In October, the Spanish parliament passed the Law of Historical Memory, which bans rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco.... There are plausible reasons for enacting such a law.
But legislation is a blunt instrument for dealing with history. Although Spain's new law won't put historical discussion out of bounds, even banning ceremonies celebrating bygone days may go a step too far.
The desire to control both past and present is, of course, a common feature of dictatorships. This can be done through propaganda, distorting the truth or suppressing the facts.....
Opening up the past to public scrutiny is part of maintaining an open society. But when governments do it, history can easily become a weapon to be used against political opponents -- and thus be as damaging as banning historical inquiries. This is a good reason for leaving historical debates to writers, journalists, filmmakers and historians.
Government intervention is justified only in a very limited sense. Many countries enact legislation to stop people from inciting others to commit violent acts, though some go further. For example, Nazi ideology and symbols are banned in Germany and Austria, and Holocaust denial is a crime in 13 countries, including France, Poland and Belgium. Last year, the French Parliament introduced a bill to proscribe denial of the Armenian genocide too.
Even if extreme caution is sometimes understandable, it may not be wise, as a matter of general principle, to ban abhorrent or simply cranky views of the past. Banning opinions, no matter how perverse, has the effect of elevating their proponents into dissidents. Last month, British writer David Irving, who was jailed in Austria for Holocaust denial, had the bizarre distinction of defending free speech in a debate at the Oxford Union.
Although the Spanish Civil War was not on a par with the Holocaust, even bitter history leaves room for interpretation. Truth can be found only if people are free to pursue it. Many brave people have risked -- or lost -- their lives in defense of this freedom.
It is right for a democracy to repudiate a dictatorship, and the new Spanish law is cautiously drafted. But it is better to leave people free to express even unsavory political sympathies because legal bans don't foster free thinking, they impede them."
"Which brings us to laws punishing the asking of any questions about the holocaust. According to the Los Angeles Times, any nation which has such laws must be a dictatorship." -- Mike Rivero of What Really Happened
That covers about half of Europe then, doesn't it?
At least the L.A. Times columnist is unconditionally for Free Speech and the search for Truth -- even if he does not agree with certain findings.
