Useful reminder of relatively recent history and its contemporary echoes:
Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how much of contemporary life has been shaped, at least in part, by the eugenics movement, as Eugenics: Science’s Greatest Scandal, a two-part BBC documentary by science writer Angela Saini and disability campaigner Adam Pearson, which began last week, usefully reminds us.
Eugenics is the belief that societies can be improved by selective breeding and that the state should encourage the “enlightened” to have more children and discourage the lower orders, whether the poor, the disabled or the immigrant, from breeding.
Today, eugenics brings to mind the Nazis and the death camps but the Nazis were late on the scene. It was in Britain and America that modern eugenics developed, initially through the work of English polymath Francis Galton, who coined the term “eugenics”, and subsequently through a host of eminent scientists on both sides of the Atlantic.
Eugenic ideas were enthusiastically welcomed by the great and the good, from both left and right, including Beatrice Webb and Marie Stopes, William Beveridge and Julian Huxley, Virginia Woolf and TS Eliot, John Maynard Keynes and Winston Churchill.
At the heart of eugenics lay two fundamental social beliefs. The first was the embrace of a top-down rational scientific organisation of society, the second the acceptance that certain groups were by nature unsuitable for society and should be restricted, kept out or eliminated.
Both beliefs were linked to worries about democracy, nourished by the coming of universal suffrage. “No scientifically ordered state,” Aldous Huxley wrote, “could be democratic; it would be aristocratic: the most intelligent would be the rulers.” Unfortunately, he added, “we have universal suffrage: the vote of the half-wit is as good as that of the one-and-a-half wit”.
Eugenics fused a desire for social reform with reactionary ideas about democracy, immigrants, the disabled and the poor. It led to hundreds of thousands of people being incarcerated and forcibly sterilised as “unfit”. Even after the Holocaust and the Nazi death camps had discredited the racial science on which eugenics was built, eugenic ideas – and policies – remained ingrained. In Sweden, for instance, sterilisation programmes continued into the 1970s.
The persistence of eugenic ideas can been seen in debates about poverty. From the 1960s concept of the “culture of poverty” to David Cameron’s “troubled families” programme, postwar social policy has remained shackled to ideas incubated within the eugenic movement.
It can be seen, too, in the population control movement – the belief that social problems in Africa or Asia are the products of overbreeding. Forced sterilisation may no longer be policy in the west, but western governments and NGOs have pressured countries such as India to sterilise tens of millions of its citizens. In 2013, the saintly David Attenborough suggested that it was “barmy” to send food to famine-stricken parts of the world because it encouraged population growth.
Few people today talk about “imbeciles” or the “unfit”, nor show much enthusiasm for state-sponsored selective breeding programmes. But the two key themes of eugenics have returned to dominate public debate.
On the one hand, many worry that the uneducated masses are undermining the possibilities of rational social policy. “Was it desirable, was it even safe,” Beatrice Webb asked in 1923, to “entrust the poor and uneducated… through the ballot box with making and controlling the government of Great Britain with its enormous wealth and its far-flung dominions?” A century later, many agree with Richard Dawkins, who argued after the Brexit referendum that “it is unfair to thrust on to unqualified simpletons the responsibility to take historic decisions of great complexity and sophistication”.
Then there is the fear of the ‘Other’. Immigration was always an obsession for eugenicists, and has become one again today. Immigrants, we are told, weaken social and racial bonds, are freeloaders and criminals, and lack the values necessary for healthy societies. Demographic arguments have re-emerged. Fears that Muslims are breeding too fast, or that whites are becoming a minority group, are not just promoted by the far right but given legitimacy by mainstream thinkers.
Contemporary fears about eugenics usually focus on genetic advances and the possibility of “designer babies”, an issue that Saini and Pearson tackle in the second part of their documentary. Far less attention is given to the ways in which attitudes to democracy, the working class and immigrants echo those of the past. But it is perhaps in those attitudes, even more than in genetic ideas, that the ghosts of eugenics continue to haunt the contemporary world.
A Chinese Canadian group that has received more than $130,000 in federal funding published a newspaper advertisement that condemned democracy protesters in Hong Kong and closely mirrored Beijing’s stance on unrest in the city.
Critics of the regime say they’re appalled that Canadian taxpayers are backing an organization that would pay to intervene on China’s side in the Hong Kong turmoil, likely at the behest of Chinese officials.
But it’s not the only recent example of federal funding linked to activities that support Beijing, as the two countries remain locked in a tense diplomatic standoff.
