Roger Garaudy

Roger Garaudy
Born	(1913-07-17)17 July 1913 Marseille, France
Died	Paris, France
Nationality	French
Era	20th/21st-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Marxist philosophy

Roger Garaudy or Ragaa Garaudy (French: [gaʁodi]; 17 July 1913 – 13 June 2012) was a French philosopher, French resistance fighter and a prominent communist author. He converted to Islam in 1982. His books and ideas have been deemed Holocaust denial.

Early life, politics and religion

Born to Catholic and Jewish atheist parents in Marseille, Garaudy converted at age 14 and became a Protestant. During World War II, Garaudy joined the French Resistance, for which he was imprisoned in Djelfa, Algeria, as a prisoner of war of Vichy France. Following the war, Garaudy joined the French Communist Party. As a political candidate he succeeded in being elected to the National Assembly and eventually rose to the position of deputy speaker, and later senator.

Garaudy lectured in the faculty of arts department of the University Clermont-Ferrand from 1962-1965. Due to controversies between Garaudy and Michel Foucault, Garaudy left. He later taught in Poitiers from 1969-1972.

Garaudy remained a Christian and eventually re-converted to Catholicism during his political career. He was befriended by one of France's most prominent clerics of the time, the Abbé Pierre, who in later years supported Garaudy, even regarding the latter's most controversial views.

In 1970, Garaudy was expelled from the Communist Party following his outspoken criticism of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Garaudy converted to Islam in 1982 after marrying a Palestinian woman, later writing that "The Christ of Paul is not the Jesus of the Bible," and also forming other critical scholarly conclusions regarding the Old and New Testaments. As a Muslim he adopted the name "Ragaa" and became a prominent Islamic commentator and supporter of the Palestinian cause. He was married to Salma Taji Farouki.

Garaudy wrote more than 50 books, mainly on political philosophy and Marxism.

Holocaust denial

Main article: The Founding Myths of Modern Israel

In 1996 Garaudy published, with his editor Pierre Guillaume, his most controversial work, Les Mythes fondateurs de la politique israelienne, later translated into English as The Founding Myths of Modern Israel. In the book he wrote of "the myth of the six million" Jewish victims. Because of this, French courts banned any further publication and on 27 February 1998 fined him 240,000 French francs. He was sentenced to a suspended jail sentence of several years. Garaudy appealed this decision to the European Court of Human Rights, but his appeal was rejected as inadmissible. At his hearing, Garaudy stated that his book in no way condoned National Socialist methods, and that book was an attack on the mythologising and use of 'the holocaust' by Israeli government as policy. He argued that his book dealt with the Israeli government's use of 'the holocaust' as a "justifying dogma" for its actions, mainly in Palestine and toward Palestinians.

Support from the Islamic World

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, 160 members of the parliament signed a petition in Garaudy's support. Senior Iranian officials invited him to Tehran and received him warmly. Iranian leaders condemned Israel and the West for bringing Garaudy to trial. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cited Garaudy for his work in exposing the Zionists’ "Nazi-like behavior." Iranian President Mohammad Khatami described Garaudy as "a thinker" and "a believer" who was brought to trial merely for publishing research which was "displeasing to the West.".

Garaudy has been praised throughout the Islamic World:

• In June 1999, Jordanian intellectuals named Garaudy "the most important international cultural personality of the 20th century."
• Former Syrian vice-president Abdul-Halim Khaddam has called Garaudy "the greatest contemporary Western philosopher."
• Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi stated that Garaudy is "Europe's greatest philosopher since Plato and Aristotle."
• Garaudy was a co-winner of the King Faisal International Prize for Services to Islam in 1986.
• In February 2006, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah described Garaudy as "a great French philosopher." Nasrallah went on to praise Garaudy for exposing "alleged Jewish Holocaust in Germany" and stated that Garaudy "proved that this Holocaust is a myth." Nasrallah also criticized France for putting Garaudy on trial.

Later activities

In later interviews, Garaudy stated that the attacks of 11 September 2001 were organized by the United States government. He also repeated his claim that the Holocaust is a myth, stating that the genocide of Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War was "invented as a myth by Churchill, Eisenhower and De Gaulle" to justify the destruction and occupation of Germany.

In December 2006, Garaudy was unable to attend the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust due to health reasons. He reportedly sent a videotaped message supporting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's view that Israel should cease to exist.

Roger Garaudy died in Paris on 13 June 2012, aged 98.

Praise for Garaudy after his death

Following his death in June 2012, Garaudy subsequently received praise from a number of sources (as translated by MEMRI):

• Columnist Adam Yousef wrote in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida that "Garaudy committed no crime. He merely pointed out that the number of Jews who lived in Europe during World War II did not exceed 3.5 million – so where did the [figure of] six million come from, on which Israel bases the myth of the Holocaust? This is a simple scientific question, [a matter of] proof..."
• The Iranian Fars News Agency called him "the first denier of the Holocaust myth."
• The Arab Writers Union in Syria, of which Garaudy is an honorary member, wrote that he proved that "truth and evidence-based credibility and scientific accuracy were possible."
• Tunisian writer Tawfiq Al-Madina claimed in the Syrian daily Al-Thawra that Garaudy had "exposed the false the myths of the Zionists and their false propaganda regarding the Holocaust..."
• Fares Al-Wabasha, a columnist for the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour, wrote: "Only rarely do we encounter a prominent Western philosopher and thinker like Roger Garaudy, who supports Arab causes and exposes in a rational and scientific manner the shameful claims of the Zionist movement, undermining its colonialist enterprise in the region..."

See also

• Robert Faurisson
• Pierre Guillaume

Further reading

• Maurice Cranston, "The Thought of Roger Garaudy," Problems of Communism, vol. 19, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct. 1970), pp. 11–18.

External links

• The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics by Roger Garaudy.