Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Page #16

Consider what happens when I discuss

the case of Robert Faurisson.

Let me recall the facts.

- Let's not go into details.

- The details happen to be important.

Yes, but I have only one question for you.

- Do the facts matter or don't they?

- Of course.

Well, let me tell you what the facts are.

Faurisson says that the massacre of the Jews

in the Holocaust is a historic lie.

- Can we have the next question?

- No.

No, this is an important one.

It has a lot to do with the topic.

Get off!

Your views are very controversial.

Perhaps one of the things

that has been most controversial

and you've been most strongly criticised for

was your defence of a French intellectual

who was suspended from his university post

for contending that there were

no Nazi death camps in World War II.

My name is Robert Faurisson.

I am 60.

I am a university professor in Lyons, France.

Behind me,

you may see the courthouse of Paris,

Le Palais de Justice.

In this place,

I was convicted many times

at the beginning of the '80s.

I was charged by nine associations,

mostly Jewish associations,

for...

...inciting hatred,

racial hatred,

for racial defamation,

for damage by falsifying history.

Professor Chomsky and a number

of other intellectuals signed a petition

in which Faurisson is called

"a respected professor of literature

who merely tried to make his findings public".

Perhaps we can start with just the story of

Robert Faurisson and your involvement.

More than 500 people signed...

Maybe 600.

Mostly... universitaires.

Scholars.

And what happened to the other 499 of them?

How come we only hear

about Chomsky's signature?

Well, I think it's because Chomsky has,

in himself, a kind of political power.

I signed a petition

calling on the tribunal to defend his civil rights.

At that point, the French press,

which has no conception of freedom of speech,

concluded that

since I had called for his civil rights,

I was therefore defending his thesis.

Faurisson then published a book

in which he tried to prove

that the Nazi gas chambers never existed.

What we deny is that there was

an extermination programme

and an extermination, actually.

Especially in gas chambers or gas vans.

The book contains a preface

written by Professor Chomsky

in which he calls Faurisson

"a relatively apolitical sort of liberal".

A Communist is a man, a Jew is a man,

a Nazi is a man.

I am a man.

Are you a Nazi?

I am not a Nazi.

How would you describe yourself politically?

Nothing.

- The preface that you wrote...

- No, that's not the preface that I wrote.

Because I never wrote a preface

and you know that I never wrote a preface.

He's referring to a statement of mine

on civil liberties

which was added to a book

in which Faurisson...

- Excuse me.

You're a linguist

and the language you use has meaning!

And when you describe Faurisson

as an "apolitical liberal",

or as someone whose views can be dignified

by the words "findings" or "conclusions",

that is a judgment

and that is a favourable judgment of his views.

On the contrary.

- May I continue with the facts?

- You can continue with the facts for hours.

But there are a few facts that... Yeah, OK.

Let's get to the so-called preface.

I was then asked

by the person who organised the petition

to write a statement on freedom of speech.

Just banal comments about freedom of speech,

pointing out the difference between defending

a person's right to express his views

and defending the views expressed.

So I did that. I wrote a rather banal statement

called "Some Elementary Remarks

on Freedom of Expression".

And I told them, "Do what you like with it".

So Pierre produced a book

in which all the arguments of Faurisson

were to be put in front of the court.

And we thought it wise

to use the text of Noam Chomsky

as a kind of warning, a forward,

to say that it was

a matter of freedom of expression,

freedom of thought, freedom of research.

Why did you try at the last moment

to get it back from the book?

That's the one thing I'm sorry about.

- But that's the real important thing.

- No, it's not.

You mean that I tried to retract it?

- With that, you said it was wrong of you to do it.

- No. Take a look at what I did.

I wrote a letter, which was then published,

in which I said,

"Look, things have reached a point

where the French intellectual community

simply is incapable of understanding the issues.

At this point,

it's just going to confuse matters even more

if my comments on freedom of speech are

attached to a book which I didn't know existed.

So, just to clarify things,

you'd better separate them".

Now, in retrospect, I shouldn't have done that.

I should have just said, "Fine. Let it appear,

because it ought to appear".

But apart from that,

I regard this as not only trivial,

but as compared with other positions I've taken

on freedom of speech, invisible.

I do not think the state ought to have the right

to determine historical truth

and to punish people who deviate from it.

I'm not willing to give the state that right,

even if they...

- Are you denying the gas chambers existed?

- Of course not.

I'm saying, if you believe in freedom of speech,

you believe in freedom of speech

for views you don't like.

Goebbels was in favour of freedom of speech

for views he liked, right? So was Stalin.

If you're in favour of freedom of speech,

that means you're in favour of freedom

of speech precisely for views you despise.

Otherwise you're not in favour

of freedom of speech.

There's two positions you can have on freedom

of speech. You can decide which you want.

With regard to my defence

of the utterly offensive,

the people who express utterly offensive views,

I haven't the slightest doubt

that every commissar says,

"You're defending that person's views".

No, I'm not.

I'm defending his right to express them.

The difference is crucial.

And the difference has been understood

outside of fascist circles since the 18th century.

Is there anything like objectivity,

scientific objectivity, reality?

- As a scientist, where do you stand on this?

- I'm not saying I defend the views.

If somebody publishes a scientific article

which I disagree with,

I do not say

the state ought to put him in jail, right?

- But you don't have to support him...

- I don't support him.

...and say, "I support him just for the sake

of anybody saying what they want".

Suppose this guy is taken to court

and charged with falsification?

- Then I'll defend him.

- But he wasn't taken to court.

- Oh, you're wrong.

- But when did you write the support?

When he was brought to court.

And, in fact, the only support that I gave him

was to say he has a right

of freedom of speech, period.

There is no doubt in my mind

that the example I gave about the story,

that the Holocaust did not exist,

is very, very typical.

I'll give you another example of this.

How much of the American press believes

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