A year ago, the United States Senate was divided over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, tainted by allegations of sexual misconduct when Kavanaugh was in high school and college. The Republicans limited – and rushed – the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh. It never even interviewed some of his critical old classmates. But the Republicans called the whole affair a smear campaign and confirmed him.
Now there are more allegations. Leading Democrats say he should be removed from the court. If they regain control of both houses of Congress in next year’s election, they could try.
Before that, they should consider the dangers of holding a public figure accountable today for the thoughts or actions of a youthful yesterday. Senate Democrats in Indiana, Missouri, Florida and North Dakota who opposed Kavanaugh lost their seats last year. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who supported Kavanaugh, won.
The suspicion: Democrats in red states (which Donald Trump won in 2016) were punished for their votes on Kavanaugh, suggesting there’s a penalty for this kind of politics. Rather than celebrating their courage, skeptics suggest that voters either didn’t think that Kavanaugh was guilty – or that if he was, it was long ago and didn’t emerge in his career as a jurist.
This is the question raised by Justin Trudeau and blackface, which has generated much sanctimonious comment in the United States. Trudeau has his defenders, though. Conservative writer and columnist Andrew Sullivan, for example, says pillorying someone for their former self is absurd.
In Trudeau’s case, wearing blackface was cavalier, crude and ignorant. But he isn’t a racist. And even if he were in his deepest thoughts two decades ago, would it matter?
Judging public figures by their private behaviour is complicated. Can we really hold people to account for what they said or did before they were fully formed? And can we judge them by their views (or acts) in the face of their public record? In Trudeau’s case, wearing blackface was cavalier, crude and ignorant. But he isn’t a racist. And even if he were in his deepest thoughts two decades ago, would it matter?
In its composition and its policies, Trudeau’s government is diverse and progressive. His cabinet comes from both sexes, many faiths and colours. His immigration and refugee policies are relatively generous. For those who dislike Trudeau, his fondness for shoe polish will only reinforce their antipathy. But there is nothing racist about his government. Nothing. And that’s why the reaction of the élites may be harsher than that of the people.
All prominent people have misjudgments in their past. A young Pierre Trudeau flirted intellectually with fascism and the anti-Semitism that shaped the conversation in Quebec in the 1940s. Did it matter? Trudeau as an adult was defined by his commitment to personal freedom. Patriating the British North America Act and entrenching the Charter of Rights was the single greatest act of statesmanship in our history.
Lyndon Johnson was a racist. He blithely used “n—–” in private conversations, even as president. It was earthy and offensive to blacks in his circle. The same Johnson drove the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. No president since Abraham Lincoln was as important on race.
Harry Truman also used “n—–” privately but it didn’t stop him from integrating the military. Richard Nixon was an anti-Semite who saved the State of Israel when he sent it planeloads of arms during the Yom Kippur War.
For each, did racism, anti-Semitism or bigotry, matter? Not if you believe that their public deeds negated their private thoughts.
Kavanaugh is more complicated. He should remain accountable for what many conclude was sexual assault. One reason is that as a high court judge, he is one of America’s nine moral arbiters, appointed for life; many judges beyond suspicion could fill the job. Another is that he apologized for nothing and was intemperate in his hearing, unbecoming of a judge.
But had Kavanaugh simply disliked (not accosted) women, as those presidents disliked blacks or Jews, why should we care what’s in the human heart – and in the past – if that is where it stays?
One has to wonder what the International Metropolis Conference board members were thinking by planning to hold the immigration and integrationconference in Beijing in 2020. Or not thinking:
Chinese authorities are sending Christian Uyghurs and even members of the Han Chinese majority to internment camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, an indication that the regime’s indoctrination strategy is broader than previously understood.
Most of the hundreds of thousands of people – perhaps more than a million – sent to a sprawling network of centres for political indoctrination and vocational training are Muslims, members of minority groups such as Uyghurs and Kazakhs, according to former detainees and instructors. Beijing has said the centres are being used to stamp out extremism.
But six accounts from people who have recently lived in the region or have family there – three Christian Westerners, a lawyer, a Chinese petitioner and a Uyghur family living in France – reveal that others are also being incarcerated.
Some are Uyghurs who have converted to Christianity. Others are Han Chinese – the ethnic group that comprises more than 90 per cent of China’s population – who have challenged local authorities by petitioning for official redress, as well as people considered politically unreliable.
The reports indicate that Beijing’s campaign in the region goes beyond the stated goal, published in an August white paper on Xinjiang, of countering “the breeding and spread of terrorism and religious extremism.” The strategy claimed to be focused on quelling Islamic radicalization rather than a unique cultural group inside China.
But “all signs point to cultural assimilation” as the chief goal of the Chinese campaign, said Timothy Grose, a scholar at Terre Haute, Ind.’s Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology who studies Uyghur culture and is the author of an upcoming book about Uyghurs who study elsewhere in China. What is taking place in Xinjiang is an “accelerated, comprehensive and violent program to jettison meaningful markers of Uyghur identity, such as language, Islam and tangible connections to Central Asia, and replace them with elements of a Han-centric Chinese culture.”
Indeed, “even secular, atheist and Christian Uyghurs are being targeted, I believe, because their milieu has still been largely shaped by Central Asian and Islamic norms.”
Over the past year, Uyghurs living outside China have documented the incarceration of dozens of scholars, artists, musicians and other cultural leaders who have been taken to facilities that China calls vocational skills and training centres but which foreign critics call re-education camps.
In a July white paper, Chinese authorities directly linked Islamic belief with the spread of separatist ideology by what it called “anti-China forces attempting to split China.”
But the incarceration of Christians on extremism grounds underpins an argument that Chinese authorities have used extremism as a cover to conduct a broader campaign of sinification, irrespective of religion.
“We know of at least 14 Christians” who have been taken away by authorities in Xinjiang, said Robert Paix, a Christian businessman who has lived and worked in the region, in part to share his faith. “Islam is just one of the matrix of problems the Chinese government has with Uyghur people,” he said.
In Xinjiang, “any ideology which really captures someone’s conscience that is other than the [Communist] Party is a threat,” Mr. Paix said. “So in essence, it doesn’t matter what religion it is – or even if it was a non-religious ideology.”
