History has a way of repeating itself too often. It is the responsibility of those with long memories, like our labour movement, to recognize peril at the door and raise the alarm.
The Charlottesville Virginia rally was a dangerous moment which necessitates a very strong rejection. When one sees the images of the rally, to us all and our Jewish brothers and sisters we are immediately reminded of the Nazi rallies just before the Kristallnacht pogroms in 1938.
Similarly, to us all and our Black brothers and sisters we are reminded of the horrifying violence of the KKK. We remember the violence and we shall not forget.
We see increasing trends of dehumanizing our brothers and sisters by those who seek to divide us. The targets of violence today remain the same as they did yesterday, systemic racism and police brutality still violate and cripple the opportunity of our Black brothers and sisters and Canadian Jews still report the most hate crimes in Canada. However, playing on fear, ignorance and division – we see another target, those being Canadian Muslims. The attack on the Quebec mosque, the doubling of hate crimes last year of Canadian Muslims, and constant dehumanizing of the community has allowed those same people who seek to divide us to find a new object of hate.
The Alt-Right, White Supremacists, White Nationalists, Nazis are all different names to the same coin. They are those who seek to instill in us a fear of our neighbours, and ingrain suspicion in order to allow a degraded value of human dignity upon our Muslim sisters and brothers. The Alt-Right have used Islamophobia as an incubation chamber to lay the seeds of division. Rather than listening to our Muslim neighbours who soundly reject violence and terrorism, they have painted the entire community deserving of fear and of suspicion. We must reject this othering. By focusing on Muslims and terrorism, they have been able to build political strength and organize under the guise of protecting ‘Canadian values’, ‘patriotism’ and ‘freedom’. Earlier this year at our event for the International Day for the Elimination of Racism and Discrimination, labour and our community allies laid out a plan to push back against hate. In it we specifically called upon the Conservative Party to reject the politics of division, and reject those within their party who promote hate, as well as callout Rebel Media for stoking fear and hatred.
We feel this is the moment, when we must raise our voices higher than before, and push back against hate and division. We see exposing of Rebel Media by Press Progress, and the Conservative Party starting to distance themselves from them assigns of a pivot point if we are able to mobilize on this momentum. We can’t stop now; we must hold every politician and media outlet who supports hateful rhetoric to distance themselves in order to politically isolate bigotry and hate.
We must be clear on our condemnation of hate. The speed by which emotion scan go from fear to hate to violence, history has repeatedly shown us, to be incredibly fast. The failure of the 45th U.S President to immediately and clearly condemn White Supremacy provides license to those seeking political cover to promote hate. Any displays of hate in our society must be met with immediate and strong condemnation.
The Executive Board recommends that Labour Council:
- Condemn, in the strongest of terms, the recent displays of hate and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia and join with our American sisters and brothers in condemning the inaction of Donald Trump for not immediately naming and denouncing the white supremacy which is at the root cause of the recent events in Charlottesville.
- Commit to deepen our work within the labour movement to further educate and promote diversity and inclusion.
- Commit to working with our allies to Stand Up and Speak out against hate and intolerance and organize towards ending all forms of racism, discrimination and Islamophobia.
