It was another chaotic weekend in Hamilton as hate groups once again took over the forecourt at Hamilton City Hall. This time it wasn’t the Yellow Vests, whose dwindling numbers have scattered around the city in increasingly ill-attended and ineffective demonstrations, but instead the Soldiers of Odin & their co-nouns the Wolves of Odin.
At around eleven on Saturday morning word came out over various social media platforms that a large group of Nouns of Odin had showed up in their branded leather BDSM bottoming-vests, and were acting aggressively toward the small number of No Hate in the Hammer counter-protesters, including women and children. Officers from Hamilton Police Service were present, of course, but multiple reports state they concentrated more on herding the No Hate crowd into a corner than actually policing aggressive and violent neo-Nazis, who were allowed to freely move among the anti-hate counter-protesters, to the detriment of order and safety.
The social media callout included an urgent request for more counter-protesters to make their way to City Hall and the community began to turn out almost immediately, including, and very much to her credit, Ward 1 councillor Maureen Wilson, who left a family event on Locke Street in order to attend at the forecourt. (My spouse and I considered driving into the city, but it’s an almost hour-long trip each way and we assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that we’d not have been able to make it in time to contribute.)
The Soliders and/or Wolves of Odin spent a few hours in the forecourt being as abrasive, crude and generally ignorant as one would would expect, before moving out into the city (unescorted by police, by the way) in an apparent attempt to find and “disrupt” (read: violently assault) a Drag Queen Story Hour which was part of the Stinson Community BBQ, and a neo-pagan gathering in Gage Park. They were thwarted by being too late to the Drag Queen Story Hour and getting the date wrong on the pagan event (it was scheduled for Sunday, not Saturday.)
That the Nouns of Odin are literally too stupid to read a calendar properly doesn’t change the core reality that they travelled to Hamilton — several of the SoOs had Oshawa patches on their vests — threatened and harassed and intimidated people in full view of Hamilton cops, and then scattered throughout the city intent on threatening or hurting others. Police made no effort to prevent any of this, and indeed several made comments that the counter-protesters were the real concern, not the literal fucking Nazis. Frankly, I’ve come to believe that the Hamilton Police Service has chosen to enable these hate groups for their own petty political reasons, which makes them useless and worse than useless; It’s only through the restraint and courage of community members that no one was seriously hurt this weekend.
The Nouns of Odin’s hatred on Saturday was followed up by an apparently coordinated campaign of hate speech and harassment against LGBTQ+ community members in online spaces by Yellow Vesters; most prominently by Yellow Vest organizer and viscous homophobe Rebecca Long, who spent much of Sunday hounding and abusing Ladybird Fancypants, the performer of the Drag Queen Story Hour, to the point that the artist has suspended future story hour events out of fear for their safety and the safety of the children at events.
The shame and failure of the Hamilton Police Service, Mayor Fred Eisenburger and indeed the entire city government continues to deepen.
And yes, certain individual city councillors are acting as best they can to help mitigate the risks to the community — Maureen Wilson physically attending in the forecourt as part of the community response is an excellent example, and I’ve heard several mentions that Ward 3 councillor Nrinder Nann acted quickly to get more security at the Stinson gathering when it became clear the hate groups were headed their way. But city council as a whole needs to stand against these groups, naming them specifically as hate groups and denying them access to public spaces. (Ward 14 councillor Terry Whitehead, on the other hand, seems to be increasingly open in his support of the hate groups, even publishing a notice this weekend condemning the counter-protest movement and blaming anti-fascists for “hate”, disingenuously linking anarchists with the fascist hate groups.)
Let me be absolutely clear: The Soldiers of Odin, the Wolves of Odin and their fascist fellow-travellers Yellow Vests Canada are not people whose “free speech” is being placed at risk… quite the contrary, in fact; as Ladybird Fancypants’ decision to suspend future performances has shown. These are ugly hate groups whose sole intention is to threaten or use violence to silence the voices of LGBTQ+ people and people of colour and the city of Hamilton is helping them do it.
This weekend’s events — and indeed Hamilton’s entire “summer of hate” as its been dubbed in the media — aren’t new and they’re not happening without context. In point of fact, this has been going on for years. In 2017 the city’s Pride celebrations were supposed to occur at the City Hall forecourt before being abruptly changed because Soldiers of Odin and the Canadian Combat Coalition (the same organization that Bus Guy belongs to, FYI) decided to force the Pride celebration out.
There’s another aspect of Saturday’s situation in the forecourt of City Hall that needs to be addressed; at one point local entrepreneur and women’s-health activist Halima Al-Hatimy put herself forward to try and negotiate with the Nouns of Odin. According to her later posts on Facebook, she was hoping to “bring everyone to the table” and “have a discussion about the issues.” To be clear, Ms. Al-Hatimy did this without any sort of consultation with the community, and without any agreed-upon authority to do so; she simply interjected herself into the situation… and many people in the community have condemned her actions as mere egotism. Judging from her online commentary, Al-Hatimy seems very taken aback that the community didn’t immediately leap to support her efforts, and since made a number of remarks condemning “ANTI-FA” as “the problem” in Hamilton.