Xinjiang is home to an estimated 11 million Uyghurs, a people whose customs, language, architecture and art are among the most distinct of the country’s 55 official minorities.
One Westerner who lived in the regional capital, Urumqi, with his family described the case of a Christian Uyghur woman who lived with a Han Chinese roommate. The Uyghur woman spoke Mandarin and ran a business teaching English. But in December, 2017, police took her from her apartment, put her in a prison uniform and handed her clothes, glasses and national identification card back to her roommate, said the source, a Christian whose identity The Globe and Mail is not disclosing out of concern for the safety of the person’s friends in Xinjiang.
Police said they had found questionable content on her computer, according to the source.
“The sentencing basically was very quick. From what we could understand, it was just ‘You are a terrorist,’ and there was a document that she had to sign – basically like a confession.”
Christian Uyghurs likely number only in the thousands, according to foreigners who have lived in the region. Most Uyghurs are practising Muslims or maintain cultural ties to that faith.
But from what the Westerner could see, the incarceration of Uyghurs “did not seem religious in nature. It seemed just from our experience there that the religious extremist angle was being used to really just suppress the entire people group and culture.”
Another Christian, Gulbahar Haitiwaji was incarcerated for two years, her family said. “She converted to Christianity several years ago and eschews violence,” her husband, Kerim Haitiwaji, told religious liberty magazine Bitter Winter early this year. “There is no reason to imprison her. She is not a danger to China.” The family has declined further public statements since Ms. Hatiwaji was released, and she is now with her husband and daughter in France.
Any responsible government must “remove the malignant tumour of terrorism and extremism” and ensure its people “enjoy a peaceful and harmonious social environment,” the State Council Information Office wrote in an August white paper. It defended Xinjiang’s indoctrination and training apparatus as a “deradicalization” project in line with international principles, providing free education to trainees who “have fallen under the influence and control of religious extremism.”
At the same time, the construction of a system of internment centres has provided local authorities new options for punishment outside the formal legal system – even for people who are ethnic Chinese.
Authorities can send people to the centres for making statements deemed contrary to government dictates; for spreading politically unwelcome thoughts among colleagues; and for posting politically incorrect views to Chinese social-media platform WeChat, according to a lawyer who has travelled in the region and whose identity is not being disclosed because describing the camps could lead to his own incarceration.
The Globe reviewed documents collected by a Chinese human-rights activist that described the case of a Chinese man in Xinjiang who spent years fighting embezzlement charges that dated back to 2004. He disappeared last year but reappeared this spring.
“I studied for seven months,” he said in a recorded interview with an activist reviewed by The Globe. “Studying” is a common word to describe time in indoctrination facilities. “There are Han people” in such centres, he added.
Gulzira Auelhan, an ethnic Kazakh and former detainee, told The Globe this year that she had seen four ethnic Chinese people in the centre where she was held.
Political enforcement has been employed against Uyghurs, too. One Uyghur woman who recently left Xinjiang described how her father-in-law had been sentenced to eight years in prison for “distributing incorrect political views.” The charges were rooted in an incident that, authorities said, occurred more than two decades earlier, when he was working at a government office and complained that ethnic Chinese farmers were receiving a larger allocation of water than ethnic Uyghurs. He was held for 10 months before being tried and sentenced in a single day of court proceedings, the woman said.
The woman’s identity is not being revealed because she fears retribution against members of her family still in Xinjiang. The Globe verified elements of her account with a Canadian family member and with a Western embassy that helped her leave China.
She spoke out, she said, because “I want the world to know how insane it is” for Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
When Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited Beijing this summer, he hailed a new Silk Road bridging Asia and Europe. He welcomed big Chinese investments for his beleaguered economy. He gushed about China’s sovereignty.
But Mr. Erdogan, who has stridently promoted Islamic values in his overwhelmingly Muslim country, was largely silent on the incarceration of more than one million Turkic Muslims in China’s western region of Xinjiang, and the forced assimilation of millions more. It was an about-face from a decade ago, when he said the Uighurs there suffered from, “simply put, genocide” at the hands of the Chinese government.
Like Mr. Erdogan, the world has been noticeably quiet about Xinjiang, where China has built a vast network of detention camps and systematic surveillance over the past two years in a state-led operation to convert Uighurs into loyal, secular supporters of the Communist Party. Even when diplomats have witnessed the problems firsthand and privately condemned them, they have been reluctant to go public, unable to garner broad support or unwilling to risk financial ties with China.
Backed by its diplomatic and economic might, China has largely succeeded in quashing criticism. Chinese officials have convinced countries to support Beijing publicly on the issue, most notably Muslim ones in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. They have played to the discord within the West over China. And they have waged an aggressive campaign to prevent discussion of Xinjiang at the United Nations.
At a special event ahead of the General Assembly this week on protecting religious freedom, President Trump, the host of the event, did not mention the Uighurs. Vice President Mike Pence gave a nod to the Uighurs, after mentioning the persecution of Christians in China.
China contends that its state-mandated detention camps, surrounded by high walls and watchtowers, are central to its fight against Islamist extremism. Beijing has called them boarding schools, explaining detainees are there voluntarily. China said recently that it has reduced the numbers in the camps, although doubts persist about the claim.
“There has not been a single case of violent terrorism in the past three years,” Wang Yi, state councilor and foreign minister of China, said at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations summit. “The education and training centers are schools that help the people free themselves from terrorism and extremism and acquire useful skills.”
As countries weigh their options over Xinjiang, China’s economic heft looms large.
Officials in the Trump administration have been among the most vocal critics. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has denounced the treatment of the Uighurs as the “stain of the century.” One of his deputies, John Sullivan, who convened a panel Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations meeting with several other countries to condemn Beijing’s policies, said China has carried out a “horrific campaign of repression.”
While the National Security Council has pushed economic sanctions over the issue, the Treasury has the power to punish China in that way. So far, the trade talks have taken precedence. And Mr. Trump has largely ignored the issue, essentially giving China a pass.
The administration’s limited action probably affects the global calculus. If the United States does not take a leadership role on the issue, other countries do not feel the pressure to act, either.
