[DEBATE] : Re: Demise of this list?

[Peter Mahlangu]

Ebrahim,

Debate can never flourish if ideas or views others
find repugnant are prohibited. I need not remind
everyone that Galileo was almost executed by the
Church for propagating "heretical" and "blasphemous"
views about the movements of the earth and its shape.

On repugnant views, I am reminded of the so-called
Faurissen Affair, arising after a historian, Robert
Faurissen, revisited "the problem of the chambers",
and argued that the Nazis did not use gas chambers,
"veritable human slaughterhouses", in their racist
campaign against Jews.

The Faurissen Affair was ignited, not because of the
outrage that met Faurissen's views, but because a
petition defending his right to freedom of expression
was signed by Noam Chomsky. Chomsky was then accused
of being a holocaust denial, anti-semite or a
self-hating Jew.

In responding to the attacks on him, Chomsky insisted
that Faurissen was entitled to air his views even if
others, including Chomsky himself, found those views
incorrect or distasteful or repugnant. Secondly, he
stated that there was nothing anti-semitic in a person
examining the historical record, including the
holocaust record, and disagreeing with it.

I would advise people to read (or re-read) Chomsky's
"Some Elementary Comments on the Rights to Freedom of
Expression"
(http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/8010-free-expression.html

--- eharvey <eharvey10 at telkomsa.net> wrote:

> 
> My correspondence will confirm very clearly that I
> repeatedly 
> warned that this list was facing the distinct danger
> of its demise
> and/or severely inhibiting debates because of the
> persistently sanctimonious
> purveyors of proper speech, what views were
> acceptable or not, the moral
> custodians of what constituted hate or cultured
> speech or not, the narrow,
> knee-jerk feminist zealots, led by....(you know who,
> because some of you 
> say it to me off-list!!!). No matter how much I am
> opposed to many of the
> views of Peter Mahlangu I have not once threatened
> to leave the list or call
> for action against him OR his opponents, whose views
> on some matters I also
> strongly disagree with. Well, it is so obvious that
> we are precipitously
> close to its demise. The past week has made very
> clear that many have either
> unsubscribed or just are not interested any longer.
> There has been a very
> marked decline in postings on the list, thanks to
> these nauseating
> charlatans - from South Africa and abroad - wanting
> to tell us about what is
> "left" and not left, what is good and not good for
> this list. And obviously
> it is as evident that Patrick has failed to bring
> leadership to bear on this
> matter. No, we did not need or want a Stalinist
> laying-down-the-line
> disciplining, but judicious intervention in the
> interests of maintaining and
> building the list when it was often so clear where
> it was heading for over
> the past few weeks...... My concern is that this was
> partly because for
> reasons I can only surmise Patrick did not want to
> come out strongly against
> those who so obviously were posing distinct dangers
> to the continuity of the
> list. My question is why did the management of the
> list allow this to
> happen. Even now that it is very evident what has
> happened over the past
> week or two not a word from them?????? The result?
> An often useful list is
> now perhaps irreversibly close to its demise. Yet 2
> weeks ago I heard stuff
> about celebrating a decade of its existence, in one
> form or another!! The
> striking irony cannot escape us..................
> 
> 
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