01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 Faurisson and his revisionist writings

The Faurisson Affair Robert Faurisson, a professor of French literature at the University of Lyon, France, was relieved of his duties "on the grounds that he could not be protected from attacks carried out against him as a result of his views, and he was sued in court for writings denying the existence of gas chambers in Nazi Germany and calling into question the Holocaust itself" (Herman, "Pol Pot" 600). He was successfully convicted for falsification of history by a judgment that, according to Chomsky, "reeks of Stalinism and fascism, and was naturally applauded by the French intellectuals, who proceeded to lie outrageously about it, as do Dershowitz and others ­ the truth being too embarrassing to allow" (31 Mar. 1995). In the fall of 1979, Serge Thion, a friend of Chomsky's, asked him and roughly five hundred others to sign a petition in favor of the freedom to express opinions without persecution. It read: Dr. 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 independent 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. (qtd. in Vidal-Naquet 69)

An essay on the nature and extent of holocaust revisionism

The French press dubbed it "Chomsky's petition," and although Faurisson's specific views were not mentioned in the document he signed, Chomsky was accused of holding similar ones. Chomsky then wrote a "short memoir on the civil liberties aspects of the case . . . to clarify the distinction between supporting somebody's beliefs and their right to express them" (Herman, "Pol Pot" 601), which he gave to Thion with his tacit authorization to use it as Thion thought best. It appeared as the preface to Faurisson's book Mémoire en défense contre ceux qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire: La question des chambres à gaz (1980) under the title "Quelques commentaires éleacute;mentaires sur le droit à la liberté d'expression." The following lines especially inflamed Chomsky's critics: "I have nothing to say here about the work of Robert Faurisson or his critics, of which I know very little, or about the topics they address, concerning which I have no special knowledge," as did his characterizing Faurisson as "a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort" (xiv­xv). A widely read French author, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, described Faurisson's Mémoire in his Assassins of Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust: "this work is neither more nor less mendacious and dishonest than the preceding ones. . . .[H]is interpretation is a deliberate falsehood, in the full sense of the term" (65).

Jewish Holocaust resources

The Holocaust occurred. It was one of the most unspeakable acts of horror ever committed. Chomsky knows these statements to be true and points out that he has declared as much "in terms far stronger than Vidal-Naquet or Dershowitz have since used in my very earliest political writings: the introduction to American Power, the article in Liberation on the Middle East . . . and endlessly since, quite independently of this silly affair" (13 Feb. 1996). But, somehow, for stubbornly upholding the principle of free speech and defending his own actions in the Faurisson affair, he was made responsible for the "mendacious and dishonest" content of Faurisson's works. Once again, the "elementary moral principle" had broken down, and Chomsky suffered for it. The other issue that this affair raised was the question of reasonable evidence. Chomsky notes that Faurisson had been charged with being an anti-Semite and a Nazi, and that these were "serious charges that require evidence." He claims that he knew very little about Faurisson's writings and had no interest in them. After all, he had "felt no need to read Satanic Verses before signing endless petitions made for Rushdie." In formulating his position on the Faurisson case, Chomsky relied "mainly on charges conveyed to me by his harshest critics, which I then cited in full, pointing out, correctly, that they were utterly meaningless" (14 Aug. 1995). One of these critics was Vidal-Naquet, whom Chomsky did not name. [B]ut Vidal-Naquet later identified himself (correctly) as the person who had conveyed those charges to me as his strongest evidence, then charging that I had betrayed a confidence by identifying him (a lie, as he knows, one of many, which he also knows he can get away with). Since Vidal-Naquet, Faurisson's harshest and most knowledgeable critic, could come up with no evidence suggesting that he was an anti-Semite or had any political views at all, that charge seemed rather weak. (14 Aug. 1995) What Chomsky did know about Faurisson "was that he had written letters to the press (which they refused to publish, apparently) praising the heroism of the Warsaw ghetto fighters and in general, praising those who fought the `good fight' against the Nazis; and that he had privately published pamphlets denying the existence of gas chambers" (14 Aug. 1995).