The ad placed by the “non-political” Council of Newcomer Organizations appeared weeks before a festival co-organized by China’s consulate general in Toronto, designed in part to celebrate the 70 th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic.
Our government is using taxpayers’ money to enable CCP influence and infiltration into our society and politics
Heritage Canada gave a multiculturalism grant of $62,000 to last month’s “Dragon Festival” through the event’s other organizer, the Canadian Association of Chinese Performing Arts.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government invited the heads of both the newcomer council — which was founded by Liberal MP Geng Tan — and the performing arts group to attend this week’s anniversary celebrations in Beijing.
Council executive chairman Zhu Jiang was quoted as saying he wept as he witnessed the military parade through Tiananmen Square Tuesday, realizing how much he “loved the motherland.”
“Our taxpayers’ money should have never been used to fund such organizations and activities,” said Ivy Li, a spokeswoman for the group Canadian Friends of Hong Kong. “By doing so, our government is using taxpayers’ money to enable CCP (Chinese Communist Party) influence and infiltration into our society and politics. This is a total betrayal of Canadian voters.”
It is “very troubling” that Ottawa helped pay for an event — the Dragon Festival — that marked a totalitarian state’s anniversary, added Cheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China. The consulate “should be funding the whole thing, and then they can make whatever speech they want,” he said.
Heritage Canada, the main funder of the newcomer council, was unable to comment by deadline.
Neither the newcomer council nor Dragon Festival organizers could be reached for comment.
Critics say the incidents are just the latest examples of China’s long soft-power reach into Canadian society, with the added wrinkle of financial support from Ottawa.
Beijing has reportedly poured increasing resources into such efforts in recent years, the influence campaigns spearheaded by a party branch called the United Front Work Department (which reportedly invited Zhu to the anniversary gala). Its actions have come under newfound scrutiny in Canada as the feud with China unfolds.
The arrest in January of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou under an extradition treaty with the U.S. touched off an angry response from Beijing. China imprisoned two Canadians on ill-defined espionage charges, abruptly increased a Canadian’s drug-trafficking sentence to death from 15 years in jail, and imposed trade barriers on billions in Canadian agricultural imports.
The Council of Newcomer Organizations placed its ad in the Chinese Canadian Times — a free, Chinese-language newspaper that claims a “vast distribution network across Ontario” — in early August.
At that point, the Hong Kong demonstrations had been mostly peaceful, bringing a million or more people to the streets some days to oppose a now-defunct extradition law, decry alleged police brutality and call for more democracy.
The council’s ad dismissed the protests as a foreign-incited assault on the city’s stability, much as the strife has been characterized by China itself.
“Recently, certain self-serving political actors who do not hesitate to collude with foreign anti-Chinese powers, luring young extremist activists to be their cannon fodder, have continuously violated the peace of Hong Kong,” it said in part.
Heritage Canada said it has funded the council to the tune of $99,760 over the past several years. Employment and Social Development Canada granted it $38,000 in 2016.
The council’s own website — which describes the group as non-political — suggests an orientation toward China.
Much of the site is devoted to sports events, essay contests and other activities for local young people. But one of five sections in the English version – headed “legislation” – lists summaries of several Chinese laws, including one outlining restrictions on religious activities by foreigners. And there are several articles about “roots-seeking” trips for youth to China, organized by Beijing’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, part of the United Front.
Last month’s Dragon Festival outside Toronto’s City Hall involved booths and performances highlighting Chinese arts, food and culture.
But at its launch, one master of ceremonies said in Mandarin it was also an early celebration of “the 70th birthday of our motherland.” In his speech, Consul General Han Tao said the festival should help increase understanding and friendship between peoples, and then referenced the 70 th anniversary on Oct. 1 and China’s rise from a “poor and weak” nation to the world’s second-largest economy.
A consulate press release on the festival said in Chinese it would include events to “celebrate the (ancestral) homeland” on the occasion of the anniversary.
With the election about two weeks away, virtually every media outlet has articles and analyses of ridings to watch. with largely the same lists, based upon a mix of electoral margins and prominent candidates (i.e., Jody Wilson-Raybault).
I took a somewhat different tack, taking a look at ridings where visible minorities form 20 percent or more of the population and where the electoral margin was less than 5 percent.
This provides a different perspective than simply looking at ridings that are visible minority majority (only four of these 25 ridings). Most are in Ontario, followed by British Columbia and Alberta, with only one riding in Manitoba and Quebec.
All are urban as one would expect and there is some overlap with the various lists of the media.
The full list can be found here, along with the relevant demographics and 2015 margins.
