Why Are the Anti-Israel Chants So Tedious? » Mosaic

2024/05/03 Leave a comment

Of interest:

The anti-Israel demonstrations on American campuses have been compared to the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of the 1960s and early 1970s. In their intensity, they may be similar. In their stupidity, they are not. Nowhere is the difference between the two protest movements more immediately apparent than in the quality and nature of the slogans used by their participants.When one considers the slogans of the anti-Vietnam War movement, one is struck by the wit and humor of many of them. Many still have the power to make one smile or laugh, such as the “Make Love, Not War” motto that probably outdid any other in its popularity. What made it so potent, yet so funny? Partly, its clever yoking together of two opposed English idioms that shared only the verb “make”; partly, its puckish suggestion that everyone, from the foot soldier in Vietnam to the president of the United States, would be better off in bed with someone else than on a battlefield or in a war-cabinet session; partly its invoking of the sexual revolution of the sixties as both the antithesis of, and the alternative to, a supposed culture of aggressive militarism; and most sweepingly, its implication that life-giving Eros and death-dealing Thanatos are different expressions of the same human libido, and that the first is preferable to the second. That’s a lot to pack into four words, but “Make Love, Not War” managed to do it.

Other anti-Vietnam War slogans were almost as memorable. Some, like “Hell, no, we won’t go [to fight in Vietnam]” were chanted at demonstrations. Two favorites that I remember were displayed on signs. One bore the iconic flower of hippiedom and the words, in a take-off of the warning recently introduced in those days on packs of cigarettes, “War Is not healthy for children and other living things.” The other, a parody of the famous World War I recruiting billboard, had a drawing of a grim-faced Uncle Sam exhorting, “Join the U.S. Army! Travel to exotic lands, meet exciting people, and kill them.” There was the stern “If you support this war, send your own children,” and the poignant “Not our sons, not your sons, not their sons.” A sign carried only by black demonstrators said, “No Vietnamese ever called me n—r.”

There were, of course, angrier and more violent anti-Vietnam War slogans, too, such as the chant “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” But these, though they spread as the war dragged on and public frustration with it mounted, were never the rule. The dominant tone was irony and sarcasm, the underlying message: “You who are prosecuting this war may be more powerful than we are, but we are smarter than you, more creative than you, and more caring for human life and human beings, and because of this, we will prevail.”

Compare this with:

  • “Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas’s fight!.”
  • “Hitler, Hitler, go back home! Palestine is ours alone!”
  • “Globalize the intifada!”
  • “One, two, three, four, Israel will be no more! Five, six, seven, eight, Israel we’ll eliminate!”
  • “There is only one solution! Intifada revolution!”
  • “Say it loud, say it clear: we do not want Zionists here!”
  • “Oh, al-Qassam, you make us proud!  Kill another soldier now!”
  • “Resistance by any means necessary!”
  • “Palestine is our demand! No peace on stolen land!”
  • “We say justice. You say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!”
  • “We don’t want no two states. We want all of ’48!”

The sheer idiocy of such slogans is as staggering as is their hatefulness. Those who compose them seem to be under the impression that whatever rhymes is intelligent, and their ability to put two rhyming words together in what resembles a cheer for a high-school basketball team appears to be as far as their intelligence extends.

One mustn’t, of course, overgeneralize. Although many college students have joined the demonstrations, many times their number haven’t. Still, changed attitudes toward Israel aside, something has clearly happened to the minds of young American protesters between the 1960s and today. What?

Well, childhoods and adolescences dumbed down by smartphones, WhatApp, and Facebook, for one thing. And college educations given by teachers, products of the postmodernism and deconstructionism that gained ascendancy on university campuses in the last decades of the 20th century, who have taught that there is no such thing as verifiable truth or falsehood but only the competing narratives of oppressed and oppressor, and that it is incumbent to identify with the latter. And a national politics that has become one of non-debatable identities rather than of debatable issues. And the fear of saying or thinking anything that smacks of racism, sexism, genderism, religionism, elitism, nationalism, patriotism, colonialism, ethnocentrism, Orientalism, or whatever else might offend progressive values and the feelings of others, with the notable exception of those whose feelings it is permissible to offend.

None of this has been conducive to independence or subtlety of thought, let alone to irony or humor; combine it with a growing antagonism toward Israel and its Jewish supporters, now squarely placed by many young Americans in the camp of the oppressor, and you get the imbecility of “Go, Hamas, we love you! We support your rockets, too!” But whence all that rage, whence all that hate?

This is a question worth pondering. After all, the student demonstrators of the 1960s had much better reason to be consumed by such emotions (and some were) than those today. The government they were protesting against was sending them to fight, and possibly to die, in a war they considered immoral and unjust. What comparable threat does Israel, however immoral or unjust it may strike them as being, pose to students on American campuses now? What is all the screaming at it about?

The stock answer given by Israel’s supporters is: anti-Semitism. It’s hard to argue with that. When a Jewish state is vilified by mobs of students for supposed atrocities the likes of which leave them indifferent when committed by other nations, an antipathy toward Jews clearly has something to do with it.

But rampant anti-Semitism, as we know, does not spring from nowhere. It’s always an expression of some deep fear or resentment that the anti-Semite projects onto the Jew. What are today’s student demonstrators projecting that students in the 1960s were not?

Possibly, the loss of hope.

