Legislating history

[pzrmeyer2]

I thought that all those interested in objective histroy might find this relevant

Legislating history
The law is too blunt an instrument to deal with a nation's mistakes.
By Ian Buruma

December 5, 2007

In October, the Spanish parliament passed the Law of Historical Memory, which bans rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco. His Falangist regime will be officially denounced and its victims honored.

There are plausible reasons for enacting such a law. Many people killed by the fascists during the Spanish Civil War lie unremembered in mass graves. There is still a certain degree of nostalgia on the far right for Franco's dictatorship. People who gathered at his tomb earlier this year chanted "We won the civil war!" while denouncing socialists and foreigners, especially Muslims. Reason enough, one might think, for Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to use the law to exorcise the demons of dictatorship for the sake of democracy's good health.

But legislation is a blunt instrument for dealing with history. Although Spain's new law won't put historical discussion out of bounds, even banning ceremonies celebrating bygone days may go a step too far.

The desire to control both past and present is, of course, a common feature of dictatorships. This can be done through propaganda, distorting the truth or suppressing the facts. Anyone in China who mentions what happened at Tiananmen Square (and many other places) in June 1989 will soon find himself in the less-than-tender embrace of the state security police. Indeed, much of what happened under Chairman Mao Tse-tung remains taboo.

Spain, however, is a democracy. Sometimes the wounds of the past are so fresh that even democratic governments deliberately impose silence in order to foster unity. When Charles de Gaulle revived the French Republic after World War II, he ignored the history of Vichy France and Nazi collaboration by pretending that all French citizens had been good republican patriots.

More truthful accounts, such as Marcel Ophuls' magisterial documentary, "The Sorrow and the Pity," were, to say the least, unwelcome. Ophuls' 1968 film was not shown on French state television until 1981. After Franco's death in 1975, Spain too treated its recent history with remarkable discretion.

But memory won't be denied. A new generation in France, born after the war, broke the public silence with a torrent of books and films on French collaboration in the Holocaust as well as the Vichy regime, sometimes in an almost inquisitorial spirit. The French historian Henri Russo dubbed this new attitude the "Vichy syndrome."

Spain seems to be going through a similar process. Children of Franco's victims are making up for their parents' silence. Suddenly, the civil war is everywhere: in books, television shows, movies, academic seminars and now in the legislature.

This is not just a European phenomenon. Nor is it a sign of creeping authoritarianism. On the contrary, it often comes with more democracy. When South Korea was ruled by military strongmen, Korean collaboration with Japanese colonial rule in the first half of the 20th century was not discussed -- partly because some of those strongmen, notably the late Park Chung-hee, had been collaborators themselves. Now, under President Roh Moo-hyun, a new "truth and reconciliation" law has not only stimulated a thorough airing of historical grievances but has led to a hunt for past collaborators.

Lists have been drawn up of people who played a significant role in the Japanese colonial regime, ranging from university professors to police chiefs -- and extending even to their children, reflecting the Confucian belief that families are responsible for the behavior of their individual members. The fact that many family members, including Park's daughter, Geun-hye, support the conservative opposition party is surely no coincidence.

Opening up the past to public scrutiny is part of maintaining an open society. But when governments do it, history can easily become a weapon to be used against political opponents -- and thus be as damaging as banning historical inquiries. This is a good reason for leaving historical debates to writers, journalists, filmmakers and historians.

Government intervention is justified only in a very limited sense. Many countries enact legislation to stop people from inciting others to commit violent acts, though some go further. For example, Nazi ideology and symbols are banned in Germany and Austria, and Holocaust denial is a crime in 13 countries, including France, Poland and Belgium. Last year, the French Parliament introduced a bill to proscribe denial of the Armenian genocide too.

Even if extreme caution is sometimes understandable, it may not be wise, as a matter of general principle, to ban abhorrent or simply cranky views of the past. Banning opinions, no matter how perverse, has the effect of elevating their proponents into dissidents. Last month, British writer David Irving, who was jailed in Austria for Holocaust denial, had the bizarre distinction of defending free speech in a debate at the Oxford Union.

