Right-wing activist Ernst Zundel sentenced to 5 years for Holocaust denial

[Susi]

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

The European immigrants who were persecuted by the Canadian legal system had become citizens; they had integrated into the community and were considered good neighbours by everyone but certain Jewish advocacy groups. (Ernst Zündel himself had not become a citizen of Canada but was a legal resident and had married a Canadian woman and had two sons in Canada).

Well this applies to sveral immigrants, the whole legal system thing. In fact, they're kicking out some El Salvadorian "refugees" who have lived here legally for about 10 years because they just can. I don't believe a reason was cited. It happens everywhere, doesn't it? People come, they get kicked out, doesn't matter of their politics.

I want to make clear that the European immigrants who were hounded by Nazi hunters had not offended Canadian society; they had offended a faction in the Jewish community who had less in common with old-stock Canadians than the men they persecuted.

Well since "old-stock" Canadians were French and British, I don't see why they would have the Germans who were the enemies of their respective mother-countries in.

The Canadian attitude to Zündel’s activities was demonstrated when the first set of charges against him were dropped by the Canadian Supreme Court in 1992. It was only after the Supreme Court judges had changed, and by using the new anti-terrorism security certificates, that Zündel was eventually handed over to Germany without a fair trial.

At least he wasn't sent to Syria and tortured, like the poor innocent sap Arar.

The point is that he did not offend his host country; he only enraged a small but politically powerful faction in Canada.

He was still "scornful" of it... so obviously that's offensive, especially to a host.

If you are letting someone stay with you and then they mock you and show you nothing but scorn, what are you going to do? Let them stay to insult you?

I am not arguing in favour of African migrants without papers in Spain, I am talking about post-war refugees in Canada. The unwritten agreement between Canada and the post-war refugees was that they would be able to start new lives and not be turned over to the Soviets if they became hard working citizens.

Again, unwritten. Do you have any evidence of this agreement?

At the end of the war Canada understood it was taking many men who had fought on the Axis side because the Canadian government knew the men and their families would be persecuted in the Soviet occupied countries. This was the unwritten agreement.

I'm sure they'd be persecuted in Canada as well. Remember what side Canada was on? The Allies.

It was also the social contract understood by the Canadian people who welcomed the refugees and the refugees themselves. Zündel himself was not part of the post-war refugee group but I would say he fell under this same unwritten agreement. The social contract was broken by a small “Nazi hunting” faction within Canada, not by Canadians as a whole.

I think most Canadians at that point would find Nazis disagreeable, I mean, they did kill around 40,000 Canadian soldiers. That's quite a few Canadian soldiers.

You had said "that American nutzis have used the case of Ernst Zündel as an argument against Canadians" while ignoring the Germar Rudolf case. I was just pointing out that "American nutzi" sites like Stormfront et al were critical of their government’s actions in that case too.

Yet again, I applaud you on your use of authoritive sources.




Of course, I was not refering to the people commenting on this thread, but to the populations of so many Western countries who do not challenge these anti-hate crime laws.

Zündel is a tragic clown in my opinion but how are we ever going to get anywhere if even nationalists say they don't much care when the legal system is preverted in this way? If Zündel did nothing but draw cartoons he should still be supported as a man being punished for commiting no real crime.

Zündel did something he probably knew was against the law, even though it is an unfair law. *shrug*

I guess I can agree that Canada may have been unfair in handling Zündel's case, but do you honestly think it would have been any different if he had gone to America? To Ireland? To Argentina? To Japan (which has a 99% conviction rate, 95% of which are by confessions)?

[Errigal]

Susi, perhaps the best thing would be for you to Google "Yalta Agreement POWs" and read the many webpages on the subject. It will help you have a better picture of the post-WW2 scene. Yalta and the Axis POWs do not relate directly to Zündel’s case, of course, but they are critical to understanding the unwritten agreement, or social contract, between Canada and its postwar immigrants which I was referring to.

Also, please don't say that unwritten agreements and social contracts have no value, they are a critical piece of what nations are made from. In New World states like Canada, it is almost all there is to work with because there are no strong ties of blood, land or history.

In any case, why on earth do you think Zündel’s conviction is anything but shameful to the governments and nations involved?

[Caesar Princeps]

I was very unpleased at hearing that, since, though I do not share many of his views, I had written to him a Christmas greetings and hope letter. No man should be imprisoned for what it says, even if it speaks clear falsehoods, (unless he did so when required to speak the truth).

