Bernard Lewis

[Volokh, Eugene]

	By the way, just to make clear why I chose the Bernard Lewis
example:  Several years ago, prominent historian Bernard Lewis was sued
in France for his comments (made in a Le Monde interview) on the Turkish
killing of Armenians during World War I; he stressed that the killing
happened, but argued that -- unlike with the Holocaust during World War
II -- it was not part of a deliberate campaign of extermination by the
Turks.  Various plaintiffs, including the French Forum of Armenian
Associations and the International League Against Racism and
Antisemitism sued, claiming that his speech violated French prohibitions
on the historical denial of genocide.  They won.

	You can find the English translation of the French court
decision at http://users.ids.net/~gregan/dec_eng.html .  It goes even
beyond what I've heard on this thread:  The court didn't find that Lewis
made any false statements, but it concluded that Lewis didn't give a
balanced presentation (and this in a necessarily brief newspaper
interview, not an academic work) -- under this standard, even the most
responsible historians could be vulnerable, especially if they are tried
before courts that are hostile to their viewpoints.  And though Lewis
lost only 14,000 Francs, I suspect that the potential damages for future
cases would be considerably greater.  Here's what seems to me to be the
court's key language:

    	"Whereas, even if it is in no way established that he pursued an
objective foreign to his role as historian, and even if it is not
disputable that he may maintain an opinion on this question different
from those of the petitioning associations, the fact remains that it was
by concealing information contrary to his thesis that the defendant was
able to assert that there was no 'serious proof' of the Armenian
genocide; consequently, he failed in his duties of objectivity and
prudence by offering unqualified opinions on such a sensitive subject;
and his remarks, which could unfairly rekindle the pain of the Armenian
community, are tortious and justify compensation under the terms set
forth hereafter."

	(Note again that the Lewis statement about the lack of serious
proof of the genocide referred to the supposed "lack of serious proof .
. . of a decision and plan of the Ottoman government for extermination
of the Armenian nation"; Lewis acknowledged "that the Armenians'
suffering [was] a terrible human tragedy," and that many Armenians died
as a result of the deportation.)

	The slope looks a lot more slippery once you see how others have
slipped down it.  I don't see why we can be confident that what happened
to Lewis in France wouldn't happen to historians here, once "group
libel" principles that allow punishment for supposedly grossly negligent
falsehood about history (or whatever the standard is; we're just told
that it's not just negligence but also not quite recklessness) are
entrenched.

	Eugene