The demonstrators of the 60s were, like all rebellious young people since at least the time of the American and French Revolutions, a hopeful lot. They believed, however naively, in their power to make a better world than the one they were born into. They may have been the last generation in human history to do so. They were certainly the last in a chain going back two centuries or more, since what young person today honestly thinks life might get better in his lifetime? At most, it might be kept from not getting too much worse: too much hotter, too much more spun out of control by blind, unstoppable forces, too much more stripped of its human face by technology and artificial intelligence. The young generation’s task as the world passes into its hands will be to fight a holding action to stave off disaster, not to try creating something freer, more loving, and more joyous. If it doesn’t already know this, it surely feels it in its bones.

I would be full of anger, too, if such a world were passed on to me. Projecting such anger on a traditionally American-backed Israel that has almost nothing to do with the overall state of things is a tempting way to vent it. The more intelligent of today’s demonstrators will one day look back with embarrassment at the slogans they shouted. They will understand that they were shouting about something else.

Source: Why Are the Anti-Israel Chants So Tedious? » Mosaic

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

I always thought immigrant Germans would vote against the far right. I was wrong

2024/05/03 Leave a comment

A bit naive as all immigrant groups have a range of views. That being said, AfD, like other overtly anti-immigrant and/or xenophobic politicians, are a concern:

….It pains me, but I understand where this drawbridge mentality comes from. Immigrants who have “made it” often seek to melt into the middle class by moving away from ethnic neighbourhoods, putting a distance between themselves and those who aren’t affluent or don’t speak the language. In the hierarchy of society they look up, not down. Rivalries might also play a role: I have met Russians who distrust Turks, Vietnamese who don’t like Chinese, Iranians who feel superior to Egyptians.

On X, I come across a post by one of Lambrou’s colleagues, Anna Nguyen, a second-generation Vietnamese like me, and a new member of the AfD’s parliamentary group in Hesse. Another Vietnamese-German wrote to her: “As a Vietnamese with the same last name, I feel ashamed for you. You’re blind! You’re hoping for a steep career in an inhuman party. But according to them, you and I will never be German. Wake up!” To which Nguyen replied: “I’m terribly sorry, but I didn’t realise that I wasn’t allowed to have a different political opinion.”

According to the migration researcher Naika Foroutan, social media has become a powerful tool for the AfD to target immigrant voters. She noticed that on TikTok, AfD members have begun posting videos aimed at the conservative German-Turkish community – and some influencers have picked up their message, ranting about there being “too many refugees”.

Just as not all women are feminists, not all people with immigrant heritage are fans of an open-door policy. Think of Suella Braverman, former British home secretary, Vivek Ramaswamy, a former candidate for the Republican nomination in the US and Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally in France. Do they, subconsciously, think that by slamming others into the category of “bad immigrants” they will be seen as “the good ones”? Are they trying to be overzealous nationalists because they want to demonstrate how British, American or French they really are?

….Rightwing parties have always exploited the narrative of “good” versus “bad” immigrants. Now the AfD seems to have discovered a new group of voters among immigrant Germans, some of whom seem all too willing to embrace its message and support the party. This doesn’t mean the AfD is any more tolerant, but it has become smarter, and therefore even more threatening.

  • Khuê Phạm is a German journalist and writer. Her debut novel, Brothers and Ghosts, which is inspired by her Vietnamese family, has just been released

Source: I always thought immigrant Germans would vote against the far right. I was wrong

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Nicolas | Paix sociale à la montréalaise

2024/05/03 Leave a comment

Interesting differences based on geography but the camp-in at McGill may change that:

Alors que tous les yeux sont rivés sur le campement propalestinien à McGill, j’ai envie de vous parler non pas de ce qui se passe, mais de ce qui ne se passe pas à Montréal.

Certes, l’attaque du 7 octobre contre Israël et les bombes qui n’en finissent plus de tomber sur Gaza ont élevé le niveau de tensions intercommunautaires un peu partout dans la ville. Il suffit toutefois de se comparer pour prendre la mesure de la résilience particulière du tissu social montréalais — jusqu’à présent. Il y a plusieurs pistes d’explication à ce phénomène.

D’abord, ça peut sembler étrange à dire, mais la géographie de la ville nous aide. À Toronto, plusieurs des institutions phares de la communauté juive sont en plein centre-ville, sur les grandes artères qui balisent le parcours normal des manifestations. La situation donne lieu à des moments surréels que l’on s’est épargnés ici.

Par exemple, lors d’une grande manifestation, le 12 février dernier, le Spider-Man de Toronto — un peu l’équivalent de l’Anarchopanda du printemps étudiant de Montréal — était parmi la foule à escalader les édifices le long du parcours. Une fois rendu sur la University Avenue, le personnage anonyme a grimpé sur la façade de l’hôpital Mount Sinai avant de continuer son chemin.

Des Canadiens d’origine palestinienne qui ont de la famille à Gaza ont pris la parole lors de cette manifestation, alors que l’armée israélienne annonçait vouloir se lancer dans une offensive sur Rafah. Leur message n’a pas passé. Le lendemain, toute la classe politique canadienne était en train de dénoncer… la présence de Spider-Man et de son drapeau palestinien sur un hôpital fondé par la communauté juive. Même le premier ministre Justin Trudeau a déploré sur X « cette démonstration d’antisémitisme ».

