Archive/File: holocaust/england/irving irving.aus.005
Last-Modified: 1994/10/27

Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 16:32:28 +1000
Message-Id: <9410140632.AA03459@tmx.mhs.oz.au>
To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
From: aip@tmx.mhs.oz.au
Subject: Australian Revisionism/Irving

Attached please find the first chapter of  the book "The case for David
Irving (The selective censorship of history and free speech)" written by
Nigel Jackson, who is one of our most active and prolific exponents of
Holocaust Deniers' "Rights". The full book runs to some 207 pages, with
numerous refernces to the inability or failure of critics of irving to
prove that Leuchter is wrong, Irving is wrong or Holocaust deniers do not
merit imminent canonisation. Given the author's numerous claims that he is
neither antisemitic or anti-semitic, it is surprising that the religion of
all Jews (and no one else) is regularly stated!

EXTRACT FROM "THE CASE FOR DAVID IRVING" by Australian Irving-supporter
Nigel Jackson, published in 1994 by Veritas Publishing Company Pty Ltd,
Cranbook, Western Australia, 1994


CHAPTER ONE
		THE REVISIONIST HISTORIANS

"In order to grasp the mystery of the 'historical', I must have a sense of
it and history as something that is deeply mine, that is deeply my history,
that is deeply my destiny.
				- Nicolas Berdyaev,  The Meaning of History


	When British historian David Irving was banned from Australia early in
1993, he made use of modern technology to speak to Australians via a video
film, "The Search for Truth in History".  Even though the proprietors of a
number of halls were intimidated by David Irving's opponents, and cancelled
bookings with Irving's Australian representatives, thousands eventually
managed to see the film, which concludes with a powerful statement of faith
by Irving.  He likens freedom of speech to an ancient right which, unless
constantly used, will fall into decay and eventually die.  He makes the
telling point that freedom of speech is essential for an historian who
seeks to discover the truth.  Prepared to admit that he could be proved
wrong on some issues, Irving says that without freedom of speech, he would
even be denied the right to be proved wrong.

	History is not something of mere academic interest.  As George Orwell
wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four,  "Who controls the past controls the future;
 who controls the present controls the past."	

	Early in 1992 I published an open letter to the Australian people warning
that our traditional freedom of speech was greatly jeopardised, by
legislation ostensibly directed against racial vilification, violence and
hatred.

	I expressed the hope that I would later publish appendices, additional
statements, to support the claims I was making.  A time has now arrived at
which it is particularly appropriate to state a defence of one group of
people who, not only in Australia but elsewhere in the world, are menaced
by political censorship, masquerading as legislation against "racism".  I
refer to the "revisionist historians", with David Irving now the most
publicly prominent.

	If one were to go by the "wisdom" of the mass media, of various magazines
which have some reason to be regarded as cultured, of parliamentarians of
all parties and of spokespeople (more or less representative) for various
ethnic minority groups, then one would hold to the belief that these
revisionist historians are not true historians at all but rather
"pseudo-academics", "extremists", "racists", "neo-nazis", "fascists" or
"ultra-rightists".  There is actually quite an extensive prepared armoury
of insult terms available for adoption by those who, whether through
laziness, indifference, apathy, opportunism, cowardice, or whatever
motivation, are ready to succumb to the conditioning which entrenched and
powerful cliques are eager to trap them with.

	The truth is quite otherwise:  and the best way to establish that is to
read a judicious selection of the books and essays published by the
revisionists.

	The Institute for Historical Review, a much-slandered American-based
community of scholars and researchers, has published a brief pamphlet by
its director, Tom Marcellus, entitled The Tradition of Historical
Revisionism.  This is a useful starting point for the case for the defence.

	Marcellus dates the origin of the phrase "revisionist historians" to
Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, who founded a school of historical thought
following World War One.  Revisionism to him meant "nothing more or less
than the effort to correct the historicial record in the light of a more
complete collection of historical facts, a more calm political atmosphere,
and a more objective attitude."

	The term, Marcellus explains, originated with a group of scholars (French,
British, American, Germand and others) whose researches undermined the
presumption of unique German responsibility for the outbreak of World War
One.  It has subsequently come to include all historical findings at odds
with the Establishment version.  (Marcellus could also have added:  "or
established version", a wider-ranging phrase).