For my series looking at those ridings with significant numbers of visible minority, European ancestry (non British or French), religious minority and Indigenous peoples, check out these data tables:
Chancellor Angela Merkel made a veiled attack on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on the 29th anniversary of German reunification on Thursday, saying economic grievances in the east were no excuse for racism.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel poses with Mayor of Kiel Ulf Kampfer and President of the German Federal Council Daniel Gunther during the celebrations to mark the 29th anniversary of the country’s reunification, in the northern city of Kiel, Germany, October 3, 2019. REUTERS/Morris Mac Matzen
In a speech marking the anniversary, Merkel cited a government-commissioned report that found economic discrepancies between the eastern and western parts of Germany and which said people in the east feel like second-class citizens.
But she said this was no justification for verbal attacks on foreigners under the guise of free speech, and that such attacks threatened democracy in Germany. Shortly after she spoke, about 600 people took part in a far-right rally in Berlin, with some carrying German flags and waving anti-Islam placards.
Merkel did not mention the anti-migrant AfD by name but it has stronger support in eastern parts of Germany and made big gains in elections in two eastern regions last month.
“It should never be the case that disappointment with politics, however significant, be accepted as a legitimate reason to marginalise, threaten or attack others because of their skin color, religion, sex, or sexual orientation,” Merkel said in the northern city of Kiel.
“The values of our constitution must guide each and every debate in our country,” she said. “In concrete terms this means, ‘Yes’ to open debate, ‘Yes’ to tough demands from politics, ‘No’ to intolerance, ‘No’ to marginalisation, ‘No’ to hate and anti-Semitism, ‘No’ to living at the expense of the weak and minorities.”
RISE OF AfD
Merkel’s conservatives and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners have accused the AfD, the largest opposition party in parliament, of legitimizing a language of hate that spurs violence.
They have said the AfD manipulates the grievances of eastern Germans – about lower wages and pensions, an exodus of young people, plans to phase out coal and the challenge of integrating a record influx of refugees – to make political gains through populism.
The AfD, which entered parliament two years ago in elections that were shaped by disquiet over Merkel’s decision in 2015 to welcome almost 1 million migrants, says it has always distanced itself from violent, far-right extremists.
The deadly shooting of a pro-immigration conservative politician in June and a rise in anti-Semitism have fueled debate about the anti-immigrant speeches of some AfD leaders.
The party has about 10% support in western regions and is polling at around 14% nationally.
The report cited by Merkel showed east Germany’s economic strength has risen to 75% of the west German level from 43% in 1990. Employment is at a high in the east and wages there are 84% of those in the west, it showed.
The report found that less than 40% say reunification was worth it and less than half are happy with democracy in Germany.
“A lot has been achieved in the past 29 years. In the west as well as in the east, people are all in all happier with their lives than at any other moment since reunification. But we also know that this is not the whole truth,” Merkel said.
“We must all learn to understand why reunification for many people in eastern states is not only a positive experience.”
From the moment the man approached, Jagmeet Singh seemed to sense tension. The NDP leader—the first Canadian federal leader whose skin colour is not white—greeted the Quebec resident in Montreal’s Atwater Market by reaching out and gently touching his arm. “Good to see you, sir,” he began. “You okay?” The man seemed okay, a little quiet, a little hard to read. Then he leaned in. “You know what?” he muttered. “You should cut your turban off…. You’ll look like a Canadian.”
And there it was: a quiet moment of casual racism that, were it not for the CBC video crew and Singh’s lapel mic, would have never been seen by the Canadian public. For Canadians of colour, the scene may seem irritatingly familiar; for the entire country, it is stunningly intimate, so quick and subtle that neither man even looks uncomfortable.
Singh’s response was unflappable: “Oh, I think Canadians look like all sorts of people. That’s the beauty of Canada.” The man did not sound cruel or malicious; indeed, he may not even have considered his comment racist.
It’s not a stretch to assume he supports Quebec’s controversial Bill 21, the “secularism bill,” which bars government workers (including teachers) from wearing religious symbols such as kippas, hijabs or turbans. The law, which is being challenged in court—but which neither Singh nor his main rivals will fight if elected—is a blatant imposition of one group’s values upon a multicultural society.
Yet a striking number of Quebeckers are okay with it. As the man in the video tells Singh, “In Rome, you do as the Romans do.”
To this, as well, Singh’s reply was a master class in dealing with racism: “This is Canada. You can do whatever you like.” Singh walked off to shake some more hands after that, as his new friend called out some surprisingly cordial parting words: “Take care. I hope you win.”
Even if Singh doesn’t win the election, he won this moment.
