After hearing Noam Chomsky’s talk almost two weeks ago, my initial reaction to reading commentary a day later, describing Chomsky as a “neo-Nazi” and comparing him to Saddam Hussein, was amusement.
To those familiar with Chomsky’s writings, speeches, and activism, the idea of calling Chomsky a neo-Nazi is about on par with calling Drew Barrymore a genocidal warlord. What has since been eating away at me is the possibility of those who are not aware of his views actually believing the ridiculous accusation. Finally, this concern was realized when overhearing someone say, “Chomsky? Isn’t he the anti-Semite?”
While Chomsky, in a recent email correspondence with The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, refused to spend the time “to respond publicly to transparent absurdities,” I am less busy than he. Beginning with the charge that he’s a capitalist millionaire who needs thousands of dollars to bother to show up for a talk, it should be pointed out that Chomsky insisted that the honorarium designated for him by the Political Economy Research Institute be donated to charity, which it was.
The charge of neo-Nazism was supposedly backed up by a book entitled “Chomsky and the Neo-Nazis.” No such book exists. An article of the same name exists, written by a right-wing professor in an Australia magazine. The first part of the quote taken from the article appears to be accurate, but uncontroversial.
Chomsky was quoted as saying “I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the Holocaust,” which, taken without context, might seem to be an inflammatory statement.
However, when I asked him to elaborate on this statement, Chomsky said, “It is not by definition a racist act to be ignorant. Nor does anyone think so, as in these cases. Have you seen a condemnation of the American Jewish Congress for Holocaust denial and anti-Gypsy racism, even though they are the only respectable source for Holocaust denial in the U.S., maybe the world? Of course not, because the truisms are understood to be truisms.”
To put forth another example, would someone who claimed the U.S.-inflicted casualties in the Vietnam War only totaled 100,000 be considered racist, when in fact the number was about 3 million or more? Would someone who denied that a single Iraqi has died by U.S. violence be considered a Nazi? No, such a person would be considered wildly ignorant of the facts or completely irrational.
If someone were to claim that the deaths of those in the Holocaust, or the Vietnamese killed 35 years ago, were unimportant, that would clearly be racist. But any informed critic of Chomsky’s work must have come across his oft-repeated stance about those who deny the Holocaust: “We lose our humanity even by entering into debate with those who deny Nazi crimes.”
Such a position is quite clearly not only unsympathetic to Nazism, but a passionate denunciation of anyone who would defend such doctrines. Why this stance, or any similar position of Chomsky’s, was not quoted in an incrimination of neo-Nazism is rather dubious.
Chomsky was also charged with helping Robert Faurisson, a French academic, write a book which questioned the authenticity of the Holocaust. This is misinformation that leaves out the totality of Chomsky’s role: Faurisson was threatened with being jailed for denying the Holocaust, due to the lack of free speech laws in France.
Chomsky, along with numerous other academics, signed a petition which pointed out that Faurisson did not deserve to be physically threatened or jailed for simply expressing his views, however odious they might be. Chomsky was asked to write some basic comments on the principles of free speech, which appear on his official website www.chomsky.info.
“I have nothing to say here about the work of Robert Faurisson or his critics, of which I know very little, or about the topics they address, concerning which I have no special knowledge,” he said.
The point, Chomsky wrote, was that “the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of, and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended.” This statement, entitled “Some Elementary Comments on the Rights of Freedom of Expression,” was used by Faurisson’s publisher as a preface to his book.
For over 20 years now, frantic extremists with no concept of the very basic right to free speech have been trying to use Chomsky’s defense of such speech as an excuse to call him an anti-Semite.
Yet another easily dismissed charge against Chomsky was that he denied any Cambodians died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and that the New York Times distorted the atrocities in that country. As for the first part of the claim, in one of the speeches he gave at this very campus two weeks ago, Chomsky directly referred to the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge -which was a rather contrary thing to do for a denier of those same atrocities.
The other controversy about his stance on 1970s Cambodia was that he insisted that the U.S. share the blame for the number who died, given its massive bombing of the country leading up to the overthrow of the government by the Khmer Rouge. As for distortions of facts about Cambodia at that time, Chomsky clearly outlines cases of media fabrication in his acclaimed book, “Manufacturing Consent.” In it, he demonstrates, with sources, how journals such as Reader’s Digest, the New York Review of Books, and others did indeed engage in distortions of facts about the situation. The New York Times has referred to Chomsky as “arguably the most important intellectual alive.” This past month they asked him to write and then published a critical essay by him on Israel’s so-called “security fence.” Either those at the newspaper have short memories, or Chomsky might have actually been onto something.
However unimpressed you may be with Chomsky, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of linguistics best known for his opposition to the Vietnam War, an analogy comparing him to Saddam Hussein is beyond ludicrous. An analogy between Chomsky and Betrand Russell would be more in order. On behalf of those who are impressed by Chomsky, who consider him to be the conscience of our country, I thank PERI for bringing such a distinguished figure to our campus.
Jeffrey Napolitano is a Collegian columnist.