Ce n’était pas la première affaire du genre. Parce que les manifestations se retrouvent parfois en face de leurs institutions, plusieurs membres de la communauté juive de Toronto sentent qu’on manifeste contre eux, personnellement, et non contre le gouvernement d’Israël. Les organisateurs se défendent, bien sûr, d’avoir de telles intentions. Après près de sept mois de telles tensions, le dialogue social, là-bas, est devenu presque impossible.

Par « chance », à Montréal, l’Hôpital général juif n’est pas sur la rue Sherbrooke, et la plupart des écoles, des synagogues et des centres communautaires juifs de Montréal sont situés plus loin du coeur de l’action. On ne se pile pas sur les pieds de la même manière.

On a fait aussi des choix tactiques différents de ceux d’ici. Là-bas, on a manifesté à quelques reprises contre des commerces qui ont des activités dans les territoires palestiniens occupés ou qui soutiennent financièrement l’armée israélienne — et qui sont par ailleurs dirigés par des personnes juives. Alors que, d’un côté, on voit dans ces gestes une dénonciation politique de ce qui est perpétré par Israël, de l’autre, on ne voit là qu’une forme de pogrom. Là aussi, tout le monde est à cran. Plus qu’ici.

À Montréal, le plus important édifice à avoir été ciblé de la sorte est celui de Radio-Canada, qui a fait l’objet de graffitis dénonçant une « complicité avec le génocide » en novembre dernier. Le débat sur l’antisémitisme ne fait pas écran au message des manifestants de la même manière.

Je ne veux pas non plus peindre un portrait trop rose de notre situation. On se souviendra, par exemple, du discours tout à fait inacceptable prononcé par Adil Charkaoui durant la manifestation du 28 octobre dernier. Seulement, à ce point-ci, toute personne qui comprend un peu les mouvements sociaux montréalais sait que l’homme est une espèce de patate chaude opportuniste qui émerge chaque fois qu’il y a de l’action pour faire déraper le dialogue public. Personne de sérieux ne le considère comme une voix rassembleuse.

Par ailleurs, les coups de feu contre deux écoles juives de Côte-des-Neiges ont choqué la ville en novembre dernier. L’affaire a éveillé les craintes des parents, et à juste titre. Notons que des mois plus tard, aucune information ne permet d’établir l’identité ou les motifs des responsables de ces crimes haineux.

Depuis l’automne dernier, on n’a pratiquement pas entendu parler, dans les médias, de la mairesse de Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Gracia Kasoki Katahwa. Si la réponse de son équipe aux attaques commises dans son arrondissement avait été complètement dépourvue de sensibilité, son nom serait partout. Le travail consistant à rassurer les communautés et à faire baisser la tension dans nos quartiers se fait loin des projecteurs. C’est par ce qui ne fait pas la nouvelle, parfois, qu’on peut comprendre que, même si la situation est loin d’être facile, les choses pourraient aller beaucoup, beaucoup plus mal.

Finalement, durant ces presque sept mois d’une guerre qui met bien des gens d’ici sur les nerfs, le Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) n’a presque pas fait les manchettes. Non pas parce que la police est inactive. Mais parce que des choix ont été faits, jusqu’à présent, sur la manière d’intervenir dans les manifestations et de répondre aux plaintes pour discours haineux antisémite, antipalestinien ou islamophobe. Quand on ne parle pratiquement pas du SPVM, bien qu’on marche à Montréal semaine après semaine, c’est que, là aussi, ça pourrait aller beaucoup plus mal que ça ne va jusqu’à présent.

Cette relative paix sociale montréalaise qui subsiste malgré tout dans le contexte — j’insiste sur le mot « relative » —, elle est précieuse. Et très fragile. Les décisions du SPVM, de nos tribunaux et de l’administration de l’Université McGill cette semaine pourraient nous rapprocher du niveau de tension qui mine la plupart des grandes villes nord-américaines.

Aujourd’hui, Montréal peut décider d’asseoir fièrement sa différence, ou de l’effacer. La métropole peut se rapprocher de Toronto ou de New York, ou faire les choses à sa manière. Dans les jours, voire les heures qui suivent, son leadership choisira.

Source: Chronique | Paix sociale à la montréalaise

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Jonathan Kay: Just ignore Sarah Jama’s keffiyeh. Next she’ll be wearing a turban, Kaveh Shahrooz: The Queen’s Park keffiyeh kerfuffle proves the wisdom of keeping political symbols out of the legislature

2024/05/03 Leave a comment

Two contrasting views on the right, starting with Kay:

…If legislators at work are to be governed by a rule that forbids political symbols, then that category should be defined narrowly — which means permitting any symbol, such as a keffiyeh, whose use doesn’t necessarily convey a political meaning. In a liberal society, it is much more important to guard against false positives than false negatives when defining classes of banned expression. And Jama’s antics shouldn’t be seized upon as an excuse to err in an illiberal direction.

One reason I’m wary of any kind of keffiyeh ban is that we’re just coming out of a period of progressive social panic in Canada, during which even the mildest articulation of conservative viewpoints, or display of traditional Canadian symbols, was denounced as a “dog whistle” for white supremacy or some such. (To take one particularly ludicrous example: Recall that in 2022, an “anti-racist” group got a six-figure grant from Justin Trudeau’s government so it could author a report denouncing the Red Ensign flag — Canada’s national symbol until about 60 years ago — as a coded endorsement of white supremacism.) We’re all sick of this type of phobic mindset being displayed on the left, and I’m wary of conservatives copying the worst habits of their enemies now that the cultural tide is starting to turn.

One of those bad habits is catastrophizing. When I first mentioned on social media that I thought Jama should get her way on the keffiyeh issue, I got a chorus of pushback to the effect that she was channelling antisemitism — because what else except Jew-hatred would motivate anyone to take up the keffiyeh in the shadow of 10/7? To allow her to continue dressing in this way, the claim goes, is to make Jews across Ontario feel unsafe.

But I doubt that Jama is any kind of true bigot (even if the stridency of her anti-Israeli statements raises the possibility). What seems more likely is that she’s one of those serial activists whose focus will flit from cause to cause over the years, based on what’s in the news and what brings out the cameras. Once Gaza cools down and other conflicts take centre stage, who knows? We may see Sarah Jama in a turban, or a Ukrainian vyshyvanka, or perhaps even some kind of fez.

Whatever adornments Jama chooses, the best course is to simply ignore them, and leave it to Hamilton Centre voters to assess her wardrobe choices in the next election.

Source: Jonathan Kay: Just ignore Sarah Jama’s keffiyeh. Next she’ll be wearing a turban

Contrary view by Kaveh Shahrooz:

…The legislature holds a unique place in our polity and should aspire to more. While it should serve as the forum for political disagreement and debate, it should not itself be seen as partisan. And it should elevate our public discourse, instead of becoming yet another force that reduces nuanced topics to signs, pins, stickers, and placards. 

Opposing the keffiyeh for its alleged bad meaning naturally draws out the battle over that meaning, and invites another battle over the freedom of expression. It also invites future fights about the meaning of every other symbol that MPPs will hereinafter try to bring into the legislature. Is the Ukraine pin a good or bad symbol? The Black Lives Matter badge? What about the MAGA hat? Open this door just a little and we will be mired in a thousand battles about a thousand causes, logos, and signs.

The solution, then, is not to engage in a futile line-drawing exercise which will leave many stakeholders unhappy much of the time. Instead, it is to maintain the existing nearly blanket ban on political symbols. (I say “nearly blanket” because symbols like the Remembrance Day poppy are now permitted at Queen’s Park. But even that required a special exemption.) The ban avoids the problem altogether, allowing our core deliberative body to remain a place for reason above passion. 

We will likely never agree on the precise meaning of the keffiyeh (though we should at least strive to be honest in its interpretation; something the “it’s just a cultural symbol” crowd is not doing.) 

But we should agree that some corners of our society should be reserved for deliberation and debate instead of cheap appeals to emotion and tribalism. What better place for that than Queen’s Park?

Source: Kaveh Shahrooz: The Queen’s Park keffiyeh kerfuffle proves the wisdom of keeping political symbols out of the legislature

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Jen Gerson: The Conservative case for the CBC

2024/05/02 Leave a comment

Comments on immigrant communities and their media consumption from country of origin sources as a reason to revitalize the CBC. Her reform suggestions have merit:

It was at the recent Canada Strong and Free Network conference — formerly known by the much less awkward title the “Manning Centre” conference — in which I overheard one of those conversations that is so often considered taboo in tête-à-têtes that are more Liberal or NDP-adjacent. It was a discussion on immigration, and specifically, on the obstacles to cultural integration that rapid immigration can sometimes entail. 

The speaker noted with some dismay the number of satellite TV dishes affixed to the balconies of apartments in urban areas that tend to become the first homes of new arrivals to the country. With the advent of affordable global satellite television, those who had relocated to Canada could keep abreast of news at home, in the languages they were most comfortable with. This influx included not only the plethora of private television networks, but also their public counterparts: RT, IRA, CCTV — virtually every country in the world invests in some content offering, and makes that offering widely available both domestically and abroad. 

In liberal democracies, public broadcasting tends to value at least a degree of journalistic independence. In authoritarian nations, well, not so much. But they broadcast just the same. 

Of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with seeking news and entertainment from one’s homeland. Nothing could be more natural than the desire to seek out the familiar, especially while adapting to a new culture and a new home. My fellow conversationalist was not unsympathetic to that desire, yet those satellite dishes concerned him, nonetheless. Canada is welcoming a nearly unprecedented number of new immigrants at the same moment in which its sense of itself as a nation has, arguably, never been weaker. Or, as Justin Trudeau himself once put it “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” 

If that’s so, how do we expect this influx of new Canadians to cohere to the vacant identity of their adopted homeland? Is the move to Canada a thing that exists in the body only; the spirit to remain entrenched in the values, language, news and entertainment of the citizen’s soul? His homeland? How does a nation as widely dispersed and malleable as ours, one that welcomes people from around the world, create some kind of pan-Canadian values and identity? How the hell do we actually work together?  

I don’t have an easy answer to that question, but I did note at the time that this individual had unwittingly articulated the best Conservative case for the CBC. 

And he had done it in a place where promises to “defund the CBC” generated unabashed whoops of glee. 

“Perhaps don’t defund the CBC” is a contrarian position in my circles, of late. Conservatives hate this institution — and I don’t use the word “hate” lightly. It may be too late to make an appeal for reform, caution or reason. Blood is high. 

They are angry that the CBC sued the Conservative party — and only the Conservative party — for a fair use of news material in political advertising. They are angry at an organization that seems to be ideologically driven to, and hell bent on, closing the Overton window on a range of policy positions and values that many of them care about. They resent being forced to pay for a public broadcaster that they feel has alienated them. 