Some governments tiptoe around China for economic reasons. When New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, visited Beijing shortly after the massacre of 51 Muslims in Christchurch, she said she had discussed Xinjiang privately with Mr. Xi. She didn’t do much more. New Zealand sells much of its main exports, such as milk, meat and wine, to China.
Last year, China helped Turkey secure a $3.6 billion loan for energy and transportation. Since then, the Turkish economy has further faltered. And during Mr. Erdogan’s visit to Beijing in July, Mr. Xi praised him for supporting what he called China’s core interests, including Xinjiang.
“Many, many governments are looking the other way and self-censoring on the issue of Xinjiang,” said Daniel R. Russel, the Obama administration’s assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. “Beijing is notoriously prickly about its self-declared ‘core interests,’ and few countries are willing to put the economic benefits of good relations with China at risk — let alone find themselves on the receiving end of Chinese retaliation.”
When countries do criticize China, they tend to do so in a group, seemingly as a way to diffuse and lessen possible retribution.
In Geneva this summer, nearly two dozen, mostly Western, countries, along with Japan, banded together at the United Nations Human Rights Council to call on China to close the camps. No one country was willing to be the organizer. Instead, the statement’s signers relied on a rarely used procedure that allowed it to be circulated without a principal leader.
Not to be outmaneuvered by the critics, China quickly prepared a counter-roster of 37 friendly nations praising its “contribution to the international human rights cause.” Among the cheerleaders were members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation that unanimously endorsed China’s Xinjiang policies in April.
How China Turned a City Into a Prison
Children are interrogated. Neighbors become informants. Mosques are monitored. Cameras are everywhere.
China is carefully shaping its image of Xinjiang in the diplomatic world. Over the past nine months, Beijing has invited select visitors on circumscribed tours of the detention camps to garner positive publicity.
China has generally handpicked the visitors, including journalists from friendly countries. They are then often quoted in the state-run Chinese news media offering flattering comments. “I saw genuine smiles on the faces of trainees I interviewed,” Abdul Aziz Raddad A. Alrabie of the Saudi newspaper Okaz said in China Daily, a newspaper of the Communist Party.
The trips do not always go as planned. Two reports — one by a Malaysian diplomat and another by European Union officials — were highly critical after their visits.
The private account by the Malaysian diplomat, reviewed by The New York Times, contradicted China’s contention that the Uighurs were voluntarily attending the re-education centers.
“Delegates could actually sense fear and frustration from the students,” the Malaysian wrote after his December visit with a dozen other diplomats from mostly Muslim nations. “China may have legitimate reasons to implement policies intended to eliminate the threat of terrorism, especially in Xinjiang. However, judging by its approach, it is addressing the issue wrongly and illegitimately, e.g. preventing Muslim minors from learning the Quran.”
The diplomat referred to two cities in Xinjiang — once-bustling Kashgar and Hotan — as “zombie towns,” saying the streets were virtually empty and that China was probably “using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to ‘sanitize’ Uighur Muslims until they become acceptable Chinese citizens.”
The report was never made public. At the time, Malaysia was working hard to repair relations with China over a troubled infrastructure deal. It has also become increasingly dependent on China for purchases of palm oil, its biggest export.
“The $100 billion in annual bilateral trade is enough to focus the minds of Malaysian policymakers,” said Shahriman Lockman, a senior analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Kuala Lumpur. “China is too big a market to lose.”
Three diplomats from the European Union visited Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, this year in what one of the participants said turned out to be a “Potemkin village tour.” The officials were shown a hastily built display of weapons that the Chinese guides said Uighurs had used in terrorist attacks; a mosque where there was no sign of religious observance; and a kindergarten where the children sang songs praising the party.
At one camp, the class sang the Communist Party anthem. As they did, one Uighur man caught the eye of a diplomat and held up his wrists as if clamped together by handcuffs.
Afterward, the European Union circulated an internal document saying that the visit “does not invalidate the E.U.’s profound concerns about human rights in Xinjiang, including in relation to mass detention, political re-education, religious freedom and Sinicization policies, as well as concerns that similar measures could be applied in other regions of China with notable Muslim minorities.”
Rifts within the European Union on how to deal with China prevent a common front. Leaders in France and Germany are publicly silent on Xinjiang, while several Eastern European countries are supporters of China.
At the United Nations, China has made Xinjiang its main cause.
The Human Rights Council in Geneva is often considered a diplomatic backwater. The United States is no longer a member, with the Trump administration withdrawing last year in protest over policies toward Israel. As authoritarian governments gain power around the world, human rights are less of a front-and-center issue, leaving the council with less sway.
But China regards the council as a serious arena where it can outmaneuver its opponents, pursue its diplomatic agenda and score points.
A long-scheduled review of China’s human rights record was on the council’s schedule last November just as the Uighurs’ incarceration was gaining attention.
China prepared meticulously. About 60 Chinese diplomats flew to Switzerland from Beijing, a delegation headed by the influential vice foreign minister, Le Yucheng.
He was backed by 40 more members of Chinese government organizations. Such a large entourage of nondiplomats was almost unheard-of at the council, according to diplomats. They acted as cheerleaders, clapping at key moments.
One goal of the performance was to limit backing for an inspection of Xinjiang by Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations’ human rights chief.
“If you’re really serious about a fact-finding mission, please go check the southern border, Guantánamo, the Mediterranean to see if there have been fact-finding missions,” one of the Chinese advocates said, according to a recording by the International Service for Human Rights.
At the end of China’s presentation, more than 120 countries gave a positive review of its human rights record. Fewer than three dozen countries expressed real concern. Ms. Bachelet has not visited Xinjiang.
At the United Nations in New York, China has assiduously worked many angles. At one Security Council meeting last year that was set to discuss human rights violations in Syria, China intervened. It was concerned that the discussion would veer into one on Xinjiang.
The United Nations’ high commissioner of human rights at the time, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, traveled to New York to address the session.
Suddenly, as the diplomats were about to convene, Ivory Coast withdrew support for the discussion on Syria. Since there was no longer a quorum for the session, it was canceled.
Ivory Coast’s ambassador explained that his president had received a call from Beijing instructing him to ensure the session did not happen.
