Like those referenced in the title of this story in the Sydney Morning Herald, I’m not sure I agree with the three-year jail sentence given to David Irving for denying the holocaust. Obviously I disagree with what he says (or said; Irving claims to have reversed his views, as do many people when facing jail time); I think it makes him wrong, and an ass, but I don’t know if it makes him a criminal. I tend to agree with the rabbi who said “Personally I prefer to treat him with disdain than with imprisonment” or the historian who said “However nauseating, these people should be confronted in debate rather than chucked into jail and turned into martyrs.”

I understand that Germany and Austria have extraordinary political currents that shape their feelings on such matters, and it could hardly be expected otherwise, even several generations on from the Holocaust. I can’t reach into the mind of the average Austrian lawmaker and determine the extent to which guilt plays a part in such decisions; it just smacks of…atonement, I suppose? Again, understandable. But would Irving have been found a criminal in most other countries? Or simply ridiculed and made a fool of in public debate? Does jailing him really turn him into a martyr?

It’s incredible, the destructive power of war and genocide, that we’ll be feeling effects like this for another century. In some ways, I suppose it’s changed things forever.