Faurisson affair

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Robert Faurisson

The Faurisson affair is a term given to an academic controversy in the wake of a book by Robert Faurisson, a Holocaust revisionist. The scandal largely dealt with the inclusion of an essay by Noam Chomsky, Some Elementary Comments on the Rights of Freedom of Expression, as an introduction to Faurisson's book. Responding to a request for comment in a climate of attacks on Faurisson, Chomsky defended Faurisson's previous writing (though not his claims) on free speech grounds. His defense was the target of subsequent accusations by various academics and groups. The accusations claimed that his defense went beyond free speech arguments and included defense of Faurisson's work, as well as seeking to discredit Chomsky by claiming a deeper philosophical and political association between him and Faurisson. Faurisson's book questions the truthfulness of the generally accepted historical account of Nazi crimes against the Jews, specifically whether, or to what extent, Jews were actually killed by the Nazis using poison gas. In 2006 he was charged and later convicted and given a three-month probationary sentence and fined F21,000 on the grounds that he denied the holocaust in an interview given to Iranian television, under the Gaysott Act, which prohibits holocaust denial in France. He has also been repeatedly physically attacked as a result of his published views.

1 Faurisson's letters to Le Monde
2 Petition signed by Chomsky
3 Preface to Mémoire en defense
4 Chomsky's response
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Faurisson's letters to Le Monde

In December 1978 and January 1979, Robert Faurisson, a French professor of literature at the University of Lyon, published two letters in Le Monde claiming that the gas chambers used by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews did not exist. [1]

As a result of a TV interview, he was found guilty of defamation and incitement to racial hatred and given a suspended 3-month prison term, and a 21,000-franc (€3,200) fine. In addition he was ordered to pay for the reproduction of the judgement in national newspapers and television. This latter requirement was dropped after he appealed [2].

[edit] Petition signed by Chomsky

In the fall of 1979, American scholar Noam Chomsky signed a petition about the affair:

Dr. Robert Faurisson has served as a respected professor of twentieth-century French literature and document criticism for over four years at the University of Lyon-2 in France. Since 1974 he has been conducting extensive historical research into the "Holocaust" question.

Since he began making his findings public, Professor Faurisson has been subject to a vicious campaign of harassment, intimidation, slander and physical violence in a crude attempt to silence him. Fearful officials have even tried to stop him from further research by denying him access to public libraries and archives.

We strongly protest these efforts to deprive Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and expression, and we condemn the shameful campaign to silence him.

We strongly support Professor Faurisson's just right of academic freedom and we demand that university and government officials do everything possible to ensure his safety and the free exercise of his legal rights.

The petition was signed by roughly 500 people, Chomsky included.

A number of French intellectuals criticized Chomsky's signing of the petition, describing the extent of Faurisson's Holocaust denial and his ties to neo-Nazi groups [3]. In particular, Pierre Vidal-Naquet criticized the wording of the petition as "scandalous", saying that it implied Faurisson was a serious researcher in search of truth and not a propagandist:

What is scandalous about the petition is that it never raises the question of whether what Faurisson is saying is true or false, that it even presents his conclusions or "findings" as the result of a historical investigation, one, that is, in quest of the truth. To be sure, it may be argued that every man has a right to lies and falsehood, and that individual freedom entails that right, which is accorded, in the French liberal tradition, to the accused for his defence. But the right that the forger demands should not be conceded to him in the name of truth. [4]

Vidal-Naquet has also noted that Faurisson was not barred from access to public libraries or archives, and the only archive to ban him was the private Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation) in Paris, which Vidal-Naquet sees as entirely consistent with its declared mission ("the fact that the staff of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, challenged in its fundamental activity, that of the memory of the crime, should --after years of forbearance-- refuse to serve Faurisson seems perfectly normal to me."). (ibid), [5]

[edit] Preface to Mémoire en defense

Chomsky subsequently wrote an essay entitled Some Elementary Comments on the Rights of Freedom of Expression, in which he attacked his critics for failing to respect the principle of freedom of speech, and defended Faurisson himself against charges that he was an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi.

