Canadians must always speak up against hate
Acloud of hate seems to be wafting around the world, descending in different places almost daily. It manifests in many ways, all of them bad – attacks on Muslims, the toppling of Jewish gravestones, bomb threats, swastikas and nasty slogans scrawled on schools and places of worship.
It’s all too frequent and pervasive. Last week, two Toronto men say they were sprayed with urine at St. Lawrence Market while they were handing out copies of the Quran and books on Islam. Earlier, residents at a North York condo found notes saying “no Jews” on their doors and their Mezuzahs, which bear scripture and are hung on door frames, were vandalized.
These incidents echo other frightening occurrences elsewhere: the desecration of Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia, threats to Jewish Community Centres and mosques, and the shooting of two immigrants of Indian descent in Kansas.
Hardly a day goes by without a report of some new hate-based outrage, sometimes horribly violent, in other cases simply behaviour that just a short time ago seemed so socially unacceptable that it was rare even to hear about it.
Some point to the election of Donald Trump to explain this troubling increase in public hate, but the roots of the problem are much deeper. It’s a scourge that requires vigilance everywhere, including Canada.
Trump was slow to denounce support from such groups as the Ku Klux Klan and he was reluctant to forthrightly condemn anti-Semitism, though he did so last week during his speech to Congress. Through his attacks on Mexicans and illegal immigration, the president has also dog-whistled that it’s within bounds to consider millions of people as potential “gang members, drug dealers and criminals.”
Ultimately, it’s up to Americans, not us, to decide how to respond to loose talk that might send ugly signals and lead to violence there.
What, then, should Canadians do? First, we should recognize that escalating xenophobia and a related rise in hate incidents is a worldwide problem.
Incidents have occurred in Britain, France, eastern Europe, Australia and Canada. It’s a problem we share with many others. Let’s not be glib; let’s be aware.
Second, we should recognize that words do matter. What we say – and what we neglect to say – about tolerance can connect directly to how people behave. So far, Canadians seem to understand the danger of being inherently suspicious of people just because of the way they look or how they pray. Being tolerant, not answering a quiz by a government official, is the real test of Canadian values. In that vein, it’s important to speak out. Canadians benefit greatly from a free, welcoming society that does its best to accommodate newcomers. We should never take that for granted, and we should remind ourselves to do the daily work that’s needed to keep it this way.