Werner Cohn; Partners in Hate

In the United States, the charge has been led by Dershowitz and Werner Cohn. In his version of the Faurisson affair, Dershowitz describes Chomsky as an "anti-Zionist zealot" who "welcomed the opportunity" to protest Faurisson's suspension "because Faurisson's writings and speeches are stridently anti-Zionist as well as anti-Semitic. Indeed, Professor Chomsky has himself made statements about Zionist exploitation of the tragedy of World War II that are not, in my view, so different from some of those of Faurisson" (174). And Cohn's book, Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers, was issued with the following release, written by Nathan Glazer:

"His Right to Say It":Chomsky writes about Faurisson, revisionism, and the nature of free speech....

When Noam Chomsky came to the defense of the French Holocaust-denier Robert Faurisson, he astonished friends and enemies alike. Chomsky has vigorously defended his action as being nothing more than the protection of an individual's civil liberties, quite unconnected with that individual's views and writings. Werner Cohn, in this meticulously documented study, shows that Chomsky's defense of Faurisson is much more than that, and indeed that it is connected to some of Chomsky's deepest political orientations, in particular his unwavering animus toward the United States and Israel. In doing so, he sheds surprising light on Chomsky's politics. I attended a lecture Cohn gave on this matter in which he was, in my opinion, at best confused and at worst incoherent. His talk was riddled with errors concerning Chomsky's work (for example, he claimed that it had never been published by a major publishing house), Avukah (that it was the same as Hashomer Hatzair), Thion (that Chomsky and Thion had cowritten a book on Vietnam), and linguistics (that Chomsky's work in the field was wholly unfounded). Furthermore, during the question period he seemed unable to recall many details of his own "meticulously documented study," which suggested to me that perhaps somebody else had written the book. Cohn has claimed elsewhere, specifically in The Hidden Alliances of Noam Chomsky (1988), that Chomsky's affiliation with Faurisson is rooted in Chomsky's own sympathy for anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Attempting to demonstrate this, Cohn sketches a series of tenuous connections between Chomsky and Faurisson, placing special emphasis on a number of comments that the former has made in defense of the latter's actions. When all the facts are set forth, the Faurisson affair does tend to throw some of Chomsky's character flaws into relief, most clearly his unwillingness to practice simple appeasement when it comes to resolving his differences with those who attack him. Another remarkable aspect of the affair is the fact that it is used by Chomsky's detractors to divert attention away from his actual statements. Much energy has been expended quibbling over his use of certain words or particular argumentative strategies. Some of Chomsky's critics are more balanced and restrained: Vidal-Naquet, while he claims that "Chomsky is scarcely sensitive to the wounds he inflicts, but extremely attentive to whatever scratches he is forced to put up with" (68), is honest enough to recognize the obvious: "To be sure, it is not the case that Chomsky's thesis in any way approximates those of the neo-Nazis" (73). But others are somehow able to overlook the dozens of books and hundreds of articles Chomsky has written ­ as well as countless discussions and letters ­ which always take the side of the oppressed and the downtrodden. Such critics accuse him of alliances with neo-Nazis or with the German National Socialist Party, the very mandate of which was totalitarian oppression and genocide. Chomsky's tactics may not always be the most appropriate in light of the causes that he supports, but the values transmitted by his work are, according to virtually any reasonable measure, consistent with those of the libertarians. The French reaction to Chomsky's participation in the Faurisson affair was equally forceful, and, particularly in the case of the media, propagandistic. In 1981, an interviewer for Nouvel Observateur modified the replies to questions he had sent Chomsky in order, as Chomsky himself put it, "to accord with [the newspaper's] ideological needs" (31 Mar. 1995). Attempts to publish the questions with Chomsky's original replies failed; Chomsky's responses to articles implicating him in the affair that appeared in Matin de Paris (1979), Le Monde (1981), and Nouvelles littéraires(1982) were not published; and Libération, according to Chomsky, "demanded that I cut out criticisms of France and Marxism, and when I refused, they wouldn't print" his rebuttal (31 Mar. 1995). Overall, Chomsky remarks, "It is striking that in France, alone in Europe, the press has regularly refused to grant me the right of response to lies and slander, though I read about a `debate' that is supposedly in progress" (Language and Politics 316). In short, his experience with the French press and intelligentsia was a memorable one, but his treatment at their hands did not surprise him. He points out, in a December 1982 Boston Magazine article, that "for one thing, France does not have a civil-libertarian tradition of the Anglo-Saxon variety. For another thing, there simply is a totalitarian strain among large segments of the French intelligentsia. Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism, for example, were much more viable and significant doctrines among the French than in England or the United States. What's called the left, especially in France, has a large segment that is deeply authoritarian" (Language and Politics 309). This critique appears reductive and perhaps sounds like sour grapes, but a review of Chomsky's Towards a New Cold War: Essays on the Current Crisis and How We Got There, written by C. M. Woodhouse for the Times Literary Supplement in July of 1982, makes a similar point: The Americans have a talent for self-criticism which they no doubt inherited from the British. Noam Chomsky's new book is a striking example. In any other country such a forthright and sustained diatribe against a national policy by a prominent academic would be nearly unthinkable. A French professor would not have written such a book about his government's foreign policy; a Russian could not have done so except at the price of enforced exile or committal to a psychiatric hospital. The Faurisson affair has had a harmful and lasting effect on Chomsky. Many people only know about him through his connection to this controversy. Chomsky's remark that, as far as he knew, Faurisson was some sort of "apolitical liberal" still haunts him. Critics have taken it to be an indication that he was sympathetic to Faurisson's work. After years of reiterating his anti-Nazi stance in dozens of new books, hundreds of public addresses, and thousands of letters, Chomsky remains tainted: when organizations or institutions consider inviting him to speak, to receive an honorary degree, or to participate in a high-profile function, there is often some discussion of the Faurisson affair (and/or reference to his position on Israel or the Pol Pot regime). Rather typically, Chomsky has refused to back down on the issue, even refusing to admit a momentary lack of judgment. As Jay Parini notes: "Given the opportunity to calm the debate, however, he elects to heighten it. He maintains to this day that he has never read anything by Faurisson that suggests that the man was pro-Nazi. `If anything,' says Chomsky, `he's anti-Nazi'" (41). Chomsky insists that even to engage in a discussion of this nature is to give an unacceptable legitimacy to the position of his opponents. Furthermore: [M]y statement about the disgust one must feel at even entering into debate with apologists for the Nazis and Holocaust deniers has been widely quoted. . . .But it's been quoted to show that I oppose freedom of speech! (By refusing to debate you, I deny your freedom of speech!) And of course they systematically and without exception delete the fact that I was talking about Nazis and Holocaust deniers. That's quite something. You'd have to explore rather deep into the Stalinist archives to find something similar, and recall that all of these people know all of this perfectly well. (14 Aug. 1995) Was signing the petition on behalf of Faurisson therefore a mistake? In light of the principle involved, Chomsky would say that it was not. What does it mean to sign a petition? Chomsky notes that included in many petitions for Salman Rushdie was praise for his banned book, The Satanic Verses: "irrelevent on a freedom of speech statement, and improper, since many of the signers (I'm one) hadn't even looked at [the book]." So why sign? Because if one were to sign only statements that are formulated the way one thinks proper, no one would sign anything, except the author. It's understood that a signature means support for the general gist of the statement, not the specific formulations. I have no doubt that Mullas in Qom and Stalinist extremists fumed about the other petitions, analyzing every word for a possible connotation, much in the way that Vidal-Naquet, Dershowitz, and other clones of the commissars and Mullahs do in this case. (14 Aug. 1995) In 1969, Chomsky described the Holocaust as "the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history" (Peace 57 ­ 58). He also noted that the moment we enter into "a technical debate with the Nazi intelligentsia," the moment we consider such questions as, "[I]s it true that the Jews are a cancer eating away at the vitality of the German people?" "What is the evidence that the Slavs are inferior beings?" we are plunged into "this morass of insane rationality." He then voiced his most impassioned and powerful plea of all: "By entering into the arena of argument and counterargument, of technical feasibility and tactics, of footnotes and citations, by accepting the presumption of legitimacy of debate on certain issues, one has already lost one's humanity" (American Power 9). Yet it is a petition, not the sum total of his writings, that is taken as the measure of Chomsky's commitment.