[Phlegethon]

Originally Posted by Susi

I think most Canadians at that point would find Nazis disagreeable, I mean, they did kill around 40,000 Canadian soldiers. That's quite a few Canadian soldiers.

Well, that is what you get when you want to play the yahoo in a war that isn't yours. Nobody declared war on Canada, but Canadians did not fail to repeat the same mistake they made when they got involved in the First World War. Of course if you get involved in a war as a combatant without being attacked and get killed in the process you have nobody to blame but yourself.

[Phlegethon]

One single picture can explain more than a million words.

Here's what is wrong with Canada and her Anglophone east coast establishment:

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Phlegethon

One single picture can explain more than a million words.

Here's what is wrong with Canada and her Anglophone east coast establishment:

Yes quite right. "East Coast Establishment" is an American phenomenon but you are right about your main point.

[Susi]

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

Susi, perhaps the best thing would be for you to Google "Yalta Agreement POWs" and read the many webpages on the subject. It will help you have a better picture of the post-WW2 scene. Yalta and the Axis POWs do not relate directly to Zündel’s case, of course, but they are critical to understanding the unwritten agreement, or social contract, between Canada and its postwar immigrants which I was referring to.

But if it is unwritten it means it can go away at any time.. they should have gotten this in writing.

Also, please don't say that unwritten agreements and social contracts have no value, they are a critical piece of what nations are made from. In New World states like Canada, it is almost all there is to work with because there are no strong ties of blood, land or history.

They have some value but they can always be broken.

In any case, why on earth do you think Zündel’s conviction is anything but shameful to the governments and nations involved?

I just don't like being called a serf. And being called worse than America is insulting too.

It is shameful, yes, but he knew the law existed, and he could have gone to many other places, so I don't see why he came here. (Because of the snow? The snow is beautiful...)

Originally Posted by Phlegethon

Well, that is what you get when you want to play the yahoo in a war that isn't yours. Nobody declared war on Canada, but Canadians did not fail to repeat the same mistake they made when they got involved in the First World War. Of course if you get involved in a war as a combatant without being attacked and get killed in the process you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Technically, we got dragged into the First World War without any choice. (Britain's fault). I think there was pressure from Britain to go into the second... (since Canadian citizenship didn't exist until after world war II, I guess they may have been forced into this one too).

Originally Posted by Phlegethon

One single picture can explain more than a million words.

Here's what is wrong with Canada and her Anglophone east coast establishment:

I can't vote! I didn't vote for him!

[Errigal]

I guess that's the jersey for the Israeli national hockey team!

Or maybe the new Tel Aviv Tapirs. Yah! Go Tapirs! Steal the puck just like you stole Palestine!

[Susi]

At least we have snow.

Goddamned Stephen Harper and his horrible photos.

It's like he's trying to make my country look bad...

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

The point is that he did not offend his host country; he only enraged a small but politically powerful faction in Canada.

It doesn't matter where. He would have found the same problem or similar anywhere else. In this respect, I don't think that Canada is any worse than other countries.

Take for example Austria, where a war revisionist like Irving was arrested and charged for holocaust revisionism.. which he doesn't do.

The unwritten agreement between Canada and the post-war refugees was that they would be able to start new lives and not be turned over to the Soviets if they became hard working citizens. At the end of the war Canada understood it was taking many men who had fought on the Axis side because the Canadian government knew the men and their families would be persecuted in the Soviet occupied countries. This was the unwritten agreement.

I have never heard before of such an agreement. Not that I don't give you any credit, but I prefer to remain sceptic unless I see some evidence that such an agreement was ever made.

You had said "that American nutzis have used the case of Ernst Zündel as an argument against Canadians" while ignoring the Germar Rudolf case. I was just pointing out that "American nutzi" sites like Stormfront et al were critical of their government’s actions in that case too.

Bah.. in those sites people say one thing one day and a different thing the next day.

Of course, I was not refering to the people commenting on this thread, but to the populations of so many Western countries who do not challenge these anti-hate crime laws.

So many, virtually all of them.

Zündel is a tragic clown in my opinion but how are we ever going to get anywhere if even nationalists say they don't much care when the legal system is preverted in this way? If Zündel did nothing but draw cartoons he should still be supported as a man being punished for commiting no real crime.

I don't give any credits to Zündel. I believe that the reasons that I've given in this thread are good enough. And they are not the only reasons. That doesn't mean that I believe that punishing by law revisionism of any sort is not an outrage. And I do oppose that.

