Chomsky still evasive about Faurisson

The Independent currently has an interview with Noam Chomsky consisting of answers to questions asked by readers. Here is a question and answer about Robert Faurisson:

You have said you see a "hint of anti-Semitic implications" [The correct wording is "no hint of anti-Semitic implications"--YG] in the work of Robert Faurisson, the notorious French Holocaust denier. Is Jew-baiting merely a hobby of yours, or is it vocational? LAURENCE COLE, KENT

[Chomsky]: The facts and the principle have been spelled out dozens of times since 1980 (so it is a bit boring), but once again, briefly.

The last time I had anything to do with this affair, Faurisson was accused of raising questions about gas chambers. Several years later, he was tried and sentenced for "Falsification of History", but there was no charge of Holocaust denial or anti-Semitism (according to Le Monde). The only issue concerning my connection with this sordid affair is whether we should adopt the Goebbels-Zhdanov doctrine that the State has the right to determine Historical Truth and punish deviation from it. As I wrote then, and am happy to repeat, it is a gross insult to the memory of victims of the Holocaust to adopt the doctrines of their murderers. The remark you are misrepresenting is from a personal letter - an interesting source. It reviewed the facts and went on to point out that even denial of huge atrocities would not in itself be evidence for racism, giving a few of the many examples. Thus neither you, nor I, conclude that Americans are vicious racists because they estimate Vietnamese deaths at about 5 per cent of the official figure, or because for centuries even scholarship vastly understated the scale and character of the destruction of the indigenous population. The point generalises to England and others, of course. There can be many reasons for denying horrendous crimes, even in the cases that are the most serious on moral grounds: our own. One special case - purely hypothetical in this personal correspondence - was that denial of the Holocaust would not establish anti-Semitism, for exactly the same reasons.

I find the nonchalant way in which he tosses out the subject of Vietnam fairly incredible here. What does he mean by the "official figure" and exactly who is disputing it? It is as if he is addressing an audience with no intellectual curiosity whatsoever. Perhaps he *is* addressing an audience with no intellectual curiosity.

(Hat Tip: My Right Word)

Tags: Holocaust denial, , Faurisson, Chomsky