The Adventure of Revisionism
by Robert Faurisson
Translated by Theodore J. O’Keefe.
With rare exceptions, a Revisionist researcher is not an
intellectual closeted in his study. Even if he were to choose a
hermit’s life, society would soon see to the end of his isolation.
To begin with, a Revisionist must be willing to travel
wherever his research requires, and to carry out investigations on
the spot. And because he’ll receive no help from the authorities –
on the contrary – the Revisionist must learn to outwit his
adversaries and overcome a hundred obstacles to achieve his goals.
Life itself becomes his teacher.
He must establish and cultivate contacts with fellow
Revisionists around the globe, for no researcher can isolate
himself from the work of others. Speaking for myself, Revisionism
has brought me to many lands, in particular the United States of
America, Canada and Germany, as well as
Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Austria,
Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Poland, and a few other countries.
(Historical Revisionism is also growing in Australia, New Zealand,
Ukraine, Japan, Tunisia, South Africa, Iran and Peru.)
In cultivating these contacts, one discovers the ways that
different mentalities – Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Latin, Arab, Jewish,
Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and atheist – confront one of the
mightiest taboos in history: the Jewish “Holocaust.” Revisionism,
which lays bare the taboo,
thus uncovers differences in outlook as well.
It reveals, too, what individuals are made of and how
institutions
actually function. I like to watch the face of a man or a woman,
an
oldster or a teenager, as he or she trembles upon hearing, for the
first
time, the sacrilegious words of a Revisionist. With some, the face
colors
and the eyes light up: curiosity is aroused. Others pale; the
person who
believed in his own tolerance discovers his bigotry, and the one
who had
easily opened his heart quickly slams it shut.
Confronted by Revisionism, institutions likewise show
themselves for what they are: products of circumstantial
arrangements on which time has
conferred an aura of respectability. The judiciary, for instance,
claims to defend justice (a virtue!) or to uphold the law (a
necessity), and would have us believe that, as a group, judges care
for truth. But, when a judge finds himself obliged to try a
Revisionist, how odd to watch as he
jettisons the scruples he and his colleagues claim to honor! When
faced with a Revisionist, there exists for a judge neither faith,
nor law, nor right. In confronting Revisionism, the judiciary
shows just how rickety it is.
As for the petty little world of journalism, the media
demonstrates
how it, more than anyone, is careful to traffic only in authorized
ideas
and wares; while at the same time it fosters, through its antics,
the
illusion of a free circulation of ideas and opinions – not unlike
jesters
in a tyrant’s court.
The Revisionist lives dangerously. Police, judges and
journalists
lurk in wait for him. He may end up in prison – or the hospital.
He risks
economic ruin for himself and his family. Little of that matters
to him.
He lives, he dreams, he imagines. He feels that he is free. It’s
not that
he cherishes illusions about the impact of his findings. These
frighten
everyone; they are too much in contradiction to accepted knowledge.
These
findings strike at two great human mysteries: the general mystery
of fear,
and the specific mystery of the need for belief, belief in
something, no
matter what.
One historian, after finishing a five-volume _History of
Mankind_, was
once asked: “After all is said and done, what is the chief
motivation of
human history?” After a long hesitation, he replied: “Fear.”
There is no
question that fear is an overwhelming factor, and that it assumes
in man,
more than in beast, the most striking, and sometimes the most
ludicrous,
forms, no less than the most deceptive disguises. In most men, but
certainly not in all, the mystery of fear combines with another
mystery:
that is, as already indicated, the need, the desire, or the will to
believe
for the sake of believing. For this there is a saying in English
that we
lack in French: “the will to believe.” Celine said: “The fury to
lie and
TO BELIEVE spreads like the itch.” (“La rage de mentir ET DE
CROIRE
s’attrape comme la gale.”) Before him, La Fontaine noted: “Man is
frozen
to truths. He is on fire for lies.” (“L’homme est de glace aux
verites.
Il est de feu pour les mensonges.”)
Revisionism can correct history, but it will correct nothing
of human
nature. On the other hand, the future will prove the Revisionists,
as
writers of history, were right. There is already too much evidence
to show
that the progress of Revisionism is inexorable. Revisionism is
destined
for a place in history as “the great intellectual adventure of the
end of
the century.”
*******************************************************************
Richard Widmann
C.O.D.O.H.
http://www.valleynet.com/~brsmith/
*******************************************************************
From [email protected] Wed Jun 26 18:06:15 PDT 1996
Article: 46150 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Richard Widmann)
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Subject: The Adventure of Revisionism
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