However, I refuse to let the defense of revisionism to become an issue in nationalist politics. And I'm afraid that that's what's been done.

I don't deny nor assert that the holocaust took place. The arguments of the supporters of the existance of the holocaust do not convince me. But neither do the arguments of the supporters of revisionism against it.

Needless to say, the fact that any discussion or writing about the holocaust which denies that it happened or that any alleged events around the holocaust happened, should make anyone wonder why --if it really happened-- people should not be able to research on it. In other words, it takes any credits out of holocaust supporters.

Conversely, the appearance of a well known swindler in a conference about the holocaust, as part of the group of the holocaust deniers, takes any credits out of holocaust deniers. That goes by logics, I think.

Further to that, even if I assumed that the holocaust was a made up legend, a swindle, I still have to ask why should I sympathize with a cause which has linked itself with someone who has made up another legend, this time against my very own people.

There are many causes in this world which are worth of support to different extends. Among all of them, one must set up priorities and identify which ones are closer and take therefore precedence. And I'm afraid that, as far as I'm concerned, holocaust revisionism has alienated itself.

Do I still believe (and claim) that persecuting people for writing texts where the holocaust is denied? Yes. Absolutely and without a hint of doubt.

Do I believe that people wishing to discuss the holocaust and its existance should be allowed to do so freely? Yes.

Is it fair that, if it never happened at least in the way it is told, Germans should be tainted with it? No, it is very unfair. Actually, it is criminal. And even if it had happened in part or in whole, it was not the German people to blame but some man and his co-religionists. Just like the Russian people, for example, should not be blamed for Stalinism.

It is, in fact, as unfair and criminal as all the many lies spread against Spain in the creation of the Black Legend. Which, as a matter of curiousity, I have seen repeatedly used in nazi and nazi sympathising forums against Spaniards, and not just by simple members. Hypocrisy, apparently, knows of no frontiers.

Finally, do I believe that the holocaust happened? I don't know. I guess that that depends very much on if you ask whether it happened as a whole or in part. And, since I have not done any academic research on the holocaust, I can only speculate and, at best, give a personal opinion. Not a categorical assertion.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Finally, do I believe that the holocaust happened? I don't know.

Holocaust most certainly did not happen. But persecutions of the Jews in the second world war (including mass killings), at hands of Nazis, did happen.

Holocaust does not denote mere persecution of Jews. It designs a special, mythological event, a unique and the most terrible crime in the history of mankind (as they claim). The unicity of "holocaust" (shoah) is its main point. It is part of the whole legend of the second world war. As you may already know, second world war is the founding myth of the modern political philosophy and ideology, it is also the founding myth of the power structures of the "modern West".

It goes something like this (as I interpret it): Jews have endured a kind of "collective" sacrifice for the "bright" future of mankind. It is a perversion of Christianity. According to Christian dogma Jesus Christ died in order to atone our sins, so that we can have an afterlife with God. Jews underwent a collective sacrifice, for the future of mankind, for a heaven on earth to be established. All modern ideologies are about "heaven on earth" (communism, liberal capitalism etc.) So this "sanctity of shoah" is not just about some Jewish lobby imposing it to the rest of humanity, but there are Western power structures which perpetuate it because it is a their founding myth!

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

It doesn't matter where.
Finally, do I believe that the holocaust happened? I don't know. I guess that that depends very much on if you ask whether it happened as a whole or in part. And, since I have not done any academic research on the holocaust, I can only speculate and, at best, give a personal opinion. Not a categorical assertion.

Yes that's quite right. It is not even clear to me what the official version of the Holocaust is. It seems a person could commit the crime of denying the Holocaust by saying something mainstream historians have already agreed upon. I believe an Austrian army officer was charged with saying there were no gas chambers in Austria or Germany when this is the consensus of historians. It is all very Soviet in character.

[M.R.]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Finally, do I believe that the holocaust happened?

Personally, I think it did happen, but people give way to much importance to holocaust and you can hardly hear anything about Poles for example or Russians who suffered just as much as Jews did at the hands of Germans in WWII.

Also, I find it ridiculous how they preach anyone who has shown even slightest animosity towards Jews or Judaism about Holocaust and anti-Semitism here in my country, which has nothing to do with neither Holocaust nor anti-Semitism. In fact there were Slovenians in those camps as well and Nazis fought against us. The Germans did it and only they should pay the price.