While I think some of these positions are clouded by the poor judgment that inevitably accompanies anger, many of these grievances are valid. And, privately, I know at least some employees in the CBC will admit to it. The CBC is not what it ought to have been in recent years, and calls for it to be defunded are a predictable and inevitable consequence of adopting a set of cultural values that are openly at odds with a plurality of the taxpayers that fund it. 

The organization still does necessary work, and employs many hundreds of diligent and grounded journalists. However, at least some sections of the organization do come off as high handed and patronizing, as if the outlet sees its role as imposing a set of Canadian Values onto a benighted populace eager for the Call On High of the Annex, rather than as an institution whose fundamental role is to serve those very masses. 

Take the carbon tax, MAID, government spending, contentious protests, gender identity, sex work, safe supply, diversity and inclusion, homelessness, and crime — these are some of the most pressing and contentious issues facing Canadians today. These are complicated issues, often morally fraught, and offer rich opportunities for real debate, reporting, and investigation. I don’t think that’s what we’re getting from the CBC right now. That is a problem, and an abrogation of the CBC’s duty to inform and serve a geographically and ideologically diverse public. Hence the anger. 

However, I cannot pin this failure solely on the CBC. 

If our public broadcaster is not producing the kind of journalism that we want, need and expect, then the negligence lies also within ourselves. We taxpayers, political leaders, and citizens have failed to communicate to the CBC what we expect. And weak management, poorly guided by a vague mandate, has been unable to establish a clear vision of what the outlet needs to prioritize — and, more crucially, what it must deprioritize. 

What I see when I look at the CBC is a Byzantine hall, ruled by competing fiefdoms, and dug five stories deep into the forbidding earth. What I see is mandate creep.

Is there anyone in senior management who can seriously blank-face defend CBC Gem? Or CBC Comedy? Why is the CBC replicating widely available language learning apps with their own version, Mauril? Or how about its vertical devoted to first-person opinion pieces? In an era of Substack and Medium and X, is there market failure that a public broadcaster really needs to address, here? A real lack of opportunity to write articles like: After coming out as trans, my return to sex work has been unexpectedly rewarding.

I could go on, but you get the point. Is there anyone, anywhere, within the CBC hierarchy who can say: “No”? 

All of these efforts reek of a senior management that so lacks a sense of self direction that it instead tries to be everything to everybody, and then blames its lack of adequate funding when it fails to do anything particularly well. And that’s before we get into the management bonuses, and last minute budget top ups. This isn’t sustainable. And it’s why I don’t find arguments for increasing funding right now compelling — absent a clear mandate and strong internal management, the government could double or even triple the CBC’s funding and not create anything better; all we’d get is an even more sprawling bureaucracy trying to churn out more #content in categories that are already amply if not ably served by the private sector. 

So, yeah, I understand the emotion, here. I understand how gratifying it is for Conservatives who squeal with delight when Pierre Poilievre screams “defund the CBC.” Whatever that means. 

All I’d ask is for such people to consider that this is, indeed, an emotional response generated by feelings of grievance and alienation. It’s not a rational policy position. Shut down the CBC tomorrow, and Canada is not suddenly going to host 1,000 ideologically grounded private media organizations. That’s a fantasy, totally detached from a solid understanding of the modern media market. The only problem defunding the CBC solves is the continued public funding of the CBC. 

Local news — real reporting that involves sending actual people to write about quotidian court cases and city hall meetings week after week — is a very hard business case in an environment that generates revenue by virality and clicks. There are going to be some successes in this sphere, but not enough to replicate a tenth of even the current skeletal coverage. 

Privatizing the CBC will do nothing other than to create another failing private media outlet. And defunding or shuttering it outright is only going to eliminate what’s left of an already battered local news system at the very moment that the private media sector is heading into its senescence. This is going to contribute to already expansive news deserts, with citizens turning to things like Facebook groups and closed group chats in order to share local knowledge. 

Some of these quasi-outlets will be fine, and even useful. Ordinary journalism doesn’t require special training or a credential. 

But it does mean that more Canadians over time are going to grow increasingly reliant on sources of information that may or may not have any attachment to how the world around them actually functions. Not only is this going to have an impact on our concepts of a shared national identity, but in some cases, even consensus reality. 

We don’t have to peer too deep into the darkness of our hearts to get a sense of where this is going. Travel just a little ways outside a major city and you’ll quickly run into news deserts where a significant subsection of the population already believes that the Canadian government is controlled by Klaus Schwab for the benefit of Satanic, adrenochrome-swilling pedophiles. 

To put it more bluntly: Conservatives, it’s one thing to burn CBC’s downtown Toronto HQ. By all means, paint your bodies in the ashes and scream at the moon until she hears your victory. Revel in it. But then you’re actually going to have to govern people. How long do you think the current crop of “hang the elites” stand by you when you’re the elite

The CBC in its current state is not sustainable. It needs a radical overhaul that includes an extensive mandate review that sets clear expectations for content, tone, and objective outcomes. Personally, I’d cleave everything related to entertainment and leave that to die. The CBC ought to be an exclusively journalistic organization, with a particular focus on local news, beat reporting, and investigations. I’d take the CBC’s mandate out of the Broadcasting Act and create a standalone statute that enshrines objective journalistic standards and practices in law so internal committees can’t dick around with journalistic fads. (I have no objection to “activist” journalism, or concepts like “moral clarity” in private business, or even grant-supported niche outlets; but a national public broadcaster ought to adopt broadly unobjectionable and historically grounded journalistic standards when serving an audience that cannot escape footing the bill.)

