“I’m a fucking Nazi, bitch! I’m a Nazi! You know what a Nazi is?”
In Seven Sisters Falls, just outside of Winnipeg, a passing connection between two strangers exploded into a one-sided violent confrontation. When Kaniz Fatima, a hijab-wearing Muslim woman visiting Manitoba from Calgary, asked Nick Wadien for directions, Wadien responded by proudly proclaiming that he was a Nazi, and that Fatima should “go back to [her] country” and “take [her] head towel off.”
When the filmed confrontation found its way to news outlets around the world, Wadien used the voice Global News offered to state that his actions were a response to the stress he was facing because “the ‘turbaners’ wouldn’t leave me alone, so I got mad.” He said he actually is not a Nazi, despite his filmed statements pointedly declaring the opposite.
The fabricated word ‘turbaners’ – which disturbingly insinuates that Wadien may have been mixed up on just what religious identity he was so filled with vitriol towards – aside, one could argue that the most frightening part of Wadien’s brief time on our collective radar is just how quickly he went from loudly declaring Nazi status to sheepishly recanting.
So what gives a man in this province the confidence not only to spit racist hate speech, but to expect his deeply idiotic reasoning for doing so to be taken seriously? More importantly, what makes him only one of many? (more....)
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