Monday, August 28, 2017

Acknowledging that Canada’s hate groups exist

A police line holds back white supremacist during a white power rally in
downtown Calgary in 2011
Violence from the far right has generally received less media coverage than jihadist attacks, but things unfolded differently after the white power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12. With President Trump’s statement that there was blame “on many sides” and white supremacist websites celebrating Trump’s unwillingness to condemn the radical right, there was wall-to-wall coverage for the rest of the week on American news networks. It was refreshing to see the issue of right-wing extremism, brewing quietly for decades, given the public attention it deserves.

In Canada, the ripple effects of the Charlottesville violence centred most immediately on far-right media personalities. Rebel Media’s Faith Goldy, for example, travelled to Charlottesville to report on the “Unite the Right” rally and ended up inadvertently capturing one of the clearest videos of the deadly car attack that killed a counterprotester. Goldy then made a guest appearance on the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer podcast, where she argued that counterprotesters were much less peaceful than the media had reported. After the podcast was published, Rebel Media head Ezra Levant said he felt that he had no choice but to fire her.

In the coming days, Goldy addressed her critics, arguing that she was not a white supremacist but that she believed the rally had “grounds upon which to engage in conversation” with the alt-right. The “promotion of identity politics combined with the decline in the white supermajority has led to a new movement,” she argued. “I’m not endorsing it, but only pointing out the fact that it exists.”

So what does this “new” movement look like in Canada? Our research estimates there are more than 100 organized groups espousing beliefs ranging from anti-immigrant sentiments to Zionist Occupational Government conspiracy theories.  (more...)


Related:

It's one thing to reign in the mindless street-yobs. It's quite another to confront the criminal global fascist cartel system behind them.




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