Nadeau: L’insulte fasciste

Of note:

Le mot « fasciste » est de retour sur toutes les lèvres. Pour parler du monde dans lequel nous vivons désormais, convient-il encore ? Nombreux sont ceux qui, de plus en plus, voient dans la situation présente des correspondances avec les crises successives qui plombèrent les années 1930. Est-il anachronique de penser qu’un passé peut revenir nous hanter sous une forme recomposée ?

Au fil du temps, l’étiquette « fasciste » s’est décollée de la bouteille où on a mélangé trop de réalités politiques différentes. Aujourd’hui, ceux qui sont les plus susceptibles de faire sortir les mauvais génies de cette bouteille en refusent l’étiquette. Ils la savent infamante, c’est-à-dire de nature à les déconsidérer en société.

Il serait naïf de croire que le fascisme est mort avec Hitler dans un bunker ou au crochet de boucherie où fut pendu le corps de Mussolini. La guerre n’était pas terminée que bien des adorateurs des droites radicales — lesquels n’avaient pas toujours le Duce et le Führer comme modèles — cherchaient déjà à la faire regermer, plantant ses vieilles idées délétères en de nouveaux terreaux.

George Orwell prévenait que le fascisme reviendrait sur la place publique en portant un chapeau melon et un parapluie roulé sous le bras, selon l’image de l’homme respectable en son temps. Au Canada, le leader fasciste Adrien Arcand lui donnait en quelque sorte raison. Les crânes rasés, les uniformes et les démonstrations de force appartenaient au passé, disait Arcand après-guerre. L’avenir de l’extrême droite dépendait désormais de sa capacité à se parer des apparences de la respectabilité, prévenait-il. À cette fin, il fallait la présenter cravatée, puis trouver à investir les médias pour se faire valoir ainsi endimanché.

Le ridicule et la naïveté des antifascistes, clamait Pier Paolo Pasolini, étaient de continuer de traquer l’extrême droite dans ses formes anciennes. Le fascisme avait muté à mesure que la société de consommation prenait de l’expansion, plaidait-il à raison.

Comme le ridicule ne tue pas plus d’un côté ou de l’autre du spectre politique, les esprits de droite les plus radicaux exigent aujourd’hui d’être exonérés de l’étiquette de fasciste, sous prétexte qu’ils ont changé de costume. Ils ne précisent pas qu’ils ont bel et bien conservé, au creux de leurs poches et dans la doublure de leur veste, un même fond d’idées.

La Hongrie d’Orban, habituée de piétiner les droits démocratiques, est enthousiaste au possible devant les avancées de Georgia Meloni, la nouvelle tête de la droite radicale italienne au passé fasciste avoué. Vincenzo Sofo, une des figures fortes de Fratelli d’Italia, le parti de Meloni, est le mari de Marion Maréchal, l’égérie de l’extrême droite française, par ailleurs petite-fille du fondateur du Front national. Sa tante, Marine Le Pen, a multiplié par le passé les révérences de son parti, le Rassemblement national, envers le régime autoritaire de Poutine. En Suède, contre toute attente, l’extrême droite a refait son nid. Au Brésil de Bolsonaro, la dictature des militaires et ses bourreaux sont célébrés. Tout ce beau monde s’est montré ravi des pirouettes antidémocratiques proposées par Trump. Ces mouvements se portent assistance mutuelle, dans une sorte de fraternité d’idées qui n’a nul besoin d’organisations dûment constituées pour être constatée.

Les néofascistes se présentent comme des anticonformistes valeureux bravant les élites. Dans les faits, ils défendent encore et toujours la même vieille hiérarchie sociale. Les inégalités, ils les tiennent pour naturelles, tel un simple reflet du mérite individuel. Dans leur univers brutal et darwinien, où la loi du plus fort règne, chacun est livré à la merci de ses propres malheurs. Et tous sont vendus à l’illusion qu’il faut se battre les uns contre les autres pour survivre.

Ces régimes d’idées qui veulent en finir, une fois pour toutes, avec les modèles de la social-démocratie, favorisent une fiscalité à l’avantage des puissants, en prenant pour bouc émissaire les immigrants. Devant le paravent d’un nationalisme doctrinaire, l’obsession de l’immigration est ramenée à l’avant, comme aux heures les plus sombres des années 1930. La menace fabulée d’un « grand remplacement » habille désormais le vieux mannequin de la xénophobie la plus obscène, comme pour détourner l’attention du catastrophique démantèlement progressif des services publics et de menaces planétaires autrement plus profondes.