“If you can’t get a discussion on Syria after all these seven years of brutality, of course you can block a discussion on Xinjiang,” Mr. al-Hussein said.
An example of commentary without examining the actual policies implemented (eg. appointments, M-103 and follow-up).
His case would be stronger if there was an examination of the Liberal government record, rather than what I consider to be lazy commentary without that balance:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has offended, humiliated and hurt several communities in Canada. The images of Trudeau in blackface invoke vile, racist and offensive stereotypes that have been used to deny the common humanity of Black communities across time.
Trudeau wore blackface on several occasions, including at an “Arabian Nights”-themed party where he also wore a stereotypical outfit. He has apologized for the blackface.
Canadians are now reflecting on the impact and significance of the prime minister’s apologies.
Leadership matters
In her recent book, Leading With Dignity author Donna Hicks, based at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center, says leaders play a significant role in creating institutional cultures, including governments. She argues that leaders must genuinely accept other identities if they want to promote the equal dignity and worth of all people.
Trudeau’s conduct ridicules racialized communities. It signals to them that they are second-class citizens. His behaviour must be understood in political and social context.
But Trudeau’s decision to declare his opponents as un-Canadian is troubling. It invokes anti-Arab stereotypes and can be linked to a larger pattern of discrimination faced by Arabs and Muslims in Canada, groups that are often improperly conflated.
In a recent paper from the Journal of Law and Social Policy, “All Arabs Are Liars,” I examined a sample of human rights cases for common anti-Arab and anti-Muslim stereotypes. My analysis confirmed that Arabs and Muslim are stereotyped as un-Canadian or disloyal to Canada.
Stereotypes impact people’s lives
Stereotypes or negative tropes are not simply insulting. They help maintain a racialized status quo. They cause us to misjudge other people’s motives, abilities and actions.
For example, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, stereotypes influenced the decisions of Canadian officials who falsely concluded that Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, engineer and father of two, belonged to a foreign terrorist group. The officials’ decisions reflected the belief that Arabs and Muslims are not true Canadians. Such thinking contributed to Arar’s overseas torture. It is also evident in the torture of other Canadian Arab,Muslim men in several overseas instances as determined by a federal commission’s inquiry.
In a recent survey of Arab communities in Ontario undertaken on behalf of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association with the support of the Law Foundation of Ontario, sociologist Suzanne McMurphy and I found that 27 per cent of people surveyed tried to hide their Arab identities.
When asked why one person explained it was because of the “prejudice and stigma associated with being Arab.” Another said: “Because it is clear to me that racism exists against Arabs and open membership can negatively affect me in the hunt for jobs.”
Unlike U.S. President Donald Trump, the Liberal government has not targeted Arab and Muslim communities. But, it has allowed anti-Arab and anti-Muslim practices to continue. It has failed to explicitly examine how its own policies diminish groups and perpetuate racial inequalities.
Feminists use the phrase “add women and stir” to describe the practice of including women without changing subordinating structures. The same tokenism can be taken towards racial equality.
Trudeau’s team is diverse. But the question is not simply “who does he include?” The problem is also: “On what terms does he include them?” A former Liberal adviser suggests the Trudeau team does not actually value diversity. It simply wants votes from diverse groups without fully including them in its power structures.
Vetting issues plus part of the pond the PPC fishes in:
The former leader of a U.S. neo-Nazi group, a former Soldiers of Odin member and a Pegida Canada official were among those whose signatures were submitted to Elections Canada last year to officially register the People’s Party of Canada, records show.
All three of their names appear on Elections Canada documents, obtained by Global News, that confirmed a minimum of 250 party members had signed membership declarations. The forms were required to obtain party status for the PPC and its leader, Maxime Bernier.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network said the revelation that the party’s founding members included associates of extreme far-right, anti-immigrant groups should be grounds for removing Bernier from the televised election debates.
“These people speak to who is really excited about the People’s Party of Canada and who got in on the ground floor,” said Evan Balgord, the anti-hate group’s executive director. “It’s become impossible to separate the PPC from this kind of white-supremacist ideology.”
To register as an official political party, the PPC had to submit the names of at least 250 members to the chief electoral officer. Each member had to then sign an Elections Canada “confirmation” form verifying they had signed a membership declaration.
A spokesperson for Elections Canada said the process was meant to ensure that parties applying to register met all requirements under the Canada Elections Act.
“The Act is agnostic when it comes to ideology or platform,” Natasha Gauthier said in an email. “There is no mechanism allowing the Chief Electoral Officer to reject an application solely based on ideology.”
Under Canada Elections Act, parties do not have to disclose information about former or pending criminal backgrounds or investigations regarding those involved with the party, she said.
Released to Global News by Elections Canada, the forms list Shaun Walker among the PPC’s signatories. Walker, who now lives in St. Catharines, Ont., once led the National Alliance and was convicted in Utah over his role in a conspiracy to intimidate minorities.
U.S. prosecutors called the National Alliance a “U.S.-based white supremacist group.”
“Although it purports to be non-violent, the National Alliance is generally recognized as a group that condones and promotes the use of violence to achieve racial separatism,” prosecutors wrote.
The party cut its ties with Walker last month after his past involvement in the white nationalist movement came to light. While his position in the PPC was unclear at the time, the Elections Canada forms disclose his role in registering the party.
Walker did not respond to requests for comment. But in a message obtained by Global News last month, he said he was “innocent” of the U.S. charges and was “framed.”
The PPC submitted 489 membership declarations when it applied to register as a party. Elections Canada accepted 485 of them as “valid.” Of those, 314 members later signed confirmation forms, exceeding the 250 required for registration.
Among them was Janice Bultje, who is active in Pegida Canada and a group called Fighting Hate in Canada. Pegida, whose slogan is “Patriots of Canada against the Islamization of the West,” denies it is a white-supremacist group.
“As a founding member of both Pegida Canada and Fighting Hate in Canada, I believe in the importance of having a government that keeps the separation between church and state and fights hate regardless its origin, from the far-right to the far-left,” Bultje responded when asked why she had agreed to serve as one of the signatories during the registration of the PPC.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network describes Pegida as an anti-Muslim group and says that while it isn’t militant or physically dangerous, Pegida’s rallies often attract more violent far-right groups.
Another signatory was Justin L. Smith, who was formerly active in the Soldiers of Odin. When reached by Global News, Smith confirmed his past involvement in Soldiers of Odin but said he had not been active in the group for “quite a long time.”
The Sudbury Star reported that Smith was president of the Soldiers of Odin in Sudbury as recently as September 2017. Smith said the local group kept that name and logo after splitting away from the Finland organization because it was too costly to remake.
“We are not racists or anti-anyone,” Smith told the Star.
Smith confirmed he was one of the PPC members whose signatures were submitted to register the party and that he was the financial agent for Kevin M. Klerks, the People’s Party candidate for the Huron-Bruce riding in Ontario.
“His activities with the People’s Party of Canada, according to the document you provided dated 2018 and since, are not connected to nor affiliated with the Soldiers of Odin organization in any way,” Klerks said in an email, calling him an “honest and respectful individual.”
“We have discussed his past involvement with the [Soldiers of Odin] organization. I am sorry to disappoint you but there is no story here.”
BEFORE THE presidential election in 2000, George W. Bush was urged by an adviser to go after a category of voters who would love a business-friendly, socially-conservative message: Muslims. Mr Bush took the tip and it worked. In 2001, a survey of American Muslims (including those who cast no ballot or gave no clear answer) found that 42% reported voting for Mr Bush against 31% for his Democratic rival Al Gore. Among upwardly mobile Muslim immigrants, many of them professionals or entrepreneurs, the proportion voting Republican was much higher.
Now, however, with anti-Muslim sentiment ablaze among supporters of Donald Trump, and the president hardly discouraging it, that love-in is a distant memory. American Muslims are gaining political visibility, but only on the far left of the spectrum. Symptomatic of this shift is the election to the House of Representatives of two Muslim women (Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar) who along with two female colleagues, also left-wing Democrats, have been taunted by Mr Trump and his supporters.
A huge change in Muslim sentiment was clear in the 2004 presidential race and confirmed by the 2008 contest won by Barack Obama. By 2007 some 63% of American Muslims at least “leaned towards” the Democrats, against only 11% for the Republicans. These figures have not changed very much since, according to Pew Research, a pollster. Among Muslims who voted in the 2016 presidential race, only 8% said they opted for Mr Trump (who had declared that “Islam hates us”) and 78% for Hillary Clinton.
Campaigners for Muslim political engagement reckoned that more than 1m were registered to vote in 2016, and that last year’s congressional elections saw an uptick in Muslims going to the polls. Pew estimates that about 3.5m Muslims live in America. At around 1% of the country’s population as of 2015, they were more numerous than Hindus (0.7%) or Buddhists (0.7%) though well outnumbered by Jews (1.8%). But that picture is projected to change fast with the Muslim share doubling by mid-century.
The main reasons for the transformation in Muslim attitudes have been much analysed. After the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, there was a spate of hate crimes against followers of Islam and open antipathy towards Muslims emerged in a growing segment of the electorate. That put Muslim voters into a defensive frame of mind, and Democrats, with their embrace of cultural diversity, offered the safest haven. Another factor, though its importance is disputed, is that younger American Muslims have grown more liberal over cultural questions like gay rights, so they are less amenable to Republican-style “family values” arguments. As for African-American Muslims, they (like black Christians) have always been well to the left in their voting choices.
Still, to say that American Muslims have lurched from one end of the ideological spectrum to another would be an over-simplification. According to Youssef Chouhoud, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University, Muslims are not so much confirmed leftists as nomads, in search of anyone who will listen to them, and the only respectful attention they are getting is on the left. Even in that quarter, they have been feeling a bit unloved recently. At the convention on August 31st of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which calls itself the country’s biggest Muslim organisation, only two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination accepted invitations to speak: Senator Bernie Sanders and Julián Castro, a former housing secretary. Mr Sanders is also probably the most robust supporter of Palestinian rights in the primary field. As Mr Chouhoud puts it, this leaves Muslims “looking for a place they can feel wanted. Any politician who even talks to them will be appreciated.”
In this climate, Muslim Republicans are an endangered, though not extinct, species. One veteran of that cause is an Arizona-based doctor, Zuhdi Jasser. He has served as vice-chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan watchdog, as a Republican nominee. Although Mr Trump was not his preferred candidate, Dr Jasser declares himself “pleasantly surprised” by many of the Trump administration’s policies, and insists that “Muslim ban” is not an accurate way to describe the president’s drive to bar entry from five countries where Islam predominates.
Dr Jasser feels the “Muslim-equals-left” stereotype is partly the fault of his community’s self-appointed representatives, not so much the young firebrands as the community’s elderly godfathers. In his view, these veteran leaders have one big failing. They have never really distanced themselves from the global cause of Islamism, the notion that the only ideal form of governance is a Muslim one. (They are not, of course, proposing such a regime for America, but many have a record of endorsing political Islam elsewhere.) That soft spot for Islamism makes them particularly toxic in the eyes of mainstream American conservatives, leaving Muslims nowhere to go but left.
As he tours America addressing conservative groups, Dr Jasser finds them open to persuasion that the political doctrine of Islamism, which in his view can and must be separated from the spiritual teaching of Islam, is their real foe. He lays out the case that Islam as a set of metaphysical beliefs and ethical norms can flourish, in America and elswhere, under the principle of church-state separation which was dear to the Founding Fathers. Once that argument is made, his listeners are open to persuasion that decent American Muslims are allies against Islamism.
Whether or not they deserve to be dismissed as old-timers, America’s Muslim thought leaders, be they spiritual or political, are certainly divided. In ways that leave ordinary Muslim voters a bit baffled, they squabble among themselves, usually over events in distant lands. Arguments rage over the coup in Egypt in 2013, the failed coup in Turkey in 2016 and the civil war in Syria. At the core of many such disputes is a difference in attitudes to the global Muslim Brotherhood, as a standard-bearer of Islamism. In the words of H.A. Hellyer, an analyst for the Carnegie Endowment, “one of the fault-lines in the American Muslim intelligentsia is between those who see Islamism as the proper, basic norm of Muslim political life, and those who are philosophically opposed to it.”
