In the February issue of History
Today, the popular historian Suzannah Lipscomb wrote the article entitled In a
Post-Truth World, How do we Study History. In the opening paragraph, she all but calls
the left-wing film director Ken Loach a holocaust denier.
Despite saying that Loach had
denied the claim and had answered the charge in
Guardian Lipscomb refused to retract her claim. The fact that the
Guardian refused to publish Loach's full reply to his detractors is not
mentioned by Lipscomb.
Lipscomb along with 12 other high
profile Historians and writers have led a campaign that has accused the Labour
Party of being antisemitic and therefore they refused to vote for it during the
general election.
Their campaign is fully supported
by the Guardian which published a wretched piece by Jonathan Freedland[1].
In his article, Freedland wrote "It means that a man such as Ken Loach – an
artist so sensitive he is capable of making the film I, Daniel Blake – ends up
lending a spurious legitimacy to Holocaust denial. Asked to react to a speaker
at a Brighton fringe meeting who had said Labour supporters should feel free to
debate any topic, including the veracity of the Holocaust – “did it happen or
didn’t it happen”, as the BBC interviewer put it – Loach could not give a
simple, unequivocal denunciation of Holocaust denial. “I think history is for
all of us to discuss. Loach had not been asked whether there should be a discussion
of the meaning of the Nazi slaughter of the Jews. He had been asked about the
fact of it happening. And on that, he said there should be discussion – the
same apparently innocuous formulation routinely advanced by hardcore Holocaust
deniers".
Loach sought a reply to this
slander but was only given a small section in the Guardian's Comment is Free
section. In a further response carried by the letters section of the New York
Times, Loach wrote to the Editor saying ”Howard
Jacobson alleges that I defended questioning the Holocaust. I did not and do
not. In a confused BBC interview, where question and answer overlapped, my
words were twisted to give a meaning contrary to that intended. The Holocaust
is as real a historical event as World War II itself and not to be challenged.
In Primo Levi's words: “Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it".[2]
Whether she is conscious or not
Lipscomb's comments add to an already growing witch hunt in the service of Britains
ruling elite. As Jean Shaouls article points out “the aim of this political
destabilization operation has been to prevent an election victory that would
take him to Number 10 and to then engineer his subsequent removal. It followed
a relentless campaign that started as soon as Corbyn became a leader in 2015
when the Blairites—acting with the Conservative Party, the media, the military
and intelligence establishment and the Israel lobby—denounced not only Corbyn’s
but all left-wing opposition to Israel's brutal suppression of the Palestinians
as anti-Semitic”. The witch-hunt centres on a concerted attempt to equate
opposition to Zionism and the colonial policies of the Israeli state with
hatred of the Jewish people in general and the infamous and reactionary
anti-Semitism of the Nazis in particular.[3]
Lipscomb's concludes her deeply disturbing
article attempting to cover up her lazy sleight of hand journalism with a cloak
of orthodoxy by attacking the postmodernist’s attempt to deny historical
facts. In fact, it is Lipscomb who is playing fast and loose with historical
facts. She should retract her comments and History Today should give Loach the
right to reply.
[1]
Labour’s denial of antisemitism in its ranks leaves the party in a dark place
Jonathan Freedland- 27 Sep 2017
[2]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/ken-loach-holocaust-anti-semitism.html
[3]
The anti-Semitism accusations against Corbyn: A witch-hunt in the service of
imperialism-By Jean Shaoul13 December 2019- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/13/semi-d13.html
