As promised, I’m trying to get back to a regular schedule of writing after a couple of weeks that have included a family emergency, doctors appointments, coordinating multiple travel plans over hundreds of kilometres and varying levels of mobility, a heavier-than-usual round of threats and harassment from the far right… and an increasingly bleak online search for news of the whereabouts and well-being of a friend in Rojava. (I’m not going to touch too much on that last in this blog post, but it’s been a constant source of low-grade anxiety for the last several days.)
Since the Mohawk College protest the alt-right’s online hate machine has been working overtime. I’ve caught some of the splash, having been identified by the Proud Boys as someone who one of their members punched and therefore as someone who has to be slagged in order to justify a coward’s criminal assault on a protester. Far worse, though, is the harassment that was (and still is) directed at Soufi’s restaurant in Toronto because one of their family was identified as a protester; the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion has also been the subject of a number of threats, many of which seem to be instigated and coordinated by the same group of co-conspirators.
I’ve personally received great deal of abuse online through my Twitter account — because Twitter is the second-worst website on the internet (the first being Reddit) — including one guy who made multiple sock-puppet accounts to harass me over his original account being blocked. (FYI, I don’t “owe you a debate”, particularly when you try and open said debate by calling me a “fat antifa faggot.”)
I’ve also received a number of threats via the comments section on this blog. These tend to get filtered straight into the trash because WordPress has the useful option of flagging certain words, phrases or email domains for instant disposal. Every couple of weeks I check the trash and manually pick out some of the more entertaining and/or typical ones for forwarding to my personal email address for further analysis and/or mockery.
As a quick aside — I’ve also received approximately equal numbers of messages over the past couple of weeks through the same medium which have been statements of support and encouragement, and they’re very appreciated. You know who you are… and thank you.
Last week, however, I checked the comment filter and found a genuinely odd message from someone on the hate-group side that I’ve been thinking about ever since. Not because it was threatening or abusive, but because it wasn’t.
Interesting, isn’t it? An invitation, by a member of one of the fascist groups, claiming to be sick and tired and asking me personally for a sit-down “to discuss these things in a civil manner.”
I haven’t replied directly to “Capt Canuck” for a number of reasons, but primarily for this one: I simply don’t believe this offer is in good faith. I’ve had anonymous fascists threatening me for weeks; I genuinely don’t believe that I can meet another anonymous fascist at a coffee shop or whatever and have a chat in a “civil and rational manner.” Best case, “Capt Canuck” secretly films any conversation for posting on one of the grubby little YouTube propaganda channels all these fascists seem to have in an attempt to display how reasonable they are (and not-coincidentally to destroy any credibility I have in activist circles); worst case, four of their fascist buddies come out of the bathroom and try to give me that “tune up” I keep being promised.
So yeah, perhaps I’m being a touch paranoid, but at this point in 2019 I think I’ve got good reason not to want to show up someplace to meet with a fascist promising “No Colours, patches, flags, backup, cameras etc.” Fascists lie. It’s one of their defining features. And the absence of a real name on the signature is, I think, a bit of a giveaway: A real offer would doubtlessly be accompanied by a real name.
But let’s take a step back and give “Capt Canuck” the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they really do have a theory about a “main issue” that transcends leftist/rightist-commie/fash stuff that they honestly want to share in the hopes of having a dialogue so we can all just get along. Maybe their intentions are entirely straightforward and they think that some kind of common ground is possible. Maybe they have no intention of filming the conversation to use it for propaganda or inviting a bunch of violent homophobes to ambush me. Maybe they really do “fully support and respect you for you having an opinion and have to admire you for expressing it.”
Maybe — and this is something I do consider occasionally — maybe I’m the asshole in this situation.
Well, I’ve thought about it and I have bad news for “Capt Canuck”: Even if they are sincere, I’m still not sitting down with them to have a chat. Because there’s nothing to talk about. There’s no common ground, there’s no middle way. There is no compromise to be had.
“Capt Canuck” is starting from a premise that I neither respect nor accept: The premise that the racist, homophobic and fascistic actions we oppose are simply representative of an alternate political opinion being brought to the marketplace of ideas. A few weeks ago I shared a post on Twitter that really sums up the argument for me, which was the notion that it’s less of a marketplace of ideas and more of a potluck:
I really love that one line — “We tell them to get it off the table because there’s no debate to be had. It’s dog shit. It’s not an open question, it’s not a matter of palettes or picky eaters.”
Yes. This. Absolutely this.
In the “marketplace of ideas”, there are some ideas which we do not trade in. Racism is one of them. Misogyny, homophobia and transphobia have no value. Fascism and Nazism have no place at the table, and I’ll be damned if I’m expected to sit down with them and thereby enable them. As soon as we allow these ideas to be “debated” we have de-facto allowed those ideas to win, because we’ve conceded that they are equal and have an equal right to be considered.
“But what about Free Speech?” the alt-right choruses. “What about our right to be heard?”
Hate speech is not free speech. If you condemn the presence of pineapple on pizza, that’s free speech. If you condemn the presence of Muslims in Canada, that’s hate speech. Disliking Hawaiian pizza hurts no one, but dehumanizing and belittling immigrants and people of a different religion endangers real people. Don’t believe me? Take a look at any Yellow Vests Canada Facebook page. Even if you don’t want to log in to one of those pages, YVCE posts screenshots all the time; these are not the considered and logical opinions of people that care about the state of their country, they’re the rhetorical dogwhistles used by a bunch of bigots and xenophobes egging each other on to committing hate crimes. And they’re almost always lies, because they have no basis in honest fact.