Rank-and-file American Muslims may not have much time for philosophy but many will have felt some bewilderment in recent weeks as one of their most revered spiritual figures became embroiled in a row which has a domestic political dimension. Hamza Yusuf, a California-based greybeard, is often described as America’s most eminent scholar of Islam. In July he took a job, of sorts, with the Trump administration by joining a panel set up by the State Department to ponder the definition of human rights. Some said he was selling out to a Muslim-bashing administration; others that his warm relations with the United Arab Emirates, whose regime he calls tolerant, made him unqualified to pronounce on human rights. (The UAE is a declared foe of the Brotherhood, so views on that country are sensitive.) Mr Yusuf was already unpopular with left-wing co-religionists for saying after Mr Trump’s election that Muslims should accept his authority.
In recent days he has been much criticised for having spoken mockingly of the Syrian uprising that started in 2011. In a three-year-old video clip that suddenly went viral, he said the revolt had led to untold humiliation for Muslims. In a fresh video he apologised if his words had offended people who suffered under Syria’s regime.
Still, some advocates of a Muslim-Democratic coalition feel they can do fine without such prominent Muslims as Mr Yusuf. Despite the lack of interest shown by other Democrats, they took heart from Mr Sanders’s appearance at the ISNA convention and especially over one of his comments. He delighted Pakistani-Americans by saying he was “deeply concerned” about India’s “unacceptable” actions in Kashmir. That gave a hint of one foreign-policy issue which might loom rather large for south Asian voters in the 2020 race. Some Indian-Americans are impressed by Mr Trump’s friendship with Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister; many Pakistani-Americans hope a Democratic runner will take the other side.
Shadi Hamid, a fellow of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, says the deepening partnership between Muslims and Democrats was built not on foreign-policy questions but more on adversity: the alarm created by the white-nativist spirit which they see stalking the country. Certain tensions do exist, he says, between the social conservatism of some Muslims and the ever more secular ethos of the Democrats. But for now, such tensions are kept under control by a common feeling of being endangered. If the Trump era passes, the Democratic coalition’s internal strains might come to the fore, but until that happens, a sense of being under siege will keep it together. Generally, Muslim voters are saying: “however secular the Democrats might be, it is the Democrats who have our backs.”
Will see how this turns-out post the debates. And while I haven’t compiled candidate data (working with Samara and others to do so), anecdotally there so seem to be a fair number of visible minorities, some immigrants, some subsequent generations, among their candidates:
The People’s Party of Canada says it is “inclusive,” but how does that square with its calls to scrap the country’s Multiculturalism Act, tighten our borders, promote “Western civilization values” and cut immigration by more than half?
More diversity will “destroy what has made us a great country,” leader Maxime Bernier tweeted last year in a long, Trumpian thread.
Bernier, who narrowly lost the Conservative leadership to Andrew Scheer in 2017, founded the People’s Party in September 2018.
Since then, it has alarmed critics across the political spectrum, including some former supporters who are worried that xenophobic, and even racist, members of the radical right, as seen in the U.S. and Europe, now have a political home in Canada.
“What the PPC is doing risks normalizing far-right ideology,” said Brian Budd, a PhD student in political science at the University of Guelph who researches right-wing politics and populism in Canada.
The party uses the language of inclusion to communicate its ideas, noted Budd.
Those studying far-right parties in Western democracies have found that the most successful ones in Europe use the language of liberalism, civic values, and the national interest as a Trojan horse to normalize discrimination in the mainstream.
The strategy allows such parties to say they’re pursuing national unity when they’re actually promoting exclusion. It allows them to posit that hate speech is actually the free speech of a democratic society.
“It’s a built-in defence against accusations of racism,” said Budd.
It’s the kind of strategy that Conservative Kellie Leitch used in her bid for re-election in 2015. Leitch said she wanted to establish a “barbaric cultural practices” tip line to “defend Canadian values.”
Bernier used a similar approach in his Twitter rant against diversity, warning that “people live among us who reject basic Western values such as freedom, equality, tolerance and openness.”
While populist right-wing parties, including the People’s Party, have attracted supporters who are white supremacists, Budd doesn’t view the party as all-in advocating for a “homogenous, white European society.”
The party has been quick to point out that it has candidates who are immigrants and people of colour — proof, it has said, that it is not anti-immigrant or racist.
And it is willing to accept newcomers if they “share fundamental Canadian values, learn about our history and culture and integrate in our society,” Bernier has said.
That can be understood as “conditional multiculturalism,” said political scientist Erin Tolley of the University of Toronto.
The party’s immigrant candidates have said that they don’t see a problem with limiting immigration or with Bernier’s view that immigrants must assimilate and take on the party’s definition of “Canadianness.”
Rocky Dong, the party’s candidate in Burnaby North–Seymour, used a metaphor to explain his support for the policies.
“If you have one chopstick, it breaks easily,” he said. “If you have many chopsticks, they’re hard to break.”
Integration is crucial to national unity, said Dong, 48, who arrived in Canada from China in 2001. He helps international students integrate on a daily basis at work, connecting them with housing and education.
Another party candidate, Baljit Singh Bawa of Brampton Centre, who immigrated to Canada from India in 2000, said he was able to integrate thanks to his own drive to improve his English and a three-year stint working in Dubai “to get that international exposure, to get myself out of my comfort zone.” He wants others moving to Canada to integrate in similar ways.
Budd said that immigrant candidates allow the party to showcase its idea of the model minority — “the immigrants who have come in and successfully assimilated without support from the state.”
“A lot of Canadians like to think that Bernier is simply importing something successful from elsewhere,” he said. “But what he’s really doing is trying to adapt ideas and discourses to the Canadian context.”
Having these model immigrant candidates adds a made-in-Canada flavour to the kind of populism Bernier is building; it’s more visibly colourful than whiter movements in other Western democracies.
“It’s about population management,” said Budd, “while ensuring the privilege and supremacy of European culture.”
According to the party’s platform, it seeks to manage newcomer populations by:
Cutting immigration to between 100,000 and 150,000 people a year (Last year about 321,000 people immigrated; in the peak year under Stephen Harper, 280,700 arrived in 2010);
Focusing on economic immigration to fill labour gaps, while stopping the intake of temporary workers and people entering through family reunification programs;
Interviewing newcomers to ensure they subscribe to “Canadian values and societal norms;”
Eliminating the Multiculturalism Act and spending on multiculturalism;
Stopping “illegal migrants” and “false migrants” entering via the U.S. border;
Move to a reliance on private sponsorships to pay for refugee settlement, ending government support.
