Georgia Straight
for February 1994, Article 2

If you haven't done so, you should see Steven Spielberg's masterpiece, Schindler's List. It's not just a movie, it's an experience. Everyone, especially those who not alive during World War II, or too young to remember, should see it.

As all now must surely know, the story is of a swinging young German businessman who used forced labour in his factory in Poland. As he came to realize what was happening, he went out of his way to employ Jews and to keep as many as he could from a certain death. The movie is graphic, compelling, and brilliantly executed - a true masterpiece.

How sad it is that this sort of film brings the usual rubbish out of the heap. The man who was dropped by the Socreds in Richmond in 1991, John Ball, wants the movle banned because, he says, it is anti German (notwithstanding Chancellor Kohl's advice that Germans see the movie).

Predictably, it has roused race-baiting nonsense from the master bigot himself, Doug Collins, who writes for some garbage wrapper on the North Shore.

Collins calls the movie Swindler's List. But you must understand that Collins thinks he is being funny. I mean this guy's a riot. In 1983 he got angry at feminists and declared that a group of them should be taken to the Russian Front and raped. Everyone got a great laugh from that one. He thinks it's a sidesplitter to call non whites "bugeyes" (that always brings a chuckle or two from the cheap seats) and he calls people like me, who push for some understanding and civility in our community, "turban lovers". Indeed he had a classic falling down, tears of laughter, belly buster for me a few years ago when he got angry because I had civil libertarian Aziz Khaki on my show (Khaki's sin is that he is of Indian extraction by way of Uganda). Collins wrote - I think I have it right here - that he hoped that 10,000 black crack dealers with Aids moved into my neighbourhood. Isn't that a knee slapper?

It is a very strange thing - whenever the holocaust is mentioned you can expect eruptions from Doug Collins, Ernst Zundel, Jim Keegstra and their sort to the effect that it never happened or, if it did happen, it wasn't as bad as the Jews say it was. I am never quite sure what they are driving at - I suppose it's always open to any half wit to deny a disagreable historic truth but I wonder if people like this would be happier if the estimates of deaths in Extermination Camps were dropped a million or so. Would they feel better if it were only 5 million Jews slaughtered - or four million?

It would, I am sure, be libellous to imply that any or all of these men are Neo-Nazis so I will just stick to the provable truth - whenever the subject of the Holocaust comes up they always find themselves on the side of the Nazis.

Behaviour like this is very unsettling to the Jewish community, as well it might be. There is usually talk of silencing this sort of thing under the "inciting hatred" sections of the Criminal Code. I can understand that reaction - but I suggest that it is not the way to go.

It is true that society forgets - many my age, as young teens, attended memorial services after the war and heard how Canada would never forget. But, to a large measure, we have. Jews have every reason to fear that their horror story to end all horror stories might be forgotten.

There are two problems with Criminal prosecutions.

First, it is very hard to get a conviction for what I consider a pretty good reason - the section offends against the right to free speech.

Second, prosecutions are grist for the bigot's mill.

You will remember the trial of Ernst Zundel a few years ago. Each night Zundel could be seen on your TV, wearing his arrogant grin under a hard hat as he carried his cross. He couldn't have bought that publicity for a million dollars.

It is not a perfect answer but eternal vigilance and the hope that decent men and women can see through the half baked notions of vicious people is the better way to go.

Doug Collins and his ilk will always rail against non whites and Jews, and there will always be a market for what they peddle. Happily that market is small and dying fast.

Schindler's List will be seen by millions around the world. It's message is a truth which sears the souls of those who see it and because of that, it's a message which will long outlive the racist blatherings of a few.