The day Time magazine published its report on a photo of Justin Trudeau wearing blackface, discussion exploded online. But less than a week later, online posts about the scandal had all but disappeared, according to new research from McGill University.
In fact, the online discourse around Trudeau’s history of wearing blackface dropped off dramatically within three days, according to an analysis of social media posts published today by the Digital Democracy Project, an effort led by the Public Policy Forum and the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.
“The story breaks and within a couple hours is trending on Twitter, there’s a massive amount of coverage,” said lead data analyst Aengus Bridgman. “By the next day, it’s about half. By the third day, it’s about a quarter and it goes down from there to very little discussion by the end of the week.”
The findings are based on a dataset of 3 million tweets from the general public from Sept.17 to Sept. 28. A separate dataset of Facebook posts that mention Trudeau and blackface or link to a story covering the issue showed a similar sharp decline in just a few days.
Journalists and politicians on Twitter also followed a similar pattern, with a high amount of tweets about blackface in the first few days that dropped off significantly toward the end of the week.
“We think that the brownface/blackface story offers a pretty unique research moment in an election where an unexpected discourse emerges that nobody could have planned for,” said Taylor Owen, the director of the Digital Democracy Project.
The researchers also took a look at accounts that are likely partisan based on the politicians they follow from each party. This showed that, while partisans of all stripes tweeted about the story, it was largely pushed by Conservative supporters.
An analysis of the hashtags used by accounts from these groups, however, show that most likely they were circulating among like-minded people: most of the blackface-related tweets coming from Conservative partisan accounts, for example, were only seen by other Conservative partisans, the report found.
“Among partisan Twitter users, Conservatives are driving the conversation about the controversy,” the report found. “The blackface-related hashtags are disproportionately populated by right-leaning partisans who are largely speaking among themselves.”
Drawing on over 1200 ethnic media pieces in the eight weeks prior to the election call as part of diversityvotes.ca, my analysis assesses the major themes and issues covered:
Canadians who rely on ethnic media as their main information source receive coverage of issues comparable to that of mainstream media.
A major focus of this 2019 election for the various campaigns will be courting voters from immigrant and visible minority communities, who are a majority of the population in 41 ridings, and 20 percent or more in an additional 93 ridings.
“The criminal madness of the [Nazi] occupier was seconded by the French, by the French state. Those black hours soiled our history forever. … France … committed the irreparable.”
These words were spoken by French president Jacques Chirac on July 16, 1995, and in the days since his death, he deserves credit for moral courage. The occasion was the anniversary of the infamous Vélodrome d’Hiver roundups of Parisian Jews on July 16 and 17, 1942, when French police incarcerated more than 13,000 Jewish men, women and children in a sports stadium on orders of the occupying Nazis. Before the war ended, 76,000 Jews had been deported to Nazi concentration camps with French collaboration. Only about 3,000 returned.
Everyone understood the significance of Mr. Chirac’s words. He said France was responsible. In speaking from the highest office, he exploded the postwar myth that the terrors committed on French soil were uniquely the work of the occupying Nazis and their collaborationist henchmen in Vichy and had nothing to do with the true France, which had resided in London with the government-in-exile of General Charles de Gaulle from 1940 until 1944 while aided at home by the French Resistance. In effect, Mr. Chirac had shattered the half-century-long taboo against an official acknowledgment of the truth.
The birth and demise of France’s long-standing fairy tale remains instructive, for all nations fashion a historical narrative of who they are and were, especially after times of crisis, and their stories ordinarily retain their power until overwhelmed by undeniable evidence. In the latter category, the following was fact: From May, 1940, France was occupied by the Nazis and governed at Vichy by General Philippe Pétain, a hero of the First World War. Pétain was adored by a majority of the French, and the collaboration of his government with the Nazis, including police actions against Jews, was broadly accepted as national protection. Yes, there was resistance. As historians later verified, about 1 per cent of the population participated in military-style resistance networks, just as about 1 per cent willingly participated in the collaboration by marching around in real or virtual jack boots helping the Nazis carry out atrocities. As for the rest of the population, they made small gestures in either direction or sat on the proverbial fence waiting to see which way the wind would blow.
Gen. de Gaulle created the myth of an all-encompassing resistance to the Nazis because he believed a shared narrative of winning the war would promote peace among his divided countrymen. On June 14, 1944, the day he landed at Bayeux, he identified himself and his resistance with “France” and with the “final victory of the Allies.” Only a tiny handful of traitors had sold out to the enemy. These would be duly tried and excised from the collective.
