Battleground

We love to have opinions

We love to have our say

The modern world a talking shop

Talking is here to stay

But sometimes to our great surprise

We find that silence speaks

And silence is more eloquent

Than all our daily squeaks

 

It is good to choose your battles

In the daily round

And even more important

To choose the battle ground

Do not stand in the open

To give pot shots to the foe

Let him advance in boggy ground

And quickly he will know

 

The tactic of old Bannockburn

Played out in the High Court

When Holocaust denier

Was given a shrift so short

They proved Irving was erroneous

In the work that he had done

And Lipstadt didn’t say a word

Her self-denial won

 

Brian Fahy

2 February 2023

 

+ I watched the film, Denial, last night, about the libel action brought by David Irving against Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt over the truth or otherwise of the Holocaust. Lipstadt’s lawyers were brilliant in choosing the battleground of the contest, refusing to let Holocaust survivors give testimony, since it would give Irving a field day to question them, and make them look unreliable. By this act of self-denial, Lipstadt allowed her lawyers to concentrate their fire completely on Irving and his writings.

 

I also watched Simon Sharma’s A History of Britain, where he told the story of the Battle of Bannockburn – the very place where I live today – and how the Scots invited the English to charge at them over boggy ground.

David Irving’s denial of the Holocaust, I think, reveals something traumatic in his early life – perhaps being deserted by his father – that set him on the road of being a contrarian.