I’d demand the CBC create a functional, independent newsroom in every city over 100,000 people in this country. I’d assign specific beats like health, upper courts, legislatures and the like, and I’d write those expectations straight into the mandate. 

Most importantly, I’d have both the CBC and its critics understand that it is one of the most important repositories of institutional knowledge in this country — it is not only a reservoir of Canada’s culture and history, but also an irreplaceable living resource for the craft and practice of journalism itself. I wish the CBC considered itself not as a competitor to private journalistic enterprise, but more like a public service, akin to a library. An institution whose role is to help foster regional journalistic talent — perhaps through workshops, internships, or even equipment or facility rentals. 

If a local journalism student wants to start a podcast in, say, Medicine Hat, the local CBC outlet ought to be a resource to help her make that project a success. The local CBC outlet ought to be her champion. 

In this lurid dream vision, I would make all the CBC’s written and audio-visual materials freely available to any Canadian media outlet. Further, the CBC should be allergic to private advertising. 

I would also put some serious thought into the CBC’s role as a guardian of this country’s digital and physical news archives. If much private media is about to collapse, we risk losing an extraordinary amount of our shared cultural heritage, unless some entity is willing to take on the care, organization, and access of historic documents and material. 

All the above is a napkin sketch for a sustainable CBC mandate. One that fosters an innovative private media sector while ensuring that Canadians will be reasonably well served by a grounded and objective information environment. If Canadians want to wander into QAnon conspiracy land, that’s not for me, or for any government, to restrict. However, in the face of market failure — and objective news reporting is one such imminent failure — there is room for the public sector to act. We should ensure that Canadians have real choices. 

Funnily, when I spelled out that vision of a CBC, most of the Conservatives I spoke to at the conference in Ottawa could get behind it, or some version of it. And that didn’t surprise me. Most Conservatives in this country are not libertarians or even, frankly, true populists. Most, I think, grant that there is some role for a federal government to play in the promotion of a Canadian culture and identity, particularly where the preservation of history and institutions are concerned. I am aligned to the role of a free market in media, as in anything else (like and subscribe!), but I would remind everybody that the media industry doesn’t exist in a pure free market in the Platonic world of ideal forms, and never has. There are bad ways to intervene in it (ahem, the Online News Act) and there are good ways — ways grounded in historic success, both here and in other countries. Public broadcasting is tried and true, which is why almost every country has some version of it in accordance with its national values, needs, and insecurities. 

Ironically, the cultural conditions that prompted the creation of the CBC in 1936 are more prevalent now than at any time previous in living memory. There is more need now for a shared sense of Canadian identity. We need a revitalized social understanding about how to mediate access to information and power in a democracy. I would remind Conservatives of this, and I would ask: if you destroy the CBC, would you have to replace it with something else? I would ask you to put a pin in the anger, and consider how Canada and her people will be best served after the impending collapse of traditional media infrastructure. Lastly, I would remind you of all those satellites on all those apartment blocks and ask: if the CBC, or something like it, isn’t going to fill the gap, who will? 

Source: Jen Gerson: The Conservative case for the CBC

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Canada needs to do more to prepare for an aging, and more diverse population

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

Good analysis and prescription:

….Since 2018, Andrew Pinto and his team at Upstream Lab at the University of Toronto have been working on a tool called SPARK, a list of standardized questions designed for primary caregivers to collect information from patients, including race and ethnicity. Dr. Pinto hopes the questionnaire becomes standard in healthcare settings across the country.

It also includes socioeconomic questions – about income, education, disability status, housing, food security – recognizing that race and ethnicity are just part of the many factors that influence a person’s health outcomes.

“We all come from different cultures, with different ways of relating to health providers, and have different needs,” Dr. Pinto said.

“By asking these questions, we can get a better understanding of what people need.”

Source: Canada needs to do more to prepare for an aging, and more diverse population

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Paul: PEN America Has Stood By Authors. They Should Stand By PEN.

2024/04/30 Leave a comment

Agreed. Money quote: “I prefer to stand by PEN America and by all its members, though perhaps quite now, who would wish to see PEN’s mission upheld and strengthened rather than dismantled. Who does it really serve to keep tearing things down?”

All strong institutions stand to benefit from internal dissent and external pressures. But too often, recent efforts to reform institutions have meant reconstituting them in ways that distort or fundamentally undermine their core mission.

Nonprofit organizations, governmental agencies, university departments and cultural institutions have ousted leaders and sent their staffs into turmoil in pursuit of progressive political goals. In the wake of the 2016 election and the 2020 murder of George Floyd and in a rush to apply sweeping “In this house we believe” standards unilaterally, organizations have risked overt politicization, mission drift, irrelevance and even dissolution. And now the war in Gaza is ripping its way across American universities.

The latest target is PEN America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to free expression by journalists and authors. Last week, after an increasingly aggressive boycott campaign by some of its members, PEN canceled its annual World Voices Festival, which was conceived by Salman Rushdie and was to mark its 20th anniversary in May. This followed a refusal by several writers to have their work considered for PEN’s annual literary awards. The ceremony awarding those prizes was also canceled.

