Path: news.txdirect.net!veritas!jamie
From: jamie@veritas.nizkor.org (Jamie McCarthy)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Zundel wanting "Schindler's List" banned
Date: 3 Mar 1997 17:55:56 GMT
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This article did _not_ arrive on my ISP's server, but it was posted to a
mailing list I happen to subscribe to.  My apologies for not responding
until now.  I remind everyone that I welcome email Cc's of posted
articles which concern me.

Christopher Saunders (cjsaunde@netcom.ca) wrote, on February 26th:

> jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy) wrote:
> 
> >   The movie generates hatred against Germans, and it should be
> >   possible to ban it under "hate laws" in Canada, Germany, and other
> >   countries. Photocopy and distribute this, and join the worldwide
> >   campaign to BAN SCHINDLER'S LIST!
> >               - Ernst Zundel
> >
> >   http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/z/zundel-ernst/censorship/
> >
> >I must state firmly for the record that, as Christian Lindtner says,
> >I consider it my obligation to speak out against Zundel's efforts to
> >have freedom of opinion and expression suppressed.  I hope all of us
> >who read this agree.
> 
> I don't agree with Ernst Zundel's opinion that "Schindler's List"
> should be banned.  However, he may be calling for this movie to be
> banned as "anti-German hate propaganda" (my words) because many people
> are calling for HIS material to be banned.  It's a matter of "what's
> good for the goose is good for the gander."

I notice you went from "he may" in your second sentence to "it is" in
your third.  You should have stuck with "may."  This claim doesn't hold
water upon inspection.

First of all, I invite the reader to examine the URL above and the
subpages involving Mr. Zundel's 1994 call for worldwide censorship of
the film "Schindler's List" and his 1980 call for Canadian censorship of
the TV miniseries "The Holocaust."  Then, I ask the reader to return to
this Usenet article and consider the following points:

Point:

Mr. Zundel has never, to my knowledge, made this excuse for his own
actions.  He has called for censorship, and _others_ (such as yourself,
Mr. Saunders) have excused that by saying it was his way of calling
attention to unfair laws.  Mr. Zundel, himself, has never given any
excuse or explanation of why he appears to favor censorship.

Point:

Mr. Saunders, if you had read the web page whose URL is cited above, you
would have known that Zundel's call for censorship of the TV miniseries
"Holocaust" came in 1980.  This was at least a year _before_ anyone took
legal action of any kind against Mr. Zundel -- according to Michael
Hoffman's book _The Great Holocaust Trial_ (1st ed.).

In fact, Mr. Zundel calls for unspecified "hate laws" to be enforced, in
order to shut down "Holocaust" specifically in Canada.  How ironic,
then, that only a few years later those same "hate laws" which he
endorsed were used against his fellow Naziphiles (such as Keegstra, if
my memory holds).

If anyone thinks Mr. Zundel's call to action, based on those "hate
laws," was actually a satirical indictment of _future_ events, if anyone
thinks that Mr. Zundel's truth-discerning powers extend even to truths
which have not yet come to pass, let that person say so now.  Until
anyone actually advances this argument, I don't think it's worthy of
consideration.

Point:

If you read Mr. Zundel's own words about censorship, you'll see plenty
of invective against the films he dislikes:

   * "slander"
   * "lies"
   * "[supporting] genocide"
   * "tyranny"
   * "terror"
   * "swindle"
   * "evil"
   * "prejudice[d]"
   * "outright lies"
   * "hymn of hate"
   * "notorious"
   * "self-serving"
   * "lies and hate"

Etc.

How much rhetorical device does Mr. Zundel invest in protesting
censorship?  Precisely none.

In fact, his toleration of censorship can be seen by his refusal even to
use the word -- when he approvingly notes that "Schindler's List" is
banned in the Philippines, he does so with a euphemism:  "It is not seen
in the Philippines because of the nudity."

"It is not seen"?  Please!  Is that how much Mr. Zundel detests
censorship, that he attempts to distract his readers from the fact that
censorship is here at work?

That would be awfully subtle satire, don't you think?

Point:

The call to ban "Schindler's List" was explicitly stated to be
worldwide, which neatly eliminates the argument that Zundel's target was
_Canadian_ anti-hate laws.  Perhaps one could argue that Mr. Zundel was
protesting laws against freedom of expression in various other countries
around the world (China, Tibet, Myanmar, North Korea, gosh the list is
rather long isn't it and we haven't even gotten out of Asia).

I don't think this will hold water.

Point:

With the recent airing of "Schindler" on network television, Mr. Zundel
embarked on a boycott campaign of the film.  Preventing the film from
being seen is obviously a cause which he still holds worthy.

Yet, this time around, there is no mention of his previous supposedly
satirical attempt to have it banned outright.  A curious omission.

Point:

Mr. Zundel (and his Zgram writer Ms. Rimland) were invited to clarify
this subject by responding to the above points.  Mr. Zundel held silent.
Apart from briefly repeating the same argument you did, Ms. Rimland
also held silent.  In fact, they have had over a year to give their
explanations to all these points, and have responded with silence:

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/z/zundel.ernst/censorship/offer-001.txt

They are hereby both reminded, again, that the invitation to respond has
no expiration date.

If Mr. Zundel believes that his word is good enough -- if he believes
that we should trust that his intentions in 1980 and 1994 were merely
the noble destruction of vicious anti-hate laws, without evidence to
that effect and despite evidence to the contary -- then he should
respond by saying that you, Ms. Rimland, and others who have advanced
this claim are correct.  If that is what he believes, then that ends it:
we have his word, we have some evidence that he is lying, and we, being
reasonable people, can judge which is stronger.

Or if he would like to bring some new evidence to the table, he is of
course welcome to do that, as well.  Perhaps there was a "page two" to
the censorious pamphlets which I'm not aware of, which explains that,
ha-ha, it is all clever satire.

Bottom line?  If Mr. Zundel has anything to say in his defense, I invite
him to read carefully this message, plus the URL above, plus reread his
own words about "Holocaust" and "Schindler," and then to pen a response
and let us know whether he endorses Ms. Rimland's fatuous claim that
this is a case of his satirically saying "good for the goose."

In fact, Mr. Saunders, since you have made this same fatuous claim, and
since I believe you know Mr. Zundel personally, perhaps you could convey
this message to him.

We will be happy to archive his response at Nizkor and to link directly
to it.  Thank you.

Posted;  emailed to Mr. Saunders.  This article will be archived at:

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/z/zundel.ernst/censorship/offer-002.txt
--
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@nizkor.org     Director of Operations, The Nizkor Project
                                          http://www.nizkor.org/

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