JTA reports that French comic Dieudonne has been fined “nearly $11,000 for referring to Holocaust remembrance as ‘memorial pornography’ at a news conference following a performance in Algeria in February 2005.” The report also notes some of his more choice sayings - “Zionism is the AIDS of Judaism,” along with a variation of this old favorite: “Those Jews who criticize me are all former slave merchants who now control the media and the banks.”
Lenny Bruce he ain’t.
Readers should check out this detailed profile of Dieudonne published by The New Yorker last November. In that article, Bernard-Henri Levy offers this apt observation, easily applicable in other circumstances: “You will not raise a mass movement by saying the Jews killed Christ—nobody cares. Accuse them of having invented Christ, like Voltaire did in the eighteenth century, still nobody cares. As far as being a special race, nobody believes that anymore. But anti-racist anti-Semitism—saying that for the sake of the blacks, for the sake of the Arabs, we must make the Jews shut up—this works.”
Dieudonne has been obsessed with Jews throughout his life.
One wonders what motivates him. Was it the influence of the left in France or the fact that by attacking Jews he would get noticed?
Methinks that the fine is peanuts for someone like him.
He should have been fined eleven million dollars and not a measly 11 thousand.
Dieudonne’s statements are foul, but no good can come from criminalizing speech. The very idea is an affront to democratic principles, and it allows people like D to puff themselves up as free-speech martyrs. It’s amazing that this obvious point has yet to be grasped in Europe.
First they came for the anti-Semites and I said nothing etc etc…
Criminalizing speech. Wrong direction. Bad idea.
Dieudonne is guilty of more than just hate speech:
Here is a short list of activities in which he has been involved:
“On 2 March 2005, in Martinique, four Israelis attacked him after referring to the television show[3].
On February 11, 2006, he participated in the Parisian “march of angry Muslims” against the Muhammad cartoons.
On March 10, 2006, a Paris court sentenced him to a €5,000 fine for having alleged in an interview (published in February 2004) that “those Jews that criticise me are all former slave-merchants who now control the media and the banks”.[4]
In May 2006, he gave a lengthy interview to the far-right monthly Le Choc du mois [5].
On June 14, 2006, he was sentenced to a total of 4,500 € fine (3,000 + 1,500) for libel, having accused a prominent Jewish TV-show host of “actively financing the Israeli army”.[6]
In November 2006 he appeared at a political event for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s far-right party[7]. He first endorsed José Bové and then Socialist Party politician Ségolène Royal for the second turn [4].”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieudonn%C3%A9_M‘bala_M’bala
Doesn’t seem like he respects free speech neither, does it.
“In December 2005, he was in the news for losing a lawsuit to prevent an unflattering biography from being reprinted,[2]”
The guy is an obsessed and mixed up Jew hater.
He is one of the people who helped create a climate of anti-Jewish violence which led to the death of at least one Jew.
“Criminalizing speech. Wrong direction. Bad idea.”
Walter, this is France where speech has already been criminalized. We are not talking about the US.
David Adler wrote:
“Dieudonne’s statements are foul, but no good can come from criminalizing speech.”
The issue is not easy, sure. The small fine is a particular case, not a general law being broadly applied. I am not sure there are any signs of such a tendency towards that either. There are plenty of people making such statements on a regular basis, and they are not, nor will they be, fined for it.
The point being, that Dieudonne is a popular public figure who uses his status and visibility to repeatedly make statements against Jews. And this is one slap on the wrist specifically connected with this particular act.
I don’t think the issue is simple, but I don’t think it represents “an affront to democratic principles.” The limits of free speech is a very old issue. I am not sure there is a golden rule for its application. But rather needs to be negotiated in the context.
It is true that the fine on Dieudonne “allows people like D to puff themselves up as free-speech martyrs,” but it’s also true that, in the absence of such a fine, they find other ways to “prove” their “persecution by the Jews.”
You also wrote: “It’s amazing that this obvious point has yet to be grasped in Europe.” I wonder if you think this is any different than the debate over hate speech in the U.S., which is the country I believe you’re comparing it to?