One of the other points in “Capt Canuck”‘s message was the statement that “both sides are guilty.” No, they’re not. I’ve been there: It’s the fascist hate groups that start the violence, always. At Mohawk College the anti-hate protesters were repeatedly attacked by hate groups, including the Northern Guard and Proud Boys (who, by the way, are bragging about being the PPC’s invited security at that event, which should worry everyone) and who are apparently aided and abetted in their violence by the Hamilton Police Service. I’ve never seen an anti-fascist protester in Hamilton (or anywhere else) start any violence and I reject, categorically, the statement that both sides are at fault. Hell, at Mohawk a Proud Boy punched me in the face and I didn’t hit back. (Admittedly, the masked Proud Boy ran away so fast he almost fell on his ass so I never had the chance to hit back, but I feel the moral point stands.)
Once again, the “both sides” claim is a false premise and an attempt to co-opt the language of debate in order to win a tacit admission of equivalency between Left and Right. If we sit down with someone claiming this “both sides” fallacy then we already cede the point simply by the existing terms of the discussion, and I won’t do that. There is no equivalence between leftist anti-fascists and extreme-right fascists. Both sides are not equal, nor equally at fault. The fascist groups are entirely responsible for the violence. Period. If anti-fascists have had to use force in self-defence and the defence of the vulnerable, then the moral culpability for the violence falls on the instigators — the hate groups who attacked them — and on the police whose dereliction of duty has permitted such violence to occur. It does not fall on the anti-fascist citizens protecting themselves and others.
And I don’t need to sit down at a Tim Horton’s somewhere and make these points to “Capt Canuck.” As far as I’m concerned they’re self-evident.
But the one thing which has really stuck with me the most is the single humanizing statement in the entire message: “I am just sick and tired of all the fighting, and yelling, doxxing etc.“
Yeah, “Capt Canuck”, me too. Do you think I want to spend my weekends counter-protesting? Do you think I enjoy having hateful things screamed at me by fascists? Do you think I like having violent scumbags threatening me and my family? Do you think I don’t have better things to do with my life? I mean, come on, I want to write about the economy and climate change and philosophy and the best way to make an Old Fashioned. I have a novel in me that is dying to get out. Hell, if worst comes to worst and I need something to do both the Timbers and the Thorns made their respective playoffs this year.
I have other shit to do, is my point.
I want this to be over, too. I want the fascists off the streets to I can spend my time doing other things that matter. But I can’t quit. I won’t quit, because fascism thrives where it’s not challenged. So we as anti-fascists will challenge it wherever it shows its ugly face. Antifa means anti-fascist, and anti-fascist is what you’re supposed to be. As anti-fascists we won’t quit for the very simple reason that we can’t afford to lose.
As Oliver Thorne, host of the PhilosophyTube channel once powerfully put it in his video lecture The Philosophy of Antifa, (which I have recommended before and recommend yet again):
“If you’re a fascist and anti-fascists come for you, you have a choice: You can give it up;you can renounce what you said, say “I’m sorry, I’m going to retire and read a lot of books and understand why I was wrong.” Alternatively, you could just go on with the rest of your life and stop turning up to fascist rallies and anti-fascists probably aren’t going to buy you a pint and be your best friend but they’ll move on. And the historical evidence supports this: When fascists in a particular city stop getting together and organizing, anti-fascists go back to their lives as well. In fact, some anti-fascists engage with fascists and provide services to try and get them out of the movement so they can move on with their lives.
“But if you’re a person of colour, if you’re trans, or a person with a disability, or gay, or Jewish, and fascists come for you there is nothing you can do that can make them happy except stop existing…That’s the key ideological difference between the far left and the far right. Anti-fascists organize themselves against those who are building fascism, not just those who have fascist sympathies or fascist thoughts in the privacy of their own heads, but those who are choosing to be out in public building a fascist government.And if you’re doing that, that is a thing you can non-violently stop doing. If you’re a political enemy of Antifa, you can become a friend; if you’re a political enemy of fascism, though, either they lose or you die.”
If “Capt Canuck” is getting sick and tired, that means we’re winning. And if they’ve woken up one day and realized that they’re standing next to people who they don’t actually like and whose opinions are repellent and they’re sick and tired of it and want to get out? Good. There are resources available for breaking free from that life… and I encourage “Capt Canuck” (or anyone else) to look into them if they feel they need them.
But I’m not an expert in de-radicalizing fascists. Aside from sharing the link above, I’ve got nothing to contribute to that end of things. And I don’t need to sit down at some coffee-shop table somewhere and tell “Capt Canuck” and his armed buddies in the bathroom that, either. Frankly, I neither have the time and emotional energy to try and “convert” someone who’s already embraced a fascistic worldview. I simply don’t want them on our streets or in our politics. What’s in their hearts and minds I genuinely don’t care about: so long as they crawl back under whatever rocks they’ve been hiding under, I’ll leave the saving of their souls to others more qualified and patient than I.
(“So much for the Tolerant Left!” the alt-right will disingenuously cry. Keep crying. A few days ago an anonymous troll threatened to rape my spouse to death in front of me before beheading me by the light of my burning home. I have no more “tolerance” for Nazis left in me… and I had precious little to start with.)
So yeah, even if “Capt Canuck” is sincere — and as I stated above I have very good reasons to doubt that sincerity — I simply see no benefit in sitting down and trying to hash anything out. Thanks for being polite, which is something I haven’t seen much of from your side of things, but you’re not bringing anything to the table that interests me or gives us grounds for discussion. I see the people you’ve chosen to stand next to, and I’m not impressed. I’m not interested in some mythical “common ground” that is actually a surrender. I’m not interested in some bullshit “debate” that forces me to concede points I have no intention of conceding simply because I showed up.
Sorry it took me so long to respond, though. It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks.