Bernier describes his vision in the liberal language of “harmony and the maintenance of our Canadian national identity.”
He has also attempted to justify his plans economically for his libertarian supporters, saying the party aims to cut down on state-funded “specialist services” for “freeloaders,” said Budd.
Bernier has said that some cultures, like First Nations, Cape Breton and Quebec’s Eastern Townships “deserve to be nurtured” because they were “developed in Canada” and “don’t exist anywhere else in the world.”
Political scientist Tolley said regional cultures are true of any country. “It is interesting that they’re trying to suggest that these regional cultures can’t exist alongside immigration and multiculturalism,” she said.
The party’s desire to clamp down on immigration and promote “Western civilization values” has led critics, including some former supporters, to accuse it of attracting and harbouring racists, white supremacists, anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists.
People’s Party events have been attended by such far-right individuals as Faith Goldy, an advocate of the conspiracy theory of white genocide who has verbally attacked immigrants and Islamic culture; Paul Fromm, a self-described “white nationalist” based in Hamilton who directs several far-right groups in Canada; and members of the Northern Guard, a militant anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim group that is an offshoot of the Soldiers of Odin.
This has caused trouble with some party supporters.
In July, the entire board of a Winnipeg riding association resigned, saying “racists, bigots, anti-Semites, and conspiracy theorists” had a large presence in the public conversation around the party.
The board members also said they were “appalled” to see “disinformation and distrust… encouraged with wink and a nod now.”
Last week, People’s Party candidate Brian Misera of Coquitlam–Port Coquitlam called on Bernier to “do more to help us disassociate from far-right groups that really have no place in our society.” The party has since revoked Misera’s candidacy, saying that he broke Elections Canada rules by acting as his own financial agent.
Bernier has responded by saying he doesn’t know everyone who attends his rallies and that “people who are racist and [don’t] believe in the Canadian values aren’t welcome in our party.”
Sanjay Jeram, a senior lecturer in political science at Simon Fraser University, believes Bernier’s failure to condemn these far-right elements more strongly is linked to efforts to build the new party.
“My feeling is he’s trying to cobble together a party that’s having trouble with organization,” said Jeram. As an upstart party trying to compete with the Conservatives, Bernier “can’t afford alienating people who he might not want part of the bigger message.”
Jeram said that debate about immigration levels shouldn’t be taboo but cautions against empowering more dangerous anti-immigration constituents. “The party should be more careful to screen candidates who have views that might actually incite violence,” he said.
“In a liberal democratic society, we shouldn’t be limiting debate. But that debate can go into the realm of targeting people for their race, gender, ethnicity or religion and making them vulnerable. It’s possible for people to take those messages and turn them into the legitimization of violence or discrimination.”
Stewart Prest, who also lectures in political science at SFU, said the party’s language is worth scrutiny. For example, it often decries what it calls “radical multiculturalism.”
That “could translate into disliking a particular group, Muslims being singled out,” he said.
Bernier’s attempt to redefine immigration and multiculturalism is a “grand project,” said Prest, as Canada’s mainline parties have agreed for a generation that immigration and multiculturalism are a part of the country’s foundations.
“But these messages can get picked up a number of ways and open the door to even more radical conversations.”
Tolley said that why the potential impact of the People’s Party should not be dismissed despite the party’s low support, currently at three per cent, according to the latest CBC aggregate of available polling data.
Tolley gives the example of the Reform Party, also an opponent of multiculturalism, which in the 1990s was able to change the conversation around immigration, making it an economic issue rather than a social one.
Last week the Leaders’ Debates Commission invited Bernier to participate in leadership debates.
Many experts wonder how the People’s Party’s narratives on immigration, refugees and multiculturalism might shift how other parties and the Canadian public talk about these topics.
People’s Party candidate Rocky Dong says they are only preaching “common sense.”
“We don’t hate the people outside. We just love the people inside the fence.”
When I saw the picture, it was like a sucker punch. But there it was, smack in the middle of the Canadian election: my prime minister, dressed up in some sort of Orientalist “Arabian Nights” get-up, his face and hands darkened, that smile the same today as in the 18-year-old photo.
Let’s dispense with the obvious: Yes, it was a stupid thing to do, as much in 2001 as now. No, he’s not a racist. Yes, he’s done incredible things for pluralism at home and abroad. He’s apologized honestly and acknowledged how his own privilege blinded him to the impact of his actions on others. No, we don’t need to demand more penance from him. Yes, he should have come to this self-awareness much earlier, particularly as a then-29-year-old teacher who also happened to be the son of a former prime minister. No, he shouldn’t resign over this; he deserves to be judged on the totality of his record and whether Canadians believe in his ability to do good in the future.
But this tawdry incident highlights a much more important conversation all Canadians — and citizens of all liberal democracies — need to have.
First, some context.
Justin Trudeau and I are the same age. He was born when his father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister, growing up at 24 Sussex Drive, Canada’s version of the White House. I was born six weeks later; my father and pregnant mother having recently immigrated to Canada not long after Trudeau père announced, in a statement to our House of Commons, that multiculturalism would be Canada’s official policy.
Justin’s and my upbringing were quite different, but we both grew up in a Canada that defined itself by opportunity: a place where a poor, first-generation kid could get a great public education, work hard and do well in his career, supported by a community with a stake in his success. Like the son of a well-to-do prime minister, he can even be elected to public office.
When I was elected as Calgary’s mayor in 2010, I suddenly became well known beyond the boundaries of my beloved hometown. It surprised me. I thought people might want to talk about my come-from-behind win, or how a wonky professor with little name recognition beat better-known opponents. But all anyone wanted to talk about was my faith: How did a conservative municipality known for cowboys, rodeos and hosting the 1988 Winter Olympics end up with the first Muslim mayor of a major Western city?