This is not the first time this summer that a person — however well-meaning — has put themselves in the wrong by trying to come up with a solo solution for Hamilton’s hate problem. Earlier this summer local businessman Sean Dowling, on his own initiative, attempted to reach out to the Yellow Vests in an effort to de-radicalize their leadership. The revelation that he had done so without any sort of community consultation or consensus was… well, it was not well-received, to somewhat understate the case. Many people were upset and viewed it as a betrayal and there is still resentment about it. In the long run it has turned out that his efforts were in vain — the Yellow Vests weren’t dealing with him in good faith but were attempting to drive a wedge within the Hamilton anti-hate community, and he has since acknowledged that he was wrong to act without consultation and that he was manipulated by people who took advantage of his naïvety.
For clarity and transparency, I need to state something at his point: Sean is a personal friend of mine. I respect his optimism and his ideals in what he tried to do… but he screwed up. I’ve told him as much and he understands he did wrong. He and I have had several conversations about this situation and the mistakes he made and mistake number one was trying to go it alone without community support or feedback. For the record, he gets it and he’s genuinely remorseful. As far as I’m concerned, he got taken advantage of by someone who was trying to sew discord in the anti-hate ranks, and he acknowledges the harm he inadvertently caused. Sean has chosen to learn from his mistakes and will be more cautious and respectful of the community going forward, and really, that’s all we can reasonably ask: several people have called for his removal from the community and I disagree with that call; If we start booting out everyone who fucked up despite good intentions at one point or another, it’s going to be a very small and very lonely movement pretty damn quick. (Certainly I’ve fucked up in the past, and I made the effort to learn from and repair my mistakes, and I think I’m a better person for it.)
I do not know Ms. Al-Hatimy, but I suspect that her motives were similarly altruistic… and that she made the same mistake of trying address the situation without full understanding of the issues or the consensus of the community. Some in our community have praised her courage for standing in front of a group of violent fascists, and I for one will not deny it: as a woman of colour she ran a considerable personal risk putting herself forward to that crowd… which makes her later condemnation of “ANTI-FA” all the more painful; I doubt she was aware of it, but several anti-fascists were present and were on (metaphorical) hair-triggers prepared to physically defend her should the need arise. Her actions placed people in very real and very immediate danger, especially as the police cannot be trusted to intervene in any physical confrontation with hate groups.
The narrative of the lone hero coming in and fixing a situation is an appealing one, I’ll admit it, and it’s even more appealing when you can see yourself as the hero. But no one is going to Erin Brockovich this situation; there’s no magic argument that’s going to resolve this. There’s no table we can all sit down at and work things out like reasonable people for the very simple reason that groups like the Soldiers of Odin are not reasonable people.
These are vicious, dangerous hate groups. Most if not all of their members are literal Nazis and they are not interested in compromising with us. They want people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and anyone who holds “left” political opinions gone — and gone doesn’t mean a plane ticket and a handshake, it means dead.
And in order to get what they want, they know they first need a seat at the table. Offering them one as part of some self-appointed role of hero-who-will-save-us-all is counterproductive to say the least.
I’ve also noticed a number of people have commented along the lines of “well, something needs to happen”, implying that anything is better than the current impasse regarding hate groups. Well, something is happening — the community is standing against hate, week after week. The Yellow Vests are beginning to fracture under the strain. The various Nouns of Odin and other neo-Nazis like Paul Fromm are trying to step forward to occupy their former space and in some ways that represents a victory, for us. They’re such over-the-top, blatantly obvious fascists that it’s hard to make the same excuses about freedom of speech that the Yellow Vests have used — as demonstrated by City Council’s refusal to allow Fromm a delegation last week. (That’s how over-the-top they are: even Hamilton’s city council can clue in when it’s spelled out clearly enough.)
We are winning. We’re winning slowly, I’ll admit, and it’s not a win that’s going to come without losses or hardship, as Ladybird Fancypants’ situation has regrettably shown. But given the failure of city leadership and the complicity of the police, there’s not much of a chance for a quick win. We can’t let the fascists win and the consensus is then for non-violent community resistance; and winning with that strategy that takes time, patience and endurance. It takes solidarity within the community, and a commitment to working with the consensus that has developed.
The other option — which occasionally gets suggested — is to get about a hundred anti-fascists together, give them blunt instruments and then let them stomp the fascist scum until they get the message that their Hamilton privileges have been revoked.
That strategy would be a lot faster and it has a certain undeniable appeal, but there’s no community consensus on adopting it. I would also argue that using force to defend against these hate groups might not solve the problem long-term and would only escalate to greater levels of fascist violence and police repression… but it may yet come to that. (Let me be clear, I say this as a warning, not a threat.) And should things devolve to that point but I don’t think anyone will be happy with the fallout… or to state it more bluntly: The ends don’t justify the means, the means shape the ends.
But with all due respect to Ms. Al-Hatimy and those who support the “something must be done” argument: You cannot ask vulnerable groups to sit at a table with people who want us dead and claim that it is equitable. Buckling to the hate groups and offering them a place at the table — any table — would be a serious mistake. Moreover, it would be a betrayal of everyone who’s fought and suffered to try hold hatred out of Hamilton.
This is what we must hold to: The consensus that we do not negotiate with Nazis. We do not tolerate Fascists. Vicious hate groups don’t deserve a voice in our communities or “a space at the table.” We ban them from our public spaces, we drive them out of the public discourse, and we de-platform them online. We must stand together to send the message, as often and as forcefully as necessary, that we won’t tolerate racism, misogyny and homophobia in our communities and if these groups choose to espouse those positions that there will be consequences.
We all need to stand in solidarity to achieve these goals. Period.