The die was cast, but still the story sat uneasily, for untold numbers of known upper- and lower-level collaborators had moved into positions of prominence in the postwar era. On the other hand, everyone won, including the collaborators who now said they had been playing a “double game” and had in reality been resisting.
Unsurprisingly, the first accurate history of the Vichy era did not appear until 1972 and was written by a foreigner, U.S. historian Robert Paxton. A second groundbreaking book, Vichy France and the Jews, followed in 1981, also written by Mr. Paxton, with a colleague, Canadian historian Michael Marrus. Notably, both works caused scandal and recriminations that eventually set in motion a train of trials, starting with the Nazi Klaus Barbie, in 1987, culminating with the Vichy-era French bureaucrat, Maurice Papon, in 1998, and underscored in 1995 with the first official statement by a French president on the subject of France’s complicity in the Holocaust.
Because timing and perceived sincerity matter, Mr. Chirac’s formal acknowledgment of his country’s mythologized history was a standout moment in the life of postwar France. Fifty years later, his sorrowful, truthful evocation would help his countrymen recalibrate long-time historical distortions and face their nation’s history, however painful.
Trapped inside a contemporary world of lesser moral clarity, we may admire Mr. Chirac’s principled act.
Somewhat unexpectedly, the issues of discrimination and racism have moved to the forefront in the federal election. At the start of the campaign, answering a journalist’s question about Quebec’s secularism Bill 21, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau left open the possibility of some eventual legal intervention on the legislation. Predictably, there was an almost immediate response from Quebec Premier François Legault, asking all federal leaders to make a pledge to stay out of the matter. With the exception of Trudeau, the other federal party leaders quickly complied. Bill 21 prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by Quebec public school teachers, judges, police officers, prison guards, Crown prosecutors and other public servants in positions of authority, as a way of enshrining the concept of state secularism.
And then, just as the campaign’s attention on Bill 21 waned, some very distasteful photos of a younger Trudeau in brownface and in blackface hit the national and international media. Trudeau apologized many times for his past behaviour and correctly acknowledged that it was highly offensive.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer insisted that the blackface pointed to Trudeau’s lack of judgment and as such raised questions about his ability to govern. During a September 20 campaign stop in PEI, Scheer said all levels of government need to address the types of issues raised by such conduct. He said that “Conservatives will always support measures that tackle discrimination…We’ll always promote policies that promote inclusiveness and equality throughout our society.” Ironically, that’s precisely what needs to be said in addressing Bill 21.
For his part, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh made an impassioned plea to all Canadians who were offended by the images of Trudeau in blackface. He chose to speak to those people who have felt the pain of racism and urged them not to give up on themselves, adding that they have value and worth and that they are loved. But that message does not appear to apply to those persons affected by Bill 21. Singh seems unwilling to defend those Quebecers who wear a turban, hijab or kippah and want to teach at a public school in their home province. Paradoxically, while Singh can become prime minister of Canada, he would be unable to teach at a public school in Quebec under Bill 21. By insisting on the need to respect provincial jurisdiction, Singh implies that members of religious minorities need to give up their hope of seeking a career in public service.
Both Scheer’s and Singh’s criticisms of Trudeau and the related concerns about the spread of racism would be more credible if they denounced the discriminatory aspects of Bill 21 rather than bowing to the Quebec Premier’s demands and looking the other way on what Legault insists is a strictly provincial matter.
Perhaps, like many observers, the federal party leaders don’t see any connection between blackface and a state prohibition against educators wearing hijabs, turbans and kippahs in public institutions. Yet the case can surely be made that both arise from subconscious or overt feelings and/or expressions of prejudice that are, regrettably, deemed acceptable by far too many people. The difference is that Trudeau’s use of blackface occurred two decades ago, while the legislation banning religious symbols is the object of current debate.
In the aftermath of the Trudeau blackface incidents, there have been calls for a national conversation about racism. But the tone of this election campaign does not allow for a thoughtful discussion about the ongoing challenge of eliminating racism and discrimination. Ideally, all federal party leaders should work together to combat racism and discrimination, whether it appears in Quebec or anywhere else in the country.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer insisted that the blackface pointed to Trudeau’s lack of judgment and as such raised questions about his ability to govern. During a September 20 campaign stop in PEI, Scheer said all levels of government need to address the types of issues raised by such conduct. He said that “Conservatives will always support measures that tackle discrimination…We’ll always promote policies that promote inclusiveness and equality throughout our society.” Ironically, that’s precisely what needs to be said in addressing Bill 21.
Multicultural Meanderings 