Chomsky wrote:

Faurisson's conclusions are diametrically opposed to views I hold and have frequently expressed in print (for example, in my book Peace in the Middle East, where I describe the Holocaust as "the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history"). But it is elementary that freedom of expression (including academic freedom) is not to be restricted to views of which one approves, and that it is precisely in the case of views that are almost universally despised and condemned that this right must be most vigorously defended. It is easy enough to defend those who need no defense or to join in unanimous (and often justified) condemnation of a violation of civil rights by some official enemy. [6]

In defense of Faurisson himself, he wrote:

Let me add a final remark about Faurisson's alleged "anti-Semitism." Note first that even if Faurisson were to be a rabid anti-Semite and fanatic pro-Nazi -- such charges have been presented to me in private correspondence that it would be improper to cite in detail here -- this would have no bearing whatsoever on the legitimacy of the defense of his civil rights. On the contrary, it would make it all the more imperative to defend them since, once again, it has been a truism for years, indeed centuries, that it is precisely in the case of horrendous ideas that the right of free expression must be most vigorously defended; it is easy enough to defend free expression for those who require no such defense. Putting this central issue aside, is it true that Faurisson is an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi? As noted earlier, I do not know his work very well. But from what I have read -- largely as a result of the nature of the attacks on him -- I find no evidence to support either conclusion. Nor do I find credible evidence in the material that I have read concerning him, either in the public record or in private correspondence. As far as I can determine, he is a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort.

Chomsky granted permission for the essay to be used for any purpose. Serge Thion then used it as a preface when publishing a book by Faurisson, without Chomsky's knowledge. Later Chomsky requested that the essay not be used in this manner, since he believed the French intellectual community was so incapable of understanding freedom of speech that it would only confuse them further, but his request came too late for the book to be changed. Chomsky subsequently said that asking for the preface to be removed is his one regret in the matter.

Chomsky's essay sparked an even greater controversy.

Critics such as Pierre Vidal-Naquet attacked him not for defending the principle of freedom of speech, but for defending Faurisson personally against charges of anti-Semitism and upholding his work as historical inquiry:

The simple truth, Noam Chomsky, is that you were unable to abide by the ethical maxim you had imposed. You had the right to say: my worst enemy has the right to be free, on condition that he not ask for my death or that of my brothers. You did not have the right to say: my worst enemy is a comrade, or a "relatively apolitical sort of liberal." You did not have the right to take a falsifier of history and to recast him in the colors of truth. [7]

Vidal-Naquet offered the following argument to substantiate his characterisation of Faurisson as an antisemite:

I shall simply say: Faurisson's personal anti-Semitism, in fact, interests me rather little. It exists and I can testify to it, but it is nothing compared with the anti- Semitism of his texts. Is it anti-Semitic to write with consummate calm that in requiring Jews to wear the yellow star starting at the age of six "Hitler was perhaps less concerned with the Jewish question than with ensuring the safety of German soldiers" (Vérité, p. 190) ? Certainly not, within Faurisson's logic, since in the final analysis there is no practical anti-Semitism possible. But within Chomsky's logic? Is the invention of an imaginary declaration of war against Hitler, in the name of the international Jewish community, by an imaginary president of the World Jewish Congress, a case of anti-Semitism or of deliberate falsification? (Vidal-Naquet, op. cit.)

John Goldsmith writes that "Unsympathetic critics used it as an opportunity to brand Chomsky with anti-Semitic labels, but even critics potentially sympathetic to Chomsky's political views felt his remarks showed lack of judgment." [8]

Other critics held that Faurisson's statements were the archetype of anti-Semitism, and that the logical conclusion of Chomsky's statement would be that Nazism was not anti-Semitic. The main argument for this is that Holocaust deniers are not interested in truth, but "motivated by racism, extremism, and virulent anti-Semitism" ([9] Deborah Lipstadt, in Dimensions, the journal of the ADL).

[edit] Chomsky's response

Subsequently, Chomsky argued that there was a difference between the acceptance of historical facts (in this case, the existence of gas chambers, denied by Faurisson) and the attitude towards certain people (hatred of the Jews, anti-Semitism, perhaps also held by Faurisson):

"I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson's work." (quoted in Noam Chomsky's Search for the Truth)

He later elaborated:

"In that context, I made a further point: even denial of the Holocaust would not prove that a person is an anti-Semite. I presume that that point too is not subject to contention. Thus if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite. That suffices to establish the point at issue." [10]

Currently on Chomsky's own website he states:

"A professor of French literature was suspended from teaching on grounds that he could not be protected from violence, after privately printing pamphlets questioning the existence of gas chambers. He was then brought to trial for "falsification of History," and later condemned for this crime, the first time that a modern Western state openly affirmed the Stalinist-Nazi doctrine that the state will determine historical truth and punish deviation from it. Later he was beaten practically to death by Jewish terrorists. As of now, the European and other intellectuals have not expressed any opposition to these scandals; rather, they have sought to disguise their profound commitment to Stalinist-Nazi doctrine by following the same models, trying to divert attention with a flood of outrageous lies.

[A]s to the minor matter of my role ... it has been the subject of a flood of lies and deceit...

In His Right to Say It, published in The Nation, Chomsky states: "It seems to me something of a scandal that it is even necessary to debate these issues two centuries after Voltaire defended the right of free expression for views he detested. It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers." He stressed the conceptual distinction between endorsing someone's view and defending his right to say it.