I was surprised. My faith was not an election issue. It rarely came up, and when it did, citizens protested. He grew up here, he’s one of us, they said on call-in shows. We don’t care that he fasts during Ramadan, we care what he thinks about public transportation.
I could have waved those questions away, but I felt there was an important story to tell. A story of Canada as a multicultural utopia, as a place that has long understood that everyone who shares this land deserves dignity and the chance to be the best they can be. I still believe that.
Even in Canada, people of colour (or color, if you prefer) don’t quite live in the same world as others. We sometimes have to work a little harder, we have to prove ourselves a little bit more, we have to put up with occasional irritations. But it’s part of the deal to live and have great lives here. And we’ve got jokes to help us sort awkward moments: Go back to my camel, you say? I don’t have one. It’s 2019! I use a camel-sharing app!
I guarantee you there were people at parties in Calgary and in your town this past Halloween who darkened their faces for costume. Heck, I’ve even seen pictures of people dressed as me (despite my annual public service announcement that “Sexy Mayor” is not an appropriate look). The folks dressed like me are generally fans. They’re certainly not racists. And “brownface” (Is that even a thing?) doesn’t have the moral weight and historical baggage of blackface. Does it?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada with his face and hands painted in what he described as “brownface,” poses with others at an “Arabian Nights” party when he was a 29-year-old teacher at the West Point Grey Academy in Vancouver, in this photo published in the academy’s 2000-2001 yearbook. This image, published in The View yearbook, was obtained by Time. (The View Yearbook/Via Reuters)
Someone who is seen as an ally can still do senseless things, however. Even in my amazing country, we don’t always know who really gets it, and who, despite their best intentions, still isn’t quite there. And in the past half-decade, something has shifted. Here in Canada, the home of the Global Centre for Pluralism, a nation where our innovation and defense ministers both wear turbans, where another minister is a refugee from Afghanistan, and where, during the Syrian refugee crisis, political parties supported taking in more people, something isn’t quite right.
It’s become easier to be careless with our language and comments, both online and in line at the coffee shop. In the run-up to the 2015 federal election, the incumbent government flirted with haters by pledging to ban face veils at citizenship ceremonies and promising to institute a Barbaric Cultural Practices snitch hotline. Canadians, in their way, responded by reporting, My neighbor wears socks with sandals! I saw someone eat Thai food with chopsticks instead of the correct spoon and fork! That government was defeated.
Yet in this year’s election, we have a (hopefully marginal) political party vowing, “Say NO to Mass Immigration” and accusing politicians of promoting sharia law. (Neither of these things exist in Canada.)
Far more egregiously, it’s no longer just slogans or casual individual acts of racism. It’s moved into actual policy. In Quebec, a new law prohibits people who wear conspicuous religious attire from holding certain public-sector jobs, including teachers and police officers.
Jagmeet Singh, a lawyer, is running for prime minister as leader of a national party, but because he wears a turban, could not serve as a judge in Quebec. I, as a Muslim man, could hold any job I want, but under this law, a Muslim woman who covers with a headscarf cannot. Muslim men who wear long beards could claim it’s just a nod to hipster-dom, and be free and clear, but Orthodox Jewish men with the same beard or a yarmulke cannot. Montreal’s mayor can hold any role, but the leader of her opposition, who wears a kippah, cannot. They’ve stood together against the law.
It’s all flagrantly unconstitutional, but the province of Quebec used the “notwithstanding clause,” a constitutional override provision (ironically, like multiculturalism, a gift from the tenure of the first Prime Minster Trudeau) to protect itself from legal challenge.
What’s funny about all of this is that various national leaders have mumbled platitudes about how much they dislike this law, but also haven’t committed to doing anything about it — including the candidate who wears a turban. Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer leans on the notion of “provincial jurisdiction” in a way that echoes of the language of “states’ rights” in the United States.
Even though the federal government could restrict Quebec’s financing or use its legal power to enjoin the provincial legislation, our federal leaders so far haven’t demonstrated the courage to do so. They’re hardly even talking about it. The law is popular in Quebec, and among others in the country, too. In an election year, they must be thinking, why risk losing those votes?
I‘m grateful every day that I’m Canadian — that my parents chose this country on the other side of the world. There’s no better place to have these conversations. But we have to have them.
We cannot stand on moral high ground calling out leaders for offensive things they did, years ago, if we’re not also willing to stand up against the racist and discriminatory behavior that’s right in front of our faces in 2019. We cannot choose our values a la carte when they benefit us — we need to be all in, all the time.
Canada, like any other country, isn’t black and white. It’s many-hued. Sometimes, it’s brown. We’re a welcoming, diverse country, but we recognize that we have work to do. Now, let’s use Justin Trudeau’s old blunders to think about the links between individual action and real justice.
Comparable restrictions I believe in Canadian West:
William Brown managed to get across the river safely, finding work in a small rural Illinois community close to the state’s border with Indiana. He would have known of the new anti-immigration laws, but must have been willing to risk breaking them for a better life. But a sheriff named John Watts soon arrested Mr. Brown for making his illegal crossing. When Mr. Brown could not pay the $50 fine the State of Illinois required of him, Sheriff Watts put him in chains on the Lawrence County courthouse steps and tried to sell him at auction to the highest bidder.
This was the 1850s and Mr. Brown, an African-American, was one of many victims of some of the earliest and harshest anti-immigration laws in America — laws created by white people in Midwestern states determined to keep free black people out.
The river William Brown crossed was the Wabash River, which runs along much of the border between Illinois and Mr. Brown’s home state, Indiana. Sheriff Watts was enforcing an 1853 law created by Illinois whites to add teeth to the state’s 1848 Constitution, which barred African-Americans from entering the state. Senator Stephen A. Douglas (the “Little Giant,” best known for his debates with Abraham Lincoln) strongly defended the State Constitution’s ban by arguing in 1850 that without it, Illinois would be filled with “old and decrepit and broken-down negroes” — a version of the “dumping ground” theme that’s been used by white politicians for so long.
In reality, Senator Douglas had arrived as an immigrant from Vermont in 1833, decades after many free African-Americans had helped to settle Illinois. Indeed, there might not have been a state of Illinois for him to move to if African-Americans had not bravely fought in the Wabash River Valley during the War of 1812.
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Multicultural Meanderings 