Revisionist History has a bad name. Not because it deserves one, but because of the power wielded by its enemies, and their total and utter ruthlessness combined with an equally total disrespect for truth. The term Revisionist History is associated mostly in the public mind with Holocaust Revisionism, one of the last forbidden subjects in academia. Holocaust Revisionists are generally referred to pejoratively as Holocaust Deniers, a term popularised by and probably invented by, the American-Jewish polemicist Deborah Lipstadt.
In spite of its supposedly Nazi orientation however, Revisionist History has a long Libertarian tradition or even left wing roots. The founding father of Revisionist History is generally acknowledged to be the American dissident historian Harry Elmer Barnes, (1889-1968). Barnes and his fellow travellers were not satisfied with the explanations put forward for American entry into the First World War, and set about deconstructing the historical record.
The purpose of Revisionist History is to bring the historical record into accord with the facts, (1) so as try to arrive at some consensus about historical truth.
Just as an iceberg is nine tenths covered by water, so too is the history of the world. Decisions are taken in secret. Governments – even well-meaning governments – mislead the public, other governments and the world at large. The world is full of intrigues and conspiracies, great and small. For all practical purposes the government has infinite resources, and its minions are unaccountable. But governments are not the only players in the field. Big business and all manner of other lobbies are also at work, each presenting the public, and often more selective (and influential) audiences, with their own particular version of events, and explaining why the enactment of a particular law or public policy would better serve the public interest (rather than their own). (2) In recent years the term spin doctor has come into common usage to describe these sort of propagandists.
The power of lobbies is not always and exclusively based on money or on pulling wires behind the political scenes. The power of the Jewish/Zionist lobby is based in large measure on psychological factors, in particular the fear so many politicians, academics, and others have of being tainted with anti-Semitism any time they step out of line. Over the past three decades and more, the epithet racist has become just as effective, if not more so for the race relations racket, than has the smear word anti-Semite for Organised Jewry.
The perfidious influence of political, financial and business lobbies, and agenda driven special interest groups, can and does distort the official record to an alarming degree.
While the government line should always be regarded with some reserve, if not outright suspicion, the official scribes do occasionally get things right. (3) The official history of the murder of Clarke Pearce as documented by the legal authorities (police, coroner, prosecution and Court of Appeal) and by the medical authorities (registar and pathologist), is as accurate as could reasonably be expected of any similar incident which occurred under such circumstances, ie, sudden, traumatic, and perhaps at a time of day when most of those concerned were not at their most observant. (4)
In spite of all the Ram campaign’s ludicrous talk about lynch mobs, racism and social upheaval, this was not a politically or racially sensitive incident. It did not involve an ambassador, a controversial politician, anyone well known, or even the police. (5) All the players were ordinary people. Regardless of this, any comparable incident would still constitute murder: a black man who murdered a white man in pre-liberation South Africa, in the Deep South, or anywhere else, would be no less guilty of murder than Ram, as indeed would a white man who murdered a black man, or a black man who murdered an Indian, or a Chinese who murdered an Arab, or any ethnic combination or none.
All the disinformation, wilful distortions and lies about this incident have come from unofficial sources, in particular:
1) Ram himself – who in spite of his incarceration exercises a great deal of control over the campaign,
2) Ram’s campaigners, who are by and large outright liars,
and
3) from a third, less well defined group, made up of left wing and/or ethnic fellow travellers, the well-meaning people who are either gullible or ignorant of the true facts or both, and of a media which is too lazy, too sensationalist or too corrupt to let the facts stand in the way of a good story. (6) To the above categories one might add the well known phenomenon of Chinese whispers which is caused by sloppy fact checking, gossip, etc. (7)
Any intelligent, open-minded, unbigoted person who studies Regina v Satpal Ram as documented by the official record, and sifts through the lies and distortions of the Free Satpal Campaign and its followers and dupes, will conclude that Ram is guilty of what our American cousins refer to as murder in the first degree, (8) and that for once the task of the Revisionist Historian is to bring the facts (as presented to the public) into accord with the official record, rather than vice versa.
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