An open letter sent to PEN America’s board and trustees and republished on Literary Hub, now the de facto clearinghouse for pro-Palestinian literary-world sentiment, accused the organization of “implicit support of the Israeli occupation” and of “aiding and abetting genocide.” It demanded the resignation of PEN’s longtime C.E.O., Suzanne Nossel, and current president, Jennifer Finney Boylan. According to its 21 signatories, mostly up-and-coming authors, “among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement. There is fact and fiction. The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people.”

In response and in keeping with its mission of independence and free expression, PEN America accepted the writers’ willingness to voice their conscience. It has also made clear that there is room for more than one point of view on what constitutes genocide and on the current conflict in Gaza.

“As an organization open to all writers, we see no alternative but to remain home to this diversity of opinions and perspectives, even if, for some, that very openness becomes reason to exit,” PEN America stated in an open letter to its community.

That doesn’t mean PEN’s critics are without a point. I have also heard dissent from inside PEN that the organization has not been as strong in its advocacy for Palestinian writers since Oct. 7 as it has been for Ukrainian writers since the Russian invasion. I have seen internal letters describing this disparity in detail. Those grievances may well be legitimate, and PEN should respond appropriately, advocating on behalf of all writers caught up in conflict, repression and censorship, regardless of geopolitical circumstance.

But for those advocating that PEN America reform itself in the service of a single political agenda, the organization’s efforts to accommodate a range of views count against the organization. “Neutrality,” the authors of the most recent letter contend, “is a betrayal of justice.” Nothing short of total capitulation will serve their purpose. And they are conducting an intimidation campaign among other members and authors to join their ranks or shut up about it. According to PEN leaders, writers have expressed fear in openly supporting the organization in the onslaught of this latest campaign.

Since 2006, I’ve been one of PEN America’s 4,500-plus members, which includes writers, journalists, activists and professionals involved in the world of letters. I joined well before I joined The Times, after the publication of my second book, a liberal critique of the effects of online pornography, which met with a certain amount of pushback. As a freelance journalist and author who covered politically sensitive topics, I appreciated the protection PEN America offered. PEN takes a firm stand, for example, against online abuse, something every working journalist today experiences to one extent or another. PEN is also firmly committed to fighting book bans in schools, libraries and prisons, something that grew increasingly relevant to me when I became the editor of The New York Times Book Review.

Of course, these conflicts are minor compared with a war in which lives are at stake. But whatever my personal views on the Middle East, I don’t expect or even want all its members to conform to my brand of politics.

PEN brooked dissent before. In 2015 it honored the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after its members were brutally attacked and in spite of opposition from some of its members. I appreciate that the organization has named a prominent transgender writer and activist as its president even if I do not share all her views when it comes to gender politics. I don’t have to agree with everything PEN does; in fact, I prefer that I don’t agree, because that opens me up to protection in kind from members who may not agree with me on all issues.

Even if we’ve grown inured to organizations losing their way under political pressure, we shouldn’t be indifferent to the potential consequences. Especially now that there are so few truly independent organizations left.

According to its charter, PEN “stands for the principle of unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations, and members pledge themselves to oppose any form of suppression of freedom of expression in the country and community to which they belong, as well as throughout the world wherever this is possible.” I prefer to stand by PEN America and by all its members, though perhaps quiet now, who would wish to see PEN’s mission upheld and strengthened rather than dismantled. Who does it really serve to keep tearing things down?

Source: PEN America Has Stood By Authors. They Should Stand By PEN.

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Anita Anand first aimed to transform Canada’s military culture. The public service is next

2024/04/30 Leave a comment

A bit of a puff piece. And equating the military with the public service is misleading, as the public service is miles ahead of the military in improving representation at all levels for all groups.

Corporate boardrooms. Military barracks. Federal government offices.

They’re not locales with a reputation for fostering diversity.

Anita Anand has been trying to change that.

Ensuring people of all backgrounds feel accepted and heard no matter the venue is a mission that has followed her at every stage in her life and career, she said in a recent interview.

“This is a very personal issue for me,” said Anand, who is the first person of colour to hold the federal government’s purse strings as Treasury Board president.

“I still walk into rooms and look at tables that are not diverse.”

Case in point: in February, Anand walked into a briefing regarding mental-health counselling for Black public-service workers.

There were no Black employees in the room, she said.

“I said to the individuals briefing me: ’Why aren’t there any Black individuals facing me?’ This is not acceptable.”

Part of her mandate is to dismantle systemic barriers in the federal public service that allow workplace harassment, bullying, racism and other forms of discrimination and violence to fester.

It needs to happen at all levels, she said.

“We actually want to ensure we see diversity in briefing rooms for the minister, at the deputy minister level, at the assistant deputy minister level.”

Anand is no stranger to what racial discrimination can feel like.

Before she became the member of Parliament for Oakville, Ont., in 2019, she worked as a lawyer and law professor.

At one workplace, she said, people would often ask if she was in the accounting department.

“That struck me because there were more South Asians in the accounting department than there were in the school of lawyers,” she said.

“Often I would get confused with other Indian women that were working in the same work environment that I was.”

Rather than focusing on such events, she said she has put far more energy toward understanding how to improve the situation.

That included working at the United Nations, writing a thesis on racial discrimination in Canada, and researching the number of racialized individuals on boards of directors when she was a professor.

“At every stage of my life, I have tried to incorporate my views about diversity and inclusivity in everything I am doing,” Anand said.

“It’s not that I have to try to do it. It is a natural part of the way I think.”

Anand said it’s difficult to pick out a point in time when she became aware of her own racial identity.

“I’ll just say that was very stark for me growing up.”

Her Indian parents met in Ireland in the 1950s as physicians, got married in England, then lived in India and Nigeria before immigrating to Canada.

“They raised their three daughters in a predominantly white province with very few South Asians when they moved,” she said.

“We had a wonderful upbringing in Kentville, Nova Scotia, but the fact that I was racialized never left my consciousness. There weren’t very many people who looked like me and my sisters at my school.”

Part of her goal now is to make sure racialized children can see themselves in all manner of jobs, including in high-ranking government and military roles.

As defence minister, Anand said she told her team that cultural change was a file that “should not leave the centre of my desk.”

In the months before she took the file in fall 2021, a string of senior military leaders were accused of sexual misconduct.

And just over half a year into her tenure, Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour released the results of an external review, saying the culture within the Canadian Armed Forces was “deeply deficient.”

Anand accepted Arbour’s recommendations for change, admitting in a statement upon its anniversary in May 2023 that “change does not happen overnight, and it will not continue without effort.”

She was assigned to oversee the public service last July.

About 80,000 people are in the Canadian Forces, Anand said, but the number is closer to 275,000 for the entire public service.

The problems of that larger group seem to have flown under the radar, Anand said.

“Maybe it’s the (sexual misconduct) cases, maybe that it’s more stark because of the hierarchy that is so evident in uniforms and badges in the Canadian Armed Forces, compared to the public service, where we’re not wearing uniforms,” she said.

“But the issues are palpable.”

A panel of experts the Treasury Board tapped to help with workplace culture has recommended major changes, including instituting mandatory racism, discrimination and harassment training.

The panel also said employees must have mental-health counselling supports, and managers need to be trained in trauma-informed leadership.

As she reviews the recommendations, Anand said she will develop a path forward, with an action plan ready to go before the summer.

It won’t leave the centre of her desk, she said.

“This is not something that I have to worry about whether I will remember,” Anand said.

“It is as a function of who I am.”

Source: Anita Anand first aimed to transform Canada’s military culture. The public service is next

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Visible minorities have difficulty accessing the labour market

2024/04/29 Leave a comment

While some interesting comparisons between Quebec and the rest of Canada, some of the methodology is odd. Why pick the 15-24 cohort given than many are in college or university rather than the 25-34 cohort which I and others use to avoid that issue.

While the general contrast between visible minorities and not visible minorities is valid, it ignores some of the equally significant differences between visible minority groups.

Still interesting to note the persistence of gaps between Quebec and Canada:

…More and more newcomers to the job market will be members of a visible minority. The case of young Canadian-born visible minorities merits special attention, with the goal of preventing their socioeconomic exclusion and the potential consequences for social cohesion.

In a context where Quebec and the rest of Canada rely on immigration to address the labour shortage, logic would dictate that we first realize the full potential of those already present. The integration into the workforce of Canadian-born individuals from ethnocultural minority groups, particularly the young, must be among the priorities of policymakers so as to avoid a situation where integration difficulties are passed on from one generation to the next. Failing this, a growing share of the population risks being marginalized.

Governments, the business community and all relevant stakeholders must work together on this in order to permanently eliminate the barriers hindering the economic integration of these young individuals and preventing them from fully contributing to the progress of society.

Source: Visible minorities have difficulty accessing the labour market

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StatsCan: Employment by choice and necessity among Canadian-born and immigrant seniors

2024/04/29 Leave a comment

Noteworthy difference between immigrant and non-immigrant seniors as well as among different visible minority groups:

As Canada’s population gets older and life expectancy keeps increasing, Canadian-born and immigrant seniors may alleviate downward pressures on the overall employment rate through their involvement in the labour market. 

Many seniors work past their mid-60s for various reasons. Some find it necessary to keep working because of inadequate retirement savings, mortgage payments, unforeseen expenses, or the responsibility to support children and other family members in Canada or abroad. Others choose to work to provide a sense of personal fulfillment, stay active and remain engaged. 

Working by choice rather than necessity may have important implications for the well-being of seniors. Furthermore, data on employment by choice and necessity may help employers and policy makers understand the factors that influence seniors’ retirement decisions.

To shed light on this issue, this article uses data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and examines the degree to which Canadian-born and immigrant seniors aged 65 to 74 worked by choice or necessity in 2022.Note 

One in five seniors aged 65 to 74 worked in 2022—almost half of them by necessity

Of all Canadian-born and immigrant seniors aged 65 to 74, 21% were employed in 2022. Nine percent reported working by necessity and 12% reported working by choice. Those working by necessity represented 351,000 individuals that year.Note 

Immigrant seniors were more likely than their Canadian-born counterparts to work by necessity in 2022. Of all immigrant men aged 65 to 74, 15% reported working by necessity in 2022 (Table 1). The corresponding percentage was 9% for Canadian-born men.Note  Immigrant women (9%) were also more likely than Canadian-born women (6%) to report working by necessity.

….The degree to which immigrants worked by necessity in 2022 varied across population groups. About 20% of Black, Filipino or South Asian immigrant men reported working by necessity that year, compared with 8% of Chinese immigrant men and 12% of White immigrant men. Black immigrant women (12%) and Filipino immigrant women (13%) were also more likely than Chinese immigrant women (6%) to report working by necessity…

Source: Employment by choice and necessity among Canadian-born and immigrant seniors

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