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JEREMY JONES AND THE ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF HELEN DARVILLE |
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BRISBANE, February 29, Australian Associated Press |
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A Jewish lobby group today accused a magazine of "cheap sensationalism" for commissioning an article by controversial author Helen Darville about Nazi historian David Irving. Darville, who fabricated Ukrainian ancestry as Helen Demidenko for her first award winning novel amid claims that the book was anti-Semitic, interviewed Irving for Australian Style magazine. The interview has angered the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council community affairs director Jeremy Jones, who claimed it was a cynical move to increase sales of the magazine which goes on the news stands tomorrow. "It's cheap sensationalism. Helen Darville is notorious as a person who perpetrated a literary fraud with a book that was widely viewed as justifying anti-Semitism," Mr Jones told AAP today. "She was then asked by a magazine to go and interview somebody who has a status in the eyes of many far right-wingers as an icon. "How is the cause of public information served by the combination of these two personalities." The interview was conducted in London during a libel case against an American academic whom Irving, who has been refused a visa to Australia, is suing for allegedly depicting him as denying the Holocaust and as a "Hitler partisan". However Australian Style editor Jack Marx criticised Mr Jones' stand, claiming there was "no gimmick involved" and he would use Darville for other articles. "It's a totally expected knee-jerk reaction by a bunch of people who are pro-censorship," Marx said. "The article is balanced and anyone who reads it will see that she pokes holes through many of Irving's arguments." "She is actually quite knowledgeable about the topic." Darville, who now lives in London and was not contactable, won the Miles Franklin award for her book, The Hand That Signed The Paper. A few years ago Darville apologised for claiming Ukrainian ancestry saying she was sorry if her book or actions were perceived as anti-Semitic. She said she condemned without reservation the perpetrators of the Holocaust. |
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This piece was obviously a bitter disappointment to Jeremy Jones, self-styled "Jewish Community Leader", who had appeared on Sydney's 2BL radio the same morning (Feb 29). Happy to praise Robert Manne's 'very rational discussion' in the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald, Jones then accused Darville of being ill-prepared and having simply regurgitated Irving's own opinions in her article. Which seemed slightly rich coming from someone SO well prepared that he hadn't noticed her six year career as a freelance features and travel journalist, but the oversight made it easier to accuse her of being unqualified to cover the Irving/Lipstadt trial. Apparently features on right-wing politician Pauline Hanson and Aboriginal rights activist Roberta Sykes don't constitute the experience reporting "interesting matters of public affairs" that Mr Jones would like to have seen. He is apparently also unaware that Australia boasts non-Fairfax media sources. Jeremy Jones' obsession with "properly authorised" commentators is understandable given that he is apparently 'properly authorised' to speak for an as-yet-unfinalised number of political lobby groups. The Community Affairs Director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council from the AAP article was suddenly promoted to National Vice President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry when writing for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (01/03/00). The FAIRFAX ARE YELLOW! webteam are eagerly awaiting Jones' imminent appointment as ASIO spooksman after his admission in the JTA article (widely extracted by the Fairfax press) to having commissioned "an inquiry" into Helen Darville's background. He then proceeds to quote extensively from the resulting dossier. Based on the levels of factual accuracy displayed in the article, Mr Jones should demand an immediate refund. |
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THE JONES BIOGRAPHY |
THE DARVILLE BIOGRAPHY |
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"Darville had taken the name "Demidenko" from a real perpetrator of one of the most notorious incidents of the Holocaust, the massacre at Babi Yar." |
Actually, "Demidenko" is the Ukrainian equivalent of Jones. Apart from Jeremy's paranoia, there is no evidence that would suggest Darville chose the name from anywhere other than a phone book. Or perhaps he can explain which Demidenko at Babi Yar is being referred to. |
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"The inquiry also found that Darville had a record of supporting right-wing political causes." |
Unlikely for someone whose father stood as a Federal Green Party candidate (1993),whose sister was the first female president of the Townsville Trades and Labour Council (ACTU) and who was herself elected to the University of Queensland Student Union Council as a Democrat in 1991 & 1992. As environmental causes are universally considered left wing, we can only presume he is referring to Darville's involvement in the cross party Pro-Euthanasia campaign, alongside other notorious 'right wingers' like Labour MP Cheryl Kernot and Dr Philip Nitschke. |
