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 History is the nightmare from which we are trying to awaken, James Joyce once said - and, in the past weeks, it would certainly appear the Irish novelist was not far off the mark. In the days that have gone by, the Anti-Defamation League has warned that neo-Nazis and white supremacists have been attempting to take advantage of the September 11 attacks on the nearly 4,000 web sites they operate - to recruit members and terrorize minority communities. Human rights groups like Chicago’s Centre for New Community have noted that hate groups have adopted a three-part strategy since the mass murders in New York and Washington: blame Jews, stir up anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment, and further demonize immigration as the “root cause” of the outrages of September 11. Some, of course, will sneer that the anti-racist groups are over-reacting, or indulging in “political correctness” (the far right’s favoured insult). But based upon the all-too-accessible evidence, there can be no doubt about the truth of the anti-racists’ position. A recent sampling: the web site of the Illinois-based World Church of the Creator currently carries a photograph of the World Trade Centre in flames - alongside the words: “Friendship with Israel leads to this.” Closer to home, some 2,000 postcards produced by the Canada First Immigration Reform Committee - led by far right agitator Paul Fromm, a founder of the neo-Nazi Western Guard - landed in Halifax mailboxes last week, and blamed the events of September 11 on “poorly screened immigration,” and called for a five-year moratorium on immigration “so that we can sift out who's here and absorb the flood of recent years.” And the pro-Nazi Freedom Site - the largest and most active far right web site in Canada - has launched a petition campaign against the federal government’s anti-terror legislation, which the Freedom Site apparently believes will “gag” its ability to defame Jews and non-whites. There are many more such examples, but the fact remains: the racist right - that is, those who organize themselves to promote an agenda of intolerance, through deed or word - are all too capable of manipulating events, current or otherwise, to advance the cause of hate. And we, as a society, must therefore always remain vigilant to what they do, and why. At the moment, a debate rages on editorial pages about whether a hate tract from an earlier time, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, should be sold in Indigo and Chapters bookstores. As with many such debates about free speech, the debate is being conducted entirely in the abstract - with no actual evaluation of the words at issue, and no acknowledgement (by people who should know better) that words can, and do, occasionally cause harm. First point: what does Mein Kampf have to say? What does it contain that so many libertarians apparently consider to be “ideas?” A few examples: “I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” Or: “…the Jew is not the attacked but the attacker.” Or: “[The Jew]stops at nothing, and in his vileness he becomes so gigantic that no one need be surprised if among our people the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.” Or: “With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people. With every means he tries to destroy the racial foundations of the people he has set out to subjugate. Just as he himself systematically ruins women and girls, he does not shrink back from pulling down the blood barriers for others, even on a large scale.” There is more of this sort of filth spilling out of the pages of Adolf Hitler’s book, but space does not permit the reproduction of all of it. Suffice to say that Mein Kampf is full of many things, but “ideas” are not found among them. Hatred is not, and cannot ever be, an “idea.” Second point: words and images do, indeed, have power. In every civilized community, as no less than John Stuart Mill put it some four hundred years ago, there has been a long-held consensus that the law, and civility, must occasionally impose limits upon certain communications between human beings. Child pornography, hate propaganda, extreme depictions of violence - all have been easily found to be forms of communication which are contrary to a civilized society’s best interests. For many years, laws and conventions which seek to prevent (and sometimes) punish such abusive, intimidating and harassing “speech” have been adopted by virtually every Western liberal democracy. Virtually nowhere, these days, is seen any argument for a simple proposition: words and images have power. Words and images, therefore, can indeed cause harm. Expressions of hatred - for that is what child pornography and racist tracts and graphic depictions of inhumane violence usually are, hate - are designed to divide societies, and to generate fear, and to promote self-gratification (for a select few) with no regard for the consequences. Such hate should, and can, be stopped. As Mein Kampf - and the expression it found in World War Two and the Holocaust - amply demonstrates: there is indeed a connection between hateful words and deeds. Words can turn into bullets. Hate speech can kill and maim. The experts agree that there is, indeed, a causal link between hate propaganda and hateful violence. From the Oklahoma City bombing (which was inspired by a book called The Turner Diaries, also not sold at Chapters), to extreme anti-abortion web sites (such as the Nuremberg Files, which a jury found to have incited violence against abortion providers), it cannot be seriously disputed that racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-choice “literature” has a profound impact. This, perhaps, is the most important argument of all: fighting harmful "speech" is a moral necessity: Democratic institutions are not automatically sustained. They must be nurtured and protected. The libertarian or quasi-conservative proposition now being repeatedly promoted in Canadian media outlets - which, for brevity's sake, is something along the lines of 'harmful speech is not a problem, but if it is, it's not our problem' - is irresponsible. More-informed commentators know that abusive, intimidating, harassing or hateful speech poses a real and ongoing threat to modern democracies. Silence or indifference to the suffering of others, to the infringement of their rights - as we all know - serves only to perpetuate injustice and conflict. Declining to sell Mein Kampf is not censorship. It is merely exercising good judgment - and recognizing that parts of human history are, indeed, a nightmare from which we must finally awake.
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