FREEDOM FIGHTERS OF A NEW ERA
In the category of the deeply satisfying/highly amusing, there surely can be nothing better than watching a group of students, many of them white, furiously chanting “F--k white supremacy! F--k white supremacy!”
Presumably, they not only checked their privilege but also, flushed with settler guilt, paid extra at the counter to do it.
This was part of the infantile exercise a motley crew of protesters indulged in Monday night at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., where the University of Toronto psychology professor and now best-selling author Dr. Jordan Peterson was giving a lecture.
While Peterson spoke to a near-capacity crowd (an estimated 820 people, according to the university) inside the storied old Grant Hall, a group a fifth the size (an estimated 150) outside it banged on garbage bins, screamed, spun noisemaker whirligigs, blew whistles and chanted obscenities.
One of them, a 38-year-old woman who is not a Queen’s student and who was identified Wednesday by the Kingston Whig-Standard as Allison York, got so carried away pounding on a stainedglass window, she broke it.
She was later arrested, whereupon she allegedly threw a fit in the squad car, bit an officer and had to be carried to her cell.
Police searched her backpack and found a garrote, a metal wire with handles, a sole-purpose instrument designed for strangling.
As an acquaintance remarked, reading a Kingston area headline Tuesday that said mildly, “Protester breaks window at Queen’s University, resists arrest,” “Assassination attempt” might be more like it.
York appeared briefly in Kingston bail court Wednesday, was released, and is due back in court March 22, according to the Whig-Standard.
She is a modern-day freedom fighter, by which I mean she was fighting against freedom (of speech, of expression) and for censorship and the shutting down of debate.
Protest organizers were quick to educate Elliot Ferguson, the Whig reporter, about the historic injustices York had been battling.
“Let us keep in mind that they broke a window of a huge, profoundly wealthy university that is situated on unceded land,” organizer Claire Constance told Ferguson Wednesday.
Then, having cut her hand breaking said window, Constance said, “Injured, scared, knowing how hard the law comes down on Indigenous people when it comes to protecting the property of settlers, they ran.”
(It is unclear from the interview whether Constance, by persistently using “they,” was attempting not to prejudice the case against York, or if York’s preferred pronoun is they.)
Protesters, after all, weren’t trying to disagree with Peterson or his controversial ideas, which ought to be barely controversial.
He rocketed to public attention over his stance on Bill C-16 (which two years ago added gender identity and expression as protected grounds in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code) and his disagreement with the notion that those who choose to identify as whatever must then be addressed by their pronoun of choice.
(In other words, if I, as a short, old, straight, white woman demand to be called “they” or “him” or “the king of England,” I must be ac- commodated.)
Further, and undoubtedly of great interest to the law school, Peterson was speaking about “compelled speech,” which none other than the Law Society of Ontario (formerly of Upper Canada) is forcing its members to adopt by demanding they create a mandatory “statement of principles” in which they acknowledge their obligation to promote “equality, diversity and inclusion.”
Peterson obviously touched a real nerve in the body public because his popularity has soared ever since.
His book, 12 Rules for Living: An Antidote to Chaos, is atop best-seller lists around the world. He now has about 20 different email addresses (divided by category) just to handle the volume, and he has become famous and, inshallah, rich beyond belief.
He was at Queen’s at the invitation of its law school to give the inaugural Liberty Lecture, a new series supported by alumnus and veteran Toronto lawyer Greg Piasetzki.
As soon as the lecture was announced, people lost their minds, demanding it be cancelled.
But though some professors, students and others signed a letter against Peterson even setting foot on campus, the law school dean, Bill Flanagan, and the Queen’s principal, Daniel Wolff, stood solidly behind the lecture and the law professor, Bruce Pardy, who organized it.
As Wolff said in his blog, uncharacteristically blunt for an academic: “Let’s be clear here: what is at issue is nothing less than our commitment to academic freedom. If the views expressed, however uncomfortable for some, are not a violation of Canadian law, related university policies or otherwise demonstrate an intention or effect of inciting hatred and violence, then as academics we should listen and present opposing ideas through informed and respectful dialogue.”
Thank heavens, the university’s Levana Gender Advocacy Centre and the Education on Queer Issues Project were quick to offer their own “chill-in” in response. “There will be colouring pages, music, food and discussion,” its statement said. “People are free to come and talk/vent, eat, colour or even just sit and do work.”
That division seems just about right: Adults in the Great Hall, precious at the colouring tables and the new freedom fighters outside.