Although the Spanish Civil War was not on a par with the Holocaust, even bitter history leaves room for interpretation. Truth can be found only if people are free to pursue it. Many brave people have risked -- or lost -- their lives in defense of this freedom.

It is right for a democracy to repudiate a dictatorship, and the new Spanish law is cautiously drafted. But it is better to leave people free to express even unsavory political sympathies because legal bans don't foster free thinking, they impede them.

Ian Buruma is a contributing editor to Opinion. He is a professor of human rights at Bard College, and his most recent book is "Murder in Amsterdam: The Killing of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance."

[phylo_roadking]

(I was in the process of writing this yesterday when the forum went down)

This action is just another step in the as yet un-fought Round Two of the Spanish Civil War. What we forget is JUST how bitter that war was - it was a truly vicious and nasty conflagration that divided society, communities and families because it cut in at the political level...ACROSS social and religious boundaries and limits that normally serve to keep communities and families in that country together.

A friend of mine recently spent three years in Spain under the TEFL Scheme - Teaching English as a Foreign Language, set up to give a basic understanding and competence in English for Spanish intending to working in the tourist or catering trade. However, ONE of those teaching seasons was spent in a small mining town in the interior. There, entire families are STILL split and hating each other over the events of the Civil War. Seventy years later and there are STILL towns, villages and cities throughout Spain where one half of a family sits on one side of a street and the other half on the other side - and in seventy years never the twain has met, nor ever will, and they remain bitter enemies....and just waiting with baited breath for Round Two. In THAT little sleepy town, what passes for fun on a friday night is apparently sneaking out by dark and throwing half a stick of blasting gelignite at the house of your "family" across the street...!

The politics if the Civil War may have long gone or changed - but the hatred it created hasn't, and seems to be entrenching more firmly with each generation.

Look what happened in Yugoslavia once the rock-hard central government of Tito disappeared...after forty years. And tell me the same couldn't happen in Spain.

[Tom Houlihan]

Okay, I'm curious.

Why is it that Erik's article about LePen's (mis)statement about the severity of France's occupation turned into such a battle, but this article about Spain languishes?

Is France somehow more important than Spain?

[Njorl]

Tom, I generally stay away from pzrmeyer2's posting but that time I had enough.

He posted an article in which he underlined some sentences - which was clear for me what he's after. Then he asks one question - quite loosly connected withe the exact text of that article. My comments were aimed at his (mis)interpretation of written text, like:

• - according to pzrmeyer2 France = whole EU (I ommit the 'EUSSR' connotation...),
  - pzrmeyer2 asked where did LePen deny the H, while it was written in black he is to be tried for making quite relativistic remarks about German occupation in certain countries,

and answering his questions.

At first it didn't mattered to pzrmeyer2 what LePen said, a post later it did and in the end it didn't matter either... Huh? What was he really after? Why did he post in such a manner? 'Ok, here's a piece of interesting article. Let's post it, see who and how comments and then start the usual conduct... again'.

Then he fluidly moved to mud slinging (idiot sheeple, fcukheads) and hypocrisy (eg. denigrating Dr Krollspell's contribution into forum because he also had some 'meaningless' posts in 'What are you listening to right now' thread while no longer than few days before pzrmeyer2 did post there too!).

I'm not much into politics (which seems to be pzrmeyers2 point of interest), high-temperature arguments and arguing for the sake of argument so I left that topic after 2 or so posts. These already were too many...

And that's also why I'm going not to post more in this thread either. Nor in any other pzrmeyer2's future threads on Soldatenheim (I didn't check this but I'm almost sure that vast majority of his recent input into Feldgrau comes from this section...). Waste of time.

Regards,

MJU

BTW, that thread had mysteriously dissapeared from forum...

[Marc Binazzi]

Is France somehow more important than Spain?

More important, I couldn't say, but more lenient with some people, most certainly (and I am talking of Zapatero's Spain, not just Franco's.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1811

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Despite my deference to Tom, a True Forum Hero, I am inclined to agree with Njorl, in that this Thread is simply an attack against Germany's Holocaust Denial laws and other members of the Forum.

So, with all respect and apologies to Tom, my Bestest Friend, I am closing this Thread.

Very Best,
Akira, Jack the Ripper