Les ayatollahs du nationalisme identitaire ont sans cesse à la bouche les mots « culture » et « civilisation ». Jamais pour autant on ne les entend parler plus de cinq secondes de littérature, de théâtre, de danse, de cinéma, de patrimoine, ni du fait d’ailleurs que l’écrasante majorité des artisans de ces sphères sont opposés à leurs pensées carrées. Jamais on ne les entend rappeler que cette civilisation, certes chrétienne, occidentale et aristocratique, a été aussi cosmopolite, qu’elle a produit la pensée critique, que son histoire a été traversée de puissants appels à l’égalité, la justice, la démocratie, l’humanisme, la tolérance. Ce versant les laisse indifférents.

Au nom d’un ressentiment populaire contre les élites qui pillent allègrement la terre, les néofascistes séduisent. Ils jouent pourtant double jeu. D’une main, ils flattent la chèvre au cou tandis que, de l’autre, ils arrosent le chou. Leur rébellion de surface, qui souffle sur les braises d’une grogne générale, ne remet jamais en cause le système économique et sert l’autorité de ceux qui en sont déjà les maîtres.

Les néofascistes s’assurent de prendre le relais de l’ordre établi, en promettant de le pousser plus loin. En se laissant de la sorte porter au pouvoir, au gré de la peur et du ressentiment, ils entendent parvenir à piloter à leur tour un système néolibéral déjà hégémonique, lui offrant tout au plus un supplément d’âme avec ses appels opportunistes à la nation, seule forme de fraternité qui les émeut. Et à vouloir mieux foncer sur cette vieille voie, ils nous conduisent tout droit à un renouveau du pire.

Source: L’insulte fasciste

US funds for Canada protests may sway American politics too

Should it be a surprise that Canadians are being used as props for the US right?

The Canadians who have disrupted travel and trade with the U.S. and occupied downtown Ottawa for nearly three weeks have been cheered and funded by American right-wing activists and conservative politicians who also oppose vaccine mandates and the country’s liberal leader.

Yet whatever impact the protests have on Canadian society, and the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, experts say the outside support is really aimed at energizing conservative politics in the U.S. Midterm elections are looming, and some Republicans think standing with the protesters up north will galvanize fund-raising and voter turnout at home, these experts say.

“The kind of narratives that the truckers and the trucker convoy are focusing on are going to be really important issues for the (U.S.) elections coming ahead,” said Samantha Bradshaw, a postdoctoral fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University. “And so using this protest as an opportunity to galvanize their own supporters and other groups, I think it’s very much an opportunity for them.”

By Wednesday afternoon, all previously blocked border crossings had been re-opened, and police began focusing on pressuring the truckers and other protesters in Ottawa to clear out of the capital city or face arrest, fines and confiscation of their vehicles. 

About 44 percent of the nearly $10 million in contributions to support the protesters originated from U.S. donors, according to an Associated Press analysis of leaked donor files. U.S. Republican elected officials, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have praised the protesters calling them “heroes” and “patriots.”

“What this country is facing is a largely foreign-funded, targeted and coordinated attack on critical infrastructure and our democratic institutions,” Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, said earlier this week. 

Demonstrators in Ottawa have had been regularly supplied with fuel and food, and the area around Parliament Hill has at times resembled a spectacular carnival with bouncy castles, gyms, a playground and a concert stage with DJs. 

GiveSendGo, a website used to collect donations for the Canadian protests, has collected at least $9.58 million dollars, including $4.2 million, or 44%, that originated in the United States, according to a database of donor information posted online by DDoSecrets, a non-profit group.

The Canadian government has been working to block protesters’ access to these funds, however, and it is not clear how much of the money has ultimately gotten through.

Millions of dollars raised through another crowdfunding site, GoFundMe, were blocked after Canadian officials raised objections with the company, which determined that the effort violated its terms of service around unlawful activity.

The GiveSendGo database analyzed by AP showed a tally of more than 109,000 donations through Friday night to campaigns in support of the protests, with a little under 62,000 coming from the U.S. 

The GiveSendGo data listed several Americans as giving thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to the protest, with the largest single donation of $90,000 coming from a person who identified himself as Thomas M. Siebel.

Siebel, the billionaire founder of software company Siebel Systems, did not respond to messages sent to an email associated with a foundation he runs and to his LinkedIn account.

A representative from the Siebel Scholars Foundation, who signed her name only as Jennifer, did not respond to questions about whether he had donated the money. But she said Siebel has a record of supporting several causes, including efforts to “protect individual liberty.”

“These are personal initiatives and have nothing to do with the companies with which he is associated,” she wrote.

Siebel has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and organizations over the last 20 years, according to Federal Election Commission records, including a $400,000 contribution in 2019 to a GOP fundraising committee called “Take Back the House 2020.”

The GiveSendGo Freedom Convoy campaign was created on Jan. 27 by Tamara Lich. She previously belonged to the far-right Maverick Party, which calls for western Canada to become independent.

The Canadian government moved earlier this week to cut off funding for the protesters by broadening the scope of the country’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules to cover crowdfunding platforms like GiveSendGo. 

“We are making these changes because we know that these platforms are being used to support illegal blockades and illegal activity, which is damaging the Canadian economy,” said Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Perhaps more important than the financial support is the cheerleading the Canadian protesters have received from prominent American conservative politicians and pundits, who see kindred spirits in their northern neighbors opposing vaccine mandates.

On the same day Lich created the GiveSendGo campaign, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn shared a video of the convoy in a post on the messaging app Telegram.

“These truckers are fighting back against the nonsense and tyranny, especially coming from the Canadian government,” wrote Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who served briefly as former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

A few days later, Flynn urged people to donate to the Canadian protesters. Earlier this week, he twice posted the message “#TrudeauTheCoward” on Telegram, referring to the prime minister who leads Canada’s Liberal Party.

Fox News hosts regularly laud the protests, and Trump weighed in with a broadside at Trudeau, calling him a “far left lunatic” who has “destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates.” Cruz called the truckers “heroes” and “patriots,” and Greene said she cannot wait to see a convoy protest in Washington.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he hopes truckers come to America and “clog up cities” in an interview last week with the Daily Signal, a news website of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Far-right and anti-vaccine activists, inspired by the Canadian actions, are now planning American versions of the protests against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions modeled on the Canadian demonstrations.

Source: US funds for Canada protests may sway American politics too

Far right ‘infiltrating children’s charities with anti-Islam agenda’

As we have seen with the gilets jaunes, rightwing groups take advantage of opportunities to advance their messages and undermine some of the original motives of protesters or those concerned:

Rightwing groups including Ukip are attempting to “infiltrate” child protection charities to further an anti-Islam agenda, officials from the government’s counter-extremism programme believe.

Officers from Prevent said far-right figures were using voluntary groups to stir up tension in towns with historical problems of child sexual exploitation.

In Rochdale, a community group for child sexual abuse survivors, Shatter Boys, said it had been approached repeatedly by senior Ukip figures including Lord Pearson, who offered to introduce them to millionaire donors and fund an open-top bus to raise the alarm about grooming gangs.

Daniel Wolstencroft, the founder of Shatter Boys, said: “What they’re doing basically is grooming survivor groups and survivors of abuse. I think their fight is about Islam.”

Wolstencroft, who is an adviser to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, said Ukip in particular had attempted to “jump on the child abuse bandwagon” to further its own anti-Islam agenda.

Pearson’s offer of funding, made during a private lunch at the House of Lords, followed months of courting by the Ukip families spokesman, Alan Craig, who last year said Muslim grooming gangs had committed a “Holocaust of our children”.

Craig, who said paedophilia could be traced back “to Muhammad himself”, approached the Rochdale-based group on social media before attending one of its street patrols with a leading member of the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA).

The Ukip leader, Gerard Batten, spoke at a rally in Rochdale organised by the DFLA last April. The DFLA has described the Greater Manchester town as being on its “hit list” for anti-grooming demonstrations.

The issue of child sexual exploitation by men of Pakistani heritage has become a key focus of Ukip under the leadership of Batten, who triggered a wave of senior resignations when he appointed the anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson as an adviser on grooming gangs.

How Ukip normalised far-right politics – video explainer

Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service’s former lead on child sexual abuse, said established charities were being “infiltrated by the far right who wish them to pursue a different agenda”.

Figures linked to the far right have also launched or promoted their own anti-grooming campaign groups in the past year, the Guardian has learned.

One of Robinson’s allies, Shazia Hobbs, launched an anti-grooming helpline at an event hosted by Pearson in parliament in December, which was attended by the For Britain leader, Anne Marie Waters.

Pearson was quoted after the event as saying: “If you touch this case, you immediately become an Islamophobe. Islam lies at the heart of this problem and most of this is a problem within Islam. We need to start talking about this openly.” Pearson and Ukip have not responded to requests for comment.

Another group, the National Anti Grooming Alliance & Helpline (NAGAH), was jointly set up by a member of the DFLA, John Clynch, last year after reports of a mass grooming gang in Telford, Shropshire.

Afzal, who prosecuted grooming gangs in Rochdale in 2012, described the NAGAH as “an alleged far-right front” that had been “created by the extreme right to further their own agenda”.

The NAGAH has attracted moral and financial support from Daniel Thomas, a close ally of Robinson, who is trying to raise £150,000 for the group with a charity boxing event.

The NAGAH’s co-founder Anthony Wood has described “Pakistani rape gangs” as “probably the biggest crime in this country’s history”.

Contacted by the Guardian, Wood said Clynch no longer worked for the NAGAH and that he had left the DFLA. Clynch has not returned a request for comment.

Wood said: “We are not far right at all, we are a community group … We have helped historic survivors, online cases, male survivors. It does not just focus on one area and we have stated this since day one.”

Thomas, who organises Robinson’s rallies, said there was “not a racist bone in the bodies” of those involved in the NAGAH and accused the media of “attempting to destroy a working class charity”.

Frontline Prevent workers said the issue of far-right groups infiltrating charities was “increasingly a concern” that had been raised with intervention providers across England.

Abdul Ahad, a Prevent officer in north-east England, said rightwing groups were using the grooming gangs issue to “appeal to people’s emotions”.

“It is a tactic they are trying to pursue. They can build up the relationship and trust and slowly but surely sink their claws in and then they’ve got them hook, line and sinker,” he said. “They then start spewing their [far-right] narrative before you know it. I know some charities have refused to have anything to do with the far right but it will be done very covertly and subtly.”

The number of people referred to Prevent over concerns about far-right activity rose by more than a third in the year to March 2018, accounting for nearly one in five of all cases.

Source: Far right ‘infiltrating children’s charities with anti-Islam agenda’

How we can build resilience against hatred in Canada

Good thoughtful advice (if Vancouver was the positive example of challenging hatred, Quebec city was the negative one given the violence of left-wing activists):

Some of Canada’s most urban centres were flooded with protesters Saturday and Sunday, from what President Trump would describe as “both sides” – those who were promoting racist, anti-immigration sentiment, and those who were opposing such hateful and intolerant rhetoric.

In Vancouver, for example, thousands of anti-racism supporters showed up Saturday to counter a rally that was planned by anti-immigrant demonstrators, essentially thwarting all efforts that were made by those who were promoting intolerance.

Protests were spawned from the disturbing events that unfolded in Charlottesville, Va. the previous weekend, where a so-called Unite the Right rally quickly turned violent when white-power demonstrators clashed with counter-demonstrators. Dozens of protesters were injured, and three people died, including 32-year-old Heather Heyer, when a vehicle was intentionally driven into a group of anti-racist counter-demonstrators.

Canadians watched in dismay as the hate-inspired violence unfolded south of the border, perhaps naïve to assume that such divisive ideologies do not – and cannot – exist in our multicultural nation. The truth of the matter is that Canada is not immune to violence inspired by bigotry and hatred.

In 2015, Professor Barbara Perry and I conducted a three-year study for Public Safety Canada on the state of the right-wing extremist movement in Canada, interviewing law-enforcement officials, community activists, and current and former right-wing extremists across the country, paired with open-source intelligence. Results from our research was shocking to many Canadians.

In short, we found that Canada’s right-wing extremist movement was alive and well: we identified over 100 active groups and well over 100 incidents of right-wing extremist violence over the last 30 years in the country. We also uncovered that the threat of the extreme right had been overlooked and even trivialized by a number of key stakeholders, thus hindering their ability to effectively respond to the radical right in Canada.

In turn, we proposed evidence-based strategies that we saw as effective in responding to right-wing extremism in Canada, suggesting that a multi-sectoral approach was needed to address hate and ensure that extremists have minimal impact on communities. This included the integration and utilization of an array of experts, such as police officers, policy makers, victim service providers, community organizations and the media.

In the two years since our Public Safety report was released, I’ve been watching very closely as hate-inspired events have unfolded across Canada and how key stakeholders have responded to such events. I’ve noticed that some of our key recommendations are being put to practice – the counter-demonstration in Vancouver is but one example. This is an encouraging sign.

We are seeing community groups ban together to spread messages of tolerance, and local, provincial and federal politicians are taking a public stance against hatred, making it clear that such sentiment does not represent Canadian beliefs and will not be tolerated. Reporters and journalists have also dedicated an increasing amount of time and energy to shed light on right-wing extremism in Canada, highlighting its complexities and prevalence. Stakeholders are now including their voices in the discussions about how we can build resiliency against hatred, which starts by raising awareness of the problem and mobilizing the public.

Some, though, are calling for the outright filtering of those who subscribe to extreme-right beliefs. Do not let them have an outlet for their negative views, the argument goes. This would mean not allowing them to hold a rally or have a website. This approach is counteractive, and perhaps irresponsible. This is a Band-aid solution – the views will still be there, and will only get stronger, solidifying radical right-wing ideologies. Right-wing extremists generally believe that the mainstream media and the broader public are systematically attempting to suppress their radical views, so prohibiting them from expressing their views will further reinforce their hateful beliefs.

We must not stay home when hatemongers are protesting in the streets. Adherents should never be able to promote hatred. At the same time, we cannot assume that silencing them is the solution.

Instead, Canadians must continue to attend their demonstrations, challenge ideas and not people specifically, and in a peaceful manner – like we saw in Vancouver this past weekend. Stand up against racism, xenophobia and bigotry by challenging adherents’ views, but do not engage with them. Most are easy to provoke, and most want to be provoked. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

Source: How we can build resilience against hatred in Canada – The Globe and Mail