On the Use of "Hate" and "Extremism" to Control the Political Space
Canadians and Quebeckers Must Rely on Their Own Strength to Defeat Spurious Definitions of "Hate" and "Online Harms"
Protest
on Parliament Hill, March 14, 2015, against attacks on freedom
of
speech and conscience in the Bill C-51, the Anti-Terrorism Act
2015,
which became law on June 18, 2015.
The federal authorities are facing problems in getting proposed legislation to counter "online harms" passed. This is the case too as concerns proposed "anti-hate" laws. The basic problem lies in how "violent extremism" and "hate" are defined and by whom and the fact that definitions tend to be self-serving, suited to some immediate need of narrow private interests to silence a section of the population.
The rulers are themselves ideologically motivated to maintain and defend the existing system and its institutions of governance. This and repeated experience makes them not credible when they say they are not presenting ideologically motivated criteria, or that their criteria does not condemn people because of their ideological views and opinions or that it does not deprive them of their civil liberties.
A current example
is that the deliberate massacres the Israel
Defense Forces are carrying out in Gaza are not considered by
the
Canadian state to constitute violent extremism or hate crimes.
Canada
refuses to make sure the perpetrators of these acts are brought
to
justice as war criminals but it
does persecute Canadians who oppose Zionism, the apartheid state
of
Israel and the crimes it is committing. The U.S., Britain,
Canada and
others give Israel a green light, as well as arms and money, and
provide disinforming propaganda despite the fact that what it is
doing
is already declared to
come under the category of war crimes and crimes against
humanity as
defined since World War II. The attempt to silence those
who oppose these war crimes is also clearly understood to
violate civil liberties recognized by the constitutions of
European nation-states.
Hence the difficulty facing the ruling class to justify the suppression of views with which they do not agree and have the suppression be seen as necessary to defend the public good, national security and the like.
While the U.S. is in the throes of one legal battle after the other at both the federal and state levels to determine what is and what is not democratic in that country, Britain has also come up with what it calls a new definition of extremism. There is nothing new about the "new definition," which updates the definition Britain set out in its 2011 Prevent Strategy. It more specifically makes it a crime to "undermine, overturn or replace the UK's system of liberal parliamentary democracy" and then says the crime can simply involve "threatening, inciting, justifying, glorifying or excusing violence towards a group." This is something governments regularly claim is occurring with actions in support of Palestine, anti-war actions, during strikes and more. Laws concerning "extremism" and "hate" in Britain, Canada and the U.S. bring to the fore “extremism” and "hate" as the problem, in another attempt to justify what cannot be justified. Britain also says "new" definitions are required to "reflect the evolution of extremist ideologies and the social harms they create." This is more or less -- word for word -- what Canada also says, as transmitted to it by the political police which comprise what are called the "Five Eyes," the intelligence services of five so-called English-speaking countries -- the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Defenders of
civil liberties point out that current Canadian laws, including
provisions of the Criminal Code,
already permit the prosecution of those who commit crimes and no
further laws are required. They also point to Canada's history
of
forgiving certain people it considers its
friends, such as the Nazis and collaborators it permitted into
the
country after World War II to whom it gave citizenship on the
grounds
that being members of the Waffen-SS is not proof that they
committed
the Nazi atrocities associated with the Waffen-SS. But those
accused of
"violent extremism"
and of being purveyors of "hate" can be defamed and targeted in
the
most
heinous ways using all kinds of arbitrary means, such as getting
them
fired from their jobs, or deported, criminalized in various ways
and
even locked up for life. In other words, it is enough for a
minister to
declare a view or
an action a matter of national security, based on secret
information,
for people to be silenced, criminalized and penalized.
Since 9/11, the crimes the U.S. and Britain have committed in the name of eliminating extremists, including torture, inhuman treatment of prisoners, brutal targeted assassinations and revenge killings, are well known. Every effort is made to link "hate," and "hate crimes" with extremism, something to be feared and punished. This current exercise has the Canadian ruling class once again being deceitful, duplicitous, and destructive, all in the name of keeping up with evolving realities, "balancing security and rights," the public good and national security. While everything it is doing reveals it is not worthy of trust or public office, the consciousness that its aim is to mislead and cover up an appearance of double-dealing is increasingly widespread.
Picket in Ottawa, June
25, 2018, against security certificates and secret trials in
Canada.
Canada was founded as a dominion of the British Empire and promotes the liberal institutions that came into being in Victorian times which claimed to champion peace, order and good government. The juridical outlook which replaced the medieval theological outlook would have us believe that if things are done according to a law, then they are okay. But of course, this is not okay. Today parliamentary majorities are used to pass all kinds of laws which are not okay. Canada has no dearth of lawyers, defenders of civil liberties and champions of rights who speak out against violations of civil liberties to make sure that what is lawful is reasonable, not self-serving or arbitrary or against what they deem to be in the public interest. And this is important. It is necessary. It helps to make sure the ruling class cannot get away with some of the most egregious things they do. But it is not enough. The decisive force is that of the people speaking out in their own name. The working class harbours no illusions about the aims of the ruling class but it speaks out because it must. It cannot permit the ruling class to do all kind of terrible things in the name of the people, as it is doing regarding Israel today, amongst other things.
The bottom line
is that today the ruling class is quick to
accuse
other countries of being authoritarian and autocratic and
forgive
everything the United States, Britain, Canada and those who
share their
arbitrary "rules-based order" do. According to this "rules-based
order," they make up the
rules as they go along and anyone who refuses to succumb is out
of
order. All they achieve is to show that they are the ones who
are
autocratic and authoritarian, undemocratic to the core.
Unfolding
events reveal that it is the striving of the peoples led by the
working
class which is crucial to
open a path to progress.
While in the case of the U.S., Britain and Canada as well as France and other countries, champions of civil liberties are very insightful in making cogent arguments which put the self-serving and boorish arguments of the government spokespersons to shame, believing that the liberal democratic institutions are the final form of governance is limiting at best. How to eliminate the usurpation of power by narrow supranational private interests by creating mass democratic transitional forms of discussion, deliberation and decision-making is the problem the working class and people need to take up for solution by doing it.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 23 - March 28, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54231.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca