Iran's Holocaust Conference Pt II

Since my recent article on the repercussions of Iran’s Holocaust conference, the issues I discussed have see further development.

First of all, infamous British Holocaust ‘revisionist’ David Irving has been released early from his prison sentence in Austria, having served 13 months of his three-year punishment for breaking a law which targets anyone who ‘denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide’. He has though been prohibited from ever returning to the country, although he retorts that he has ‘no interest in coming back’ anyway. Ever the publicity-seeker, Irving claimed on his return to Britain that there is a ‘world-wide attempt to silence him’, with a ‘secret society of judges’ implementing ‘Stalinist legislation’ to restrain him and his ideas. While it is difficult to sympathise with Irving’s ridiculous accusations and it is clear that many of his historical views are inaccurate and unsavoury, I personally am happy that he has been released. First of all I find legislation with forbids Holocaust denial unnecessary and undesirable. The vast majority of the world knows that the Holocaust happened and the plethora of evidence which exists will always make it easy to ridicule deniers and dispel their claims. Of course some people will always choose to believe the deniers, but they are generally anti-Semites, Nazi sympathises or those who oppose the existence of Israel. Denying the Holocaust suits their personal beliefs and they are unlikely to change their mind. The second issue is that David Irving has actually largely changed his mind about the Holocaust since his Austrian offence in 1989. He now admits that it happened, but simply has some quibbles about the specifics, particularly about the role of Auschwitz. Indeed, on his return to Britain two days ago he reiterated that: ‘I have no bones at all about the fact that the Nazis killed millions of Jews in different methods around the world’. If the world’s most prominent Holocaust denier now admits that the Nazis killed millions of Jews then surely we should be publicising his views rather than silencing him.

The second development in recent days has been related to Iran’s internal politics and Britain’s policy towards her. Results from last week’s elections to the Iranian Assembly of Experts have proved to be a big blow to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had previously appeared to be in a pretty solid position. The President lost out to various moderate conservatives and reformists in what seems to be a clear indication that not all Iranian voters are satisfied with his extremist stance at home and his belligerent approach to foreign affairs. There were many who pointed out the irony of the fact that Ahmadinejad used his Holocaust conference to trumpet the value of allowing historians free speech but at the same time refuses to allow the same privilege to his own people. It seems that this irony has not been lost on the voters. How significant this election result will be for the future direction of Iranian foreign policy remains to be seen, but it is certainly all the more interesting in the light of Tony Blair’s recent words. Speaking at the end of a tour of Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, the West Bank and UAE, Blair urged the world to ‘wake up’ to the battle between moderate and extremist forces in the Muslim world. He specifically went on to condemn ‘the strategic threat the government of Iran poses’, although he was at pains to stress it was ‘not the people’ he was speaking out against but ‘those presently in charge’. He issued a rallying call to ‘mobilise our alliance of moderation in this region and outside it to defeat the extremists’. Blair’s language has become increasingly aggressive over the course of this year, and it is clear that what he is saying is that Britain is not anti-Muslim, it is anti-extremist. Britain will happily deal with moderate regimes such as those in UAE or Saudi Arabia, but will not countenance involving radicals such as Ahmadinejad in its Middle East policy. This message from Blair combined with what appears to be increased unhappiness amongst Iranians with their current regime gives cause for some optimism that future, moderate leaders of Iran may allow their country to play a productive rather than destructive role in the whole region.