	Marcellus then concludes that to support the principle of revisionism is
to support the freedom of speech in history,

	He explains, moving into more controversial territory, that when history
is written by partisan historians from victor nations, it tends to be
biased.  Correction is needed by impartial study of the secret records of
wartime governments and of their ministers, diplomats, military leaders and
other functionaries.  There is no doubt that David Irving is a master of
this method.

	Since World War Two, Marcellus asserts, it is regrettable that the "court
historians" (those historical writers who, for one reason or another,
support the Establishment line) have often been given privileged access to
the records, while dissident historians have been excluded from them.  The
access given to Churchill's official biographer, Dr Martin Gilbert, by Her
Majesty the Queen, but denied to David Irving, is a case in point (relating
to documents held by the British Crown).  Contrary to the view of the
profanum vulgus, Marcellus points out that the revisionist scholars who are
working in many nations around the world cannot be grouped together at a
particular position on the conventional "left-centre-right" political
spectrum.  They are men and women who believe that citizens have right to
know what their governments are doing behind the scenes and behind the
propaganda.  They are opposed to the imposition of monolithic "orthodoxy"
in the area of historical studies.  Their approach tends naturally to lead
towards reconciliation, greater understanding, the resolution of conflicts
and the diminution of future wars.  "By wresting control of the past from
established interests and returning it to those who lived and suffered it,
revisionist may make possible a secure and prosperous future for all of
us".  However, the concept of revisionism is more profound, and requires
further explication.

	The Shorter Oxford Dictionary (the two-volume 1973 edition) provides the
Latin origin of the term.  The prefix "re-" in front of the verb videre (to
see) can denote "back", "again" or "repeatedly" - and all of these
possibilities are relevant to our topic.  The revisionist approach is one
which looks back, sometimes very far back indeed, even into ancient times; 
it looks again, not accepting the first offered explanation;  and it looks
repeatedly, in that it engages in a very serious and onerous and rigorous
study of its materials.

	The esteemed dictionary further gives us a 1611 date for the earliest
reference to "revision", understood as the "action of revising, especially
critical or careful examination or perusal with a view to correcting or
improving".  There is an 1865 date for the first appearance of a
"revisionist" as "one who advocates revision";  and there is an 1881 date
for "revisionists", these being the revisers of the Bible.

	That last reference remids us that the act of revision applies to every
aspect of our traditional inheritance of culture and civilisation - and not
just to history, or the history of our present century.  Revisionism is an
attitude that is indispensable to the maintenance of that inheritance;  it
must be undertaken anew by each generation;  and there is nothing that can
claim to be sacrosanct from such renewed investigation.  Only God, Allah,
the ain-soph, stands immune to such scrutinies - but not the man-made
theologies, rituals, cults, texts and political forms which are created
(more or less wisely) in the name of that ultimate.

	The great traditionalist poet, T.S. Eliot, understood well the importance
of revisionism.  His famous essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent, is
filled with its spirit, applied to his own field of literature.  He knew 
that being traditional does not mean "a blind acceptance or timid
adherence" to the previous generation and its successes (real or apparent).
 He wrote:

	"Tradition is a matter of much wider significance.  It cannot be
inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.  It
involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call
nearly indispendable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his
twenty-fifth year;  and the historical sense compels a man to write not
merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the
whole of the literature of Europe from Homer, and within it, the whole of
the literature of his own country, has a simultaneous existence and
composes a simultaneous order."

	Our time is disfigured by a squalid attempt by a currently powerful ehnic
minority with long-established antecedents (or some of the members thereof)
to stamp out the works of the revisionist historians whose researches are
felt to offend them or strike at their interests.  Because of his status,
David Irving is seen as a major threat to those groups who seek to profit
by their own version of history.

	No honourable person or educational institution will succumb to the
pressure associated with this misdirected enterprise.  The revisionist
historians (in the narrower senses of the phrase) are a part of a much
larger community of endeavour that is vital to the continued wellbeing of
humanity;  and that is the prime reason why their freedom to speak,
research, write and publish should be firmly and fearlessly defended.

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