Shocking pro-Hamas, anti-Israel rallies lay bare the limits of Canadian pluralism

To read that two groups have received more than $1.34M in funding from the Federal Government is concerning. They’re not alone, no doubt, with many others across the country submitting grant applications to Ottawa for some particular cause.

By all means, have your say and do your own thing in our pluralistic society. Just say and do it on your own dime – not mine.

There can be no equivocation! This obscenity in our public spaces calls for government condemnation!

Why would you be shocked? This is certainly not the first time that the slaughter of innocent victims has been celebrated in this country. The Air India bombing comes to mind.

Indeed Sean! Acceptance of abhorrent expression of ideas, opinions, and preferences is a Canadian strength but should not extend to public funding, nor provide shelter from broader condemnation and social consequences.

Alas, this seven-decades-plus ongoing conflict is a tragic status quo that too many of the regional power players benefit from despite overwhelming support of regular citizens of all players on a peaceful solution. When this status quo of simmering violence and war is threatened, it takes very little to blow it up yet again. This heinous terrorist act ensures that any faint hope for an eventual peace is dashed once again.

There is a huge difference between pluralism and multiculturalism. No country can survive multiculturalism for a prolonged period

Nothing useful to add to your fine essay. It mirrors my own thoughts. Congratulations.

Its not “how Canadian you are” but “who you are as a Canadian”. This statement puts the individual ahead of society. PLurality may be a great vote getter, but it will eventually fracture our society. I will support true plurality when the Pro-life protesters (frequently jailed), are treated the same as these terrorist supporters. Throw the Hamas supporters in jail for promoting hate speech.

Thank you for your essay, I have again been centred amongst these horrible and spirit breaking events.
Regards
Guy

Why the double standards?
If you listen to Sikh activists in Canada they will say that their demands for their own separate state are legitimate and we allow them to conspire and agitate inside Canada, shredding our our reputation for impartiality. Why do we allow sword-wielding protestors to hijack the news cycle and sabotage International relations. The NDP leader was, if I am not mistaken, a member of an International organization, since deemed a terrorist organization. One man’s freedom-fighter is another’s terrorist….
Palestinians have for generations been literally imprisoned in a ghetto, receiving only the most basic services, killed at will by settlers that force them off the land from which they have eked a precarious living. What hope
does a young Palestinian have without violently throwing off those shackles? Negotiation got them nowhere, let’s agree…..
We must now watch the predictable agony of another city crammed with defenceless non-combatants, being levelled. The Israelis do not even pretend to lie, unlike Russians, stating that their lack of discrimination when it comes to targeting is simply a biblical retribution. Somehow we are convinced by our political elite that this is acceptable.
Lets not pretend that all views are valid in modern Canada,… that’s just our wallpaper. If the Palestinian diaspora in Canada was greater than that of Israelis, I think the tepid indignation spluttered by the PM might be tempered every once in a while by a glance at the polls…..
Israel and the Saudi’s have a common enemy in the Shia, and with the glaring Nexus to the regime in Tehran of both the Yemeni conflict and continued might of Hamas/Hezbollah, scattering the Palestinians to the wind will clearly upset nobody….least of all us comfortably dumb Canadians.

Are the rallies undeniably pro-Hamas or an effort to raise the profile for a Palestinian homeland? Many appear to be protesting the conditions in Gaza and the West Bank.

Canada has infact, anti terrorism laws. These Jew Haters are flagrantly touting the laws and should all be prosecuted!

I agree with the author. There is no equivalence between a recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people and the slaughter of innocent people by the nihilistic Hamas.

As a result of uncontrolled immigration, don’t see one legit Canadian in the crowd.

We are complicit in the grooming of these young Hamas terrorists. We give the U.N. Agency for Palestinian refugees loads of money for their children’s educational books. What they’re actually learning is “How To Kill A Jew With A Knife” and they use toy dolls to represent Israel/Jews. I watched videos of children learning how to fight and strangle Jews. I’m tired of all the virtue-signaling, self-absorbed liberals with white guilt.

Sad s many people are dead on both sides and people cheer no respect for human lives may Christ have mercy on their souls

Thanks for this timely article, Sean Speer. This violence, and the disparate reactions to it, are cause for trembling reflection. As were the dueling stories this year about Pride Month and reactions to it – both the intolerant Maoist attitude of a teacher in Calgary who brooked no dissent to the LGBTQ doctrines that were the order of the day, AND the deeply offensive and troubling sight of Muslim teens ripping down a Pride flag in London Ontario. Where is the middle in all this??? Is there one?

Let me throw up my pathway toward a better understanding (still travelling). Another way of framing the challenge of liberalism, is to say that liberalism is an empty vessel into which a society can place many diverse values, many cultures, many “personal projects” (to use Richard Rorty’s phrase), as long as nothing placed in the public vessel is corrosive of the vessel itself. As you suggest, there must be a base, common consensus; a political community must “constitute itself” ie., make its constitution, state what it is for, even if that positive statement is minimalistic. Indeed, some (the American founders) might say that less is better, because it is better to stick to those basics that literally EVERYONE can agree on. It follows that not all values can be accepted in the mix – those which tend to pose an existential risk to liberalism itself must be condemned, and ultimately, disavowed.

The state of our current discourse makes me worry that the challenge to preserve our liberal political culture might already be lost. Why? Why have the most illiberal reactions to the sickening violence of Hamas, come disproportionately from our institutions of higher learning?? And not the engineering or research sciences, mind you, for they have work to do. No, its the social sciences, humanities, and faculties of education from where the apologetics of terrorism find fertile soil in Canada. The “root cause”, I fear, is a pervasive post-modernism: that cocktail of ideas that seeks to dissolve assertions of truth in contested discourses about language, cast common human striving as irