Countering hate culture with civil discourse

Our Alberta project tries to open minds

One month into the semester, undergraduate and graduate students taking John McCoy’s Modern Terrorism course at the University of Alberta received a learning opportunity in their own backyard.

The class is participating in the Peer-to-Peer Facebook Global Digital Challenge program, countering hateful or extremist responses to local issues.

McCoy said their campaign aims to tone down hyper-partisan rhetoric, and instead speak to people individually in a calm, positive, factual manner in hopes of changing hearts and minds.

After the Edmonton attacks on Sept. 30, the class decided to focus their campaign, “Our Alberta,” as a response to the anti-refugee and anti-Muslim sentiments that have appeared in its wake.

“There are a number of social movements who are very opposed to the presence of refugees, especially Muslim refugees, especially Somali refugees in Canada and the identity of this individual was going to be a bit of an ‘I told you so’ moment for those movements,” McCoy said.

McCoy said, since Sept. 11, 2001, you could count the terrorist attacks committed by refugees in North America on one hand, with more than one million refugees coming into Canada and the U.S. in that time.

While the attacks are being investigated as acts of terrorism, no terrorism charges have been laid.

In the week since McCoy’s class created the Our Alberta Facebook group, there has been a flood of reaction — both positive and negative.

He thinks by engaging in a positive manner with people who are not fully committed to an extremist ideology, they can start a conversation and get people to think about a civil conversation on all sides.

“We shouldn’t be out there policing people’s thoughts,” McCoy said. “People are free to think whatever they want as long as it doesn’t stray into hate crimes and violence. That’s ultimately what we’re concerned with.”

An attack perpetrated by a Muslim can cause alt-right extremists to see it as proof of their beliefs, which can, in turn, lead to the isolation of people in Muslim communities, extremist poles fuelling a cycle.

“You don’t reach them by saying, ‘You’re wrong,’ or ‘You’re stupid,’ or ‘You’re ignorant’ or ‘You’re prejudiced,’” McCoy said. “Unfortunately, with a lot of this counter-right stuff, that’s the way it’s been constructed. It’s a very confrontational tone. That’s not where you’re going to get any sort of traction.”

Instead, getting to people who think in terms of black and white, good and evil, is about introducing plausible grey areas.

In a campaign video, they illustrate the point with footage of Syrian refugees who helped with fundraising efforts for evacuees fleeing the Fort McMurray wildfires. The class drew parallels between those fleeing fires and those fleeing war.

Following the Sept. 30 attacks, a rally held in Churchill Square in which Muslims stood shoulder to shoulder with police officers was an example.

“The goal of terrorism is to divide us, to create fear,” he said. “That unifying image is very powerful.”

People are free to think whatever they want as long as it doesn’t stray into hate crimes and violence.