Laughter is the best medicine. And indeed laughter is the best antidote to the poison being spread by British “”historian” David Irving. Mr Irving has cobbled together a large amount of what he calls evidence to discount the extent of the Holocaust. Prime Minister John Howard has rightly called him a crackpot and a nutter.
Mr Irving, however, has cleverly used Mr Howard’s statement at the weekend that the Government has lifted the de-facto censorship on discussion of controversial issues and opened a new era of freedom of speech. He has said he will reapply for a visa to Australia which was denied by the previous Labor Government. That denial has been upheld in the courts. Mr Irving now has presented Mr Howard’s Government with a dilemma. If it does not give him a visa its boast that it has freed speech from the shackles of the politically correct movement is a hollow one. If, on the other hand, it gives him a visa it will incur the wrath of many in the community, particularly Jewish groups, who find Mr Irving’s view abhorrent.
Of course, a country is entitled to deny entry to whomever it wants. But Australia grants entry under the principle of equality under the rule of law. As a general principle, visas are only refused to those who present a threat to national security taken in its broadest sense. Thus people with all by minor criminal convictions are generally excluded. Those who threaten violence are also excluded. Mr Irving does not pose a threat to national security. Nor is he likely to incite violence. It is true he has criminal convictions, but they are convictions for offences related to the attempted propagation of his silly views. There are no directly comparable offences in Australia. In Australia, people are entitled to spout whatever rubbish they want.
Mr Irving poses no threat to anyone in Australia. He may persuade one or two equally crackpot people of his views. The more likely consequence of his coming to Australia for a lecture tour is that he will inspire real historians to lay again the true story of the Holocaust before the eyes of the Australian public. That would be a good thing.
Ultimately, that is what we always come back to in questions of freedom of speech. Truth is more likely to emerge by debate than by suppression. Coupled with the dangers that suppression carries (in that the truth can, at least temporarily, be suppressed as well a lies), it is always better to allow speech to be free than to quash it.
Mr Irving does Australia a great service by reapplying for his visa if the Government is sensible enough to grant it. It will prove what a tolerant society Australia is; how robust and secure its democracy is; and of equal importance, it will permit Mr Irving to show us all the untenable quality of poison he peddles. Further, it will prevent stupid conspiracy theorists from arguing that the official suppression of what Mr Irving has to say proves that there must be something in what he says.
Jewish leader and Ethnic Coalition of Australia spokesman Mark Leibler argues that the question of Mr Irving’s visa has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Not so. It has everything to do with freedom of speech.
Noam Chomsky got it right when he said, “”If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
Let Mr Irving come to Australia. Let him lecture. Let us have a media circus over the visit. And when he goes back to Britain the stark horror of the Holocaust and the lessons it carries for humanity will remain. Indeed, they will be reinforced. One of those lessons, surely, is that totalitarianism cannot co-exist with freedom of speech.