IRVING BACK IN COURT

The BBC News website today has an article about David Irving's impending trial in Austria (where he has been incarcerated since November of last year on charges of Holocaust denial). Although this blog is in part a result of my previous "encounters" with David Irving and his despicable revisionist views, I have not really paid much attention to him ever since (well, let's face it - there is only so much to be said about idiocy).

But the new developments in Europe and the Middle East (i.e. the cartoon crisis, Hamas electoral victory and the "weapon of democracy") add a new dimension to his situation because it entails a discussion on the nature of free speech. In Irving's case, a stupid speech - but should it be curbed?

As previously discussed in the blog, several countries have Holocaust denial laws, the strictest of which can be found in Germany and Austria. It is no news that what took place under Nazism shaped much of these countries' 20th century identity and worldview.

David Irving is accustomed to the stage; the man loves the limelight, thriving on the controversy he surrounds himself with. Personally, I have no doubts he is a racist, and an angry one at that. Not only that - he has been officially declared an anti-Semite at the conclusion of the trial he initiated against Prof. Deborah Lipstadt (he sued her for libel when she referred to him as a Holocaust denier and racist in her book about new forms of anti-semitism).

Apparently Irving, in the two weeks right after his arrest, stated that he now does believe in the existence of gas chambers (er, stop the presses...). Quite a change of heart, considering that in the past he focused much attention on compiling evidence that would show the chambers never existed. For that, he borrowed from ludicrous reports such as the one authored by that other self-styled "historian/scientist" (if that is what he is, I then choose to be Margot Fonteyn), Fred Leuchter...

The discussion now is: should anyone be tried, at the risk of being found guilty and consequently incarcerated for 10 years, because he is a Holocaust denier?

On one hand, I understand Austrian and German preoccupation with crushing anti-semitism (after all, these laws stem from the premise that a Holocaust denier is a priori an anti-Semite, which is my view as well). However, I believe that a trial like this provides Irving with some clout of credibility, not to mention that to his acolytes he is a martyr.

I'd rather see Irving continuously fade into nothingness. Slowly but surely forgotten. I'd rather see him cultivate his poise of rebellious semi-senile, self-important, anti-semitic and racist pseudo-intellectual than to see him have a second shot at publicity and try to recreate himself into a man of reason.

The best way to handle the Irvings of the world is to ignore them. Completely. Especially when their ridicule has already been corroborated extensively.