Who dares...?
The pillory may await anyone daring to draw even a tangential parallel between one of the ugliest hate riots in some time and recent events in Halifax. Then again, the aberration may warrant the stocks.
Perhaps the pillory awaits for daring to draw even a tangential parallel between one of the ugliest hate riots in some time and recent events in Halifax. (Or, the aberration may warrant the stocks.) Either way, here goes.
White supremacists, Klansmen and all manner of troglodytic allwrongs descended on the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend. They were met by Americans who believe their nation stands for something better.
Fights ensued, a state of emergency was declared, a redneck car was driven into a crowd of nonfascists, a woman died, others were injured and two police officers were killed when their helicopter crashed. Nothing like this level of violent, racist extremism happens here. This is Canada, after all.
America’s divisions are roiling, perilous rivers. Canada is a placid, becalmed lake. But the real character of a place lies beneath the surface.
The cowardly lions who stormed the streets of the Virginia town that would have the world know it as a progressive idyll are enraged that its civic council voted to rename parks and remove statues of Confederate Civil War generals. Robert E. Lee’s park is now Emancipation Park. Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson’s became Justice Park. But their statues’ removal is stalled by legal action — God bless America.
Meanwhile in Halifax, Cornwallis Park remains, as does the statue of colonial founder, Edward Cornwallis. First Nations want the statue gone, given Cornwallis’ brutality against the Mi’kmaq.
Being good Canadians, Halifax Regional Council has a “process” in place to determine the future of the statue and park.
Unlike Americans, Canadians don’t make decisions and then rush off to court to defend or oppose them. Our leaders establish panels, study issues and make recommendations. Calmly. Collectively. Civilly. Slowly.
The emotions on either side of the border, however, are more alike than the political responses.
Confederate symbols are offensive to Americans, particularly African-Americans, as the confederacy was the bastion of slavery.
Canadian monuments to colonists who practised war against the people already here are equally offensive to those First Nations.
Mi’kmaq attempts to have the Cornwallis statue removed have met opposition, but only occasional displays of overt racism. There was the arrival of five or so oddly named “Proud Boys” at a recent Cornwallis protest, and some typically anonymous altright garbage online.
But for the most part Canadian racism is muted, disguised and less outwardly violent than its American cousin. As in all things, Americans are louder and — this may cause the “Boys” discomfort — “Prouder.”
Halifax and Charlottesville are different, too. Right?
An article posted on the weekend by The Atlantic magazine could have been drawn from Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce literature. “Charlottesville is, like many university towns, a progressive enclave. Its commercial areas are studded with juice bars and coffee shops and boutiques with whimsical names like The Impeccable Pig.”
Switch out the place names and that could be Nova Scotia tourism copy, although Halifax gets a more cosmopolitan flavour.
Others have a different view of Charlottesville, just as not everyone shares Halifax’s bounty or boosterism.
Charlottesville clergyman Seth Wispelwey said Saturday white supremacy is woven into the southern town’s DNA. “There’s a lot of unreconciled history that has gone unchallenged.”
Here, a recent column which acknowledged the historical fact of subjugation and ongoing discrimination against First Nations people in Canada drew outraged disputation and claims that “they” are somehow abusing the hospitality of Canadians. Seems we have a little history to reconcile ourselves.
Two Charlottesville residents pointed to the town’s gentrification as a reason why many lowincome African-Americans feel shunned by their own city.
In Halifax nice, new north end condos are available for about half a million. Affordable housing was replaced by a car sales lot.
An organizer of the weekend “Unite the Right” rally is a Charlottesville resident, and the guy “credited” with proudly coining the term “alt-right” went to the University of Virginia. That’s homegrown hate.
In Nova Scotia, self-described “national socialists” posted personal information and labelled “potentially dangerous” people who advocated or showed sympathy for the removal of the Cornwallis statue.
“We have to talk to each other, but we also have to work to address the real problems that exist in the foundations of our community.” This from an AfricanAmerican Charlottesville woman.
It can’t be said better, there or here.
Jim Vibert grew up in truro and is a nova Scotian journalist, writer and former political and communications consultant to governments of all stripes.