could you really back all those “results” with sound data and without getting overly ideological? Some of them (or their implications) seem a bit suspect. You know ideological bias can blur the vision of even those who oppose the ruling paradigm and want to change it…
Comment by Drakon — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 12:26 pm
Giustino:
“Is it less acceptable to commit genocide based on racist principles than “egalitarian†communist principles?”
Is it less acceptable to commit genocide on “egalitarian communist” principles, than to commit it in the name of western civilisation (or whatever is the “political movement” behind e.g. Kissinger&Nixon or Bush&Blair)?
Point being, all those others (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Milosevic, Hussein + all the other usual suspects) have already been condemned to hell, whereas Kissinger travels around the world and gives talks earning him incredible fees. Much like B&B will do in the future. But they are mass-murderers nonetheless. Although they may not have “murdered” anyone with close ties to you, it does not make their actions less reprehensible.
Comment by Thomas — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
Kristian:
“I wish we’d all adopt American-style First Amendments here.”
Are these the ones McCarthy used to fuck up the life of numerous americans in the 50s?
Comment by Thomas — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 4:05 pm
Kristian,
Maybe I did not explain #6 well enough. I am all for free speech, but there are some limits. Is yelling ‘fire’ free speech? I say no and there are laws that say that acts like that are not free speech.
Take the act of immunizing children from polio. The only reason polio is still a problem in the world is because of ‘free speech’ with imams telling mostly uneducated followers that the immunization will make your children sterile because of some US plot against them. Thanks to that, polio is spreading in muslim countries. Does not matter that the medicine is coming from muslim countries as are the doctors. Now the only truth to the rumor is that the US paid for the vaccine and perhaps created it, but to kill polio. As a result, children die. Is that free speech when it results in injuries and death?
As for denying the holocaust, please explain to me how that is free speech. Do we all here agree that it happened? Any deniers here?
Talk about the holocaust all you want, but how do you have a discussion with someone whose opinion that the holocaust is a work of fiction?
Comment by Fred Fry — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 5:19 pm
Fred Fry:
“Take the act of immunizing children from polio. The only reason polio is still a problem in the world is because of ‘free speech’ with imams telling mostly uneducated followers that the immunization will make your children sterile because of some US plot against them.”
Are you saying that it is 100% certain, that polio vaccinations weren’t tests of something else, or that while vaccinating against polio, some mistakes weren’t made that could have caused harm? I saw a documentary concerning AIDS, that had some disturbing things to say about African vaccination programs in the 60s (I believe that was the time).
“As for denying the holocaust, please explain to me how that is free speech. Do we all here agree that it happened? Any deniers here?”
Not a denier, but I’m getting sick and tired of non-deniers that defend nazi-Israels genocide in terms of the holocaust. Nazis are nazis, even if they happen to be jews.
Comment by Thomas — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 6:23 pm
Fred:
“As for denying the holocaust, please explain to me how that is free speech.”
Very simple. Let the listener decide if it’s believable or not. Unlike yelling fire in a theater, there’s really no imminent danger to anyone.
“ Do we all here agree that it happened? Any deniers here?”
I don’t doubt that it happened. But the magnitude is disputed, and restrictions on speech will likely delay scholarly efforts to reveal the past.
Besides, as was mentioned, it’s not the only tragedy in history. I don’t see why this one should get special treatment over others.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
Kristian,
One issue with the holocaust is that the Jews have chosen to remember.
Many other chose to forget all sorts of other tragedies. Even when there is a call to investigate, others fight not to dig up the past. We can play number games too. Half of the Jews supposedly were Russian Jews. Say 2 mil. There were over 25 million Russians who died during WWI, over half killed by their own Government. Why not remember that?
Instead will will harp on the US, while Russia still is running around killing people while the rest of Europe turns a blind eye.
Thanks to free speech, I can say that. In this case, it is regulated by Phil.
Comment by Fred Fry — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 9:34 pm
Fred Fry:
“One issue with the holocaust is that the Jews have chosen to remember.”
They remember what? How to inflict pain on a people that has no shelter? Or, how to torture, murder and get away with it. Israel happens to be the most vicious “democracy” there is nowadays. The U.S. and U.K. withdrawn.
Comment by Thomas — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
Fred Fry:
“There were over 25 million Russians who died during WWI, over half killed by their own Government. Why not remember that?”
Let’s talk about dead people. Let’s talk about the millions your precious government killed in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Indonesia (e.g. east-timor),…
Clean up your own fucking dirty house before you start blaming others. Asshole.
Comment by Thomas — Sat, Jan 27th, 2007 @ 11:31 pm
I was just reminded that laws are not the only way to limit free speech.
Comment by Fred Fry — Sun, Jan 28th, 2007 @ 3:12 am
Fred—
Sorry for the coarseness coming from this side…..
Fred: “Jews have chosen to remember.
Many other chose to forget all sorts of other tragedies.”
Yes, most victims of Stalin were behind the Iron Curtain. There’s also a language barrier. But, in the end, it’s a person’s choice to remember or forget. I’m sure if they find good political advantage, they’ll remember.
Fred: “Instead will will harp on the US, while Russia still is running around killing people while the rest of Europe turns a blind eye.”
It’s true. And that was one of the criticisms of America’s Afghanistan/Iraq invasion—it would divert attention away from Russia’s affairs in places like Chechnya. Of course, Russia isn’t pressing european countries to join its forays, so maybe that’s a reason why there’s less attention payed to it. I did see lots of critical reporting about it in Germany over the past years—and that was during Russia-friendly Schroeder’s reign.
Interestingly, Russia and the US are ultimately working toward parallel goals: Whereas America would like to decrease Saudi Arabia’s ability to set prices and control its market share (via its reserve capacity), Russia wants to increase its market share by selling huge quantities of its own resources.
Due to re-nationalization, Russia doesn’t have the capital to effect a sufficient delivery system; but the US does. So there’s a wink wink relationship between the US and Russia: “You do what you need on your end, and we’ll do what’s necessary on ours.”
Wikipedia: “Chechnya was at a major chokepoint in the oil-infrastructure of the country and hence would hurt the country’s economy and control of oil resources.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya
That remind me, I wonder if your Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline will ever reach fruition
Wikipedia: “…construction of the Turkmen part was supposed to start in 2006, but the overall feasibility is questionable since the southern part of the Afghan section runs through territory which continues to be under de facto Taliban control.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Sun, Jan 28th, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
“Sorry for the coarseness coming from this side…..”
Free speech is an amazing thing. There is also the ability to ignore comments and commenters entirely.
There is just a problem when too many of these stupid people get together, the stupidity condenses. (Joukossa….)
It is all funnier in that the general impression is that people like me are the ones trying to kill free speech. My only concern is to make sure that people like that don’t gain power.
Comment by Fred Fry — Sun, Jan 28th, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
#24 Drakon:
Sorry to get back to you this late. My lame excuse is an intensive work period.
I do not know if I could plausibly argue for the claims. In compiling the list I was thinking of results one should not get in order to stay in good relations with “the system”. The point I was trying to make was that if one never gets funding to study topics that could produce such results, one never does those studies in the first place. Or due to the limited research opportunity one ends up doing something so haphazard that it is just enough to brand the author as politically incorrect while the message is easily ignored. And the whole excersice only lessens the author’s chances of getting any future funding for any research. So the “banned” topics lack discussion arena, core discussants, research traditions, and funding channels.
Comment by Mara — Mon, Feb 5th, 2007 @ 1:49 pm