COMMENTControversial Holocaust historian David Irving has again been invited to speak at UCC. But he should not, because free speech is not about defending the right to deny historical truth, writes Pádraig Reidy
Last November, I passed a cold and boring evening in normally pleasant Oxford. The Oxford Union (as distinct from the Oxford University Student Union) had decided to hold a "free speech forum" and, egged on by local Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, had invited revisionist historian David Irving to speak alongside Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party and author of Who are the Mindbenders? - a tawdry pamphlet about how "the Jews" control the British public through the media.
Anti-fascist and minority groups were outraged, and took their protest to the gates, making it almost impossible for ticket holders, me among them, to gain entry. Eventually, I managed to sneak into the room where Griffin was speaking, doing his very best Dr Strangelove impersonation - just managing to hold back the straight-armed salute in polite company. It was not the most enlightening discussion I'd ever attended.
At the time I couldn't help thinking this was all vaguely familiar. Hadn't UCC's Philosophical Society (the "Philosoph") pulled a similar stunt back in 1999? And hadn't the meeting eventually been called off, due to a large protesting mob outside, and at times inside, the theatre?
I missed that episode, but thankfully the Philosoph has given me a chance to witness the sequel.
Last week it announced on its website that "on Monday, March 10th, the Philosoph will be holding an ordinary meeting with a debate on the motion, 'That this house believes that free speech should be free from restraint', with David Irving speaking in proposition".
Over at Irving's website, one is invited to "register interest" in Irving's appearance in Cork by giving him your name, address and phone number.
Irving has certainly had his brushes with censorship, having had a contract for his biography on Goebbels cancelled by Saint Martin's Press for what the publisher later described as "profiles in prudence" rather than reasons of historical accuracy, and indeed having been imprisoned in Austria after travelling there to address a neo-Nazi group.
But Irving is not all martyr here: the man who is called on by institutions as august as the Oxford Union, UCC Philosoph and BBC World Service to discuss his role as a free-speech champion himself rushed to take advantage of London's libel courts (notoriously sympathetic to plaintiffs) to silence a critic, Deborah Lipstadt, who described Irving as a Holocaust denier in her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.
Irving famously lost that case (having addressed the judge as "Mein Führer" at one point in the proceedings), and walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand with the tiny amount of respectability he had left as a historian in shreds.
Since then, he has occupied his time addressing conferences organised by straight down the line Nazis, selling books at second World War re-enactment events and accepting invitations to discuss freedom of expression.
Those who invite Irving in the name of free speech will argue several points: first, they will say he is not there to discuss his historical views, but freedom of speech. But the fact is that any discussion he takes part in inevitably becomes about his views.
At a live BBC World Service broadcast last year, he railed against a "certain affluent community" who had plotted against him. Who could you mean, David?
This is how it always ends up, partly because of the next line of defence, ie that Irving must be challenged on his views in open debate: this is the kind of neat, but ultimately flawed trick one can expect from the nation's leading student rhetoricians - suddenly we've gone from not addressing Irving's views at all to focusing entirely on them. Which is it to be? They will finally argue, with some legitimacy, that hard cases win arguments, and there is no point defending freedom of speech if you're not willing to defend the freedom of speech of some pretty unpleasant people. This is certainly true, but there is quite a difference between defending someone's right to speak and being obliged to give them a platform to speak.
Should Irving, and his mercifully small Irish fan club, wish to book a pub function room in which to discuss their views, then that is absolutely their right. But the fact that a university debating society books someone to speak inherently implies that they think he is worth hearing. He is not.
A person who hides historical truth for political gain, and attempts to use the courts to stifle academic discourse, has no place proposing "that free speech should be free from restraint'.
Last Thursday saw the premiere of a new film about Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who was killed by ultra-nationalists. He died because of his exercising of freedom of expression in trying to get Turkey to face the truth about the massacres of Armenians in the early 20th century.
The contrast with Irving could not be clearer. If the students of UCC are genuinely interested in freedom of expression, then perhaps they should invite one of the brave, honest journalists from Dink's paper Agosto speak, instead of the bankrupt and inconsistent Irving.
• Pádraig Reidyis news editor of Index on Censorship