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"Darville had a short-lived career as a newspaper columnist, which ended after she submitted a column plagiarised from an Internet site." |
Actually Darville repeated jokes which she received by email and mistakenly thought were the original work of her correspondent. In fact these came from a multi-author collection spammed all over the internet in extract sans author information/copyright notice et al. Darville didn't see the website (which encourages readers to 'post additions, pass it along or post it anywhere') until she had spoken to the list collator, Peter Anspach. Apparently nor did the Australian media who failed to notice his list of 63 contributors and continued to mistakenly refer to him as "the author". (Evil Overlords other than Jeremy Jones hang out at,http://minievil.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html Jones also fails to mention that Darville has continued to write feature journalism for the same newspaper, including pieces on the Irving trial included on this site. |
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For the kinky habit of keeping dossiers on professional young women, the FAIRFAX ARE YELLOW! website would like to:
(Perhaps he also needs to be reminded that the NKVD's successor, the KGB, went out of business in 1991.) |
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The article recycled the themes Jones had established in the previous morning's radio interview (plus the
laughable "biography"). These include: Helen Darville is "not a proper journalist" - she just happens to be widely published in News Corporation and independent media The Holocaust is being "exploited" to sell magazines - the interview is about the libel trial, the LIBEL TRIAL was about the Holocaust Helen Darville has "no expertise in writing about the Holocaust" - apart from an entire novel set against the backdrop of the Holocaust which won Australia's highest literary awards and which, despite Jones' claims
to the contrary, was praised for its historical accuracy by several experts We particularly liked this upgrade to the claim originally made during the 2BL interview that Darville is an Irving mouthpiece: "Australia's Jewish community is outraged by a magazine's decision to have a Holocaust revisionist cover a libel suit brought by another Holocaust revisionist." Darville goes from non-journalist to professional historian in 24 hours. We at the FAIRFAX ARE YELLOW! Website, hope this blatant attempt to slander Darville as an Irving "fellow traveller" earns Jeremy Jones and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency a big fat writ. However, for Mr Jones' future benefit we pause for this momentary game of spot the difference. |
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David says... |
Helen says... |
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The Holocaust is a myth, but up to four million Jews were killed in the Final Solution |
Approximately six million Jews and half a million Gypsies died in the Holocaust |
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I am a professional historian specialising in the military history of WWII |
I am a features journalist who was asked to interview David Irving. Next time it could be Kylie Minogue. |
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Racial mixing is abhorrent |
My boyfriend is black |
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MEMO TO JEREMY JONES: It must be really difficult to appreciate the distinction between a conservative, British, male historian in his sixties and a liberal, Australian, female journalist in her twenties, but if you take those blinkers off you'll be amazed how much your perspective broadens. |
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In his article for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jones displays an enthusiasm for the sweeping statement, in particular when referring to "The Hand That Signed the Paper" and: "an almost universal view in academic and Jewish circles that the book promoted anti-Semitism" Which sounds wonderfully authoritative, but isn't actually true. Andrew Riemer is a prominent Jewish academic at Sydney University who specialises in literature and came to a different conclusion in his book on "The Demidenko Affair" (Allen & Unwin, 1996). Others who have failed to share Jeremy Jones' particular insight into the novel's contents have included David Marr, Don Anderson, Dame Leonie Kramer, Jill Kitson, PP McGuinness, Frank Devine, McKenzie Wark and Humphrey McQueen amongst many others. Apparently the "circles" in which Jeremy moves tend not to extend further than the pages of the Fairfax press and the political organisations of which he is a member. These groups - quoted at length by Jones, Manne and the Fairfax press - DO think that Helen Darville is anti-Semitic, apparently because they believe an author can't write about an anti-Semite without becoming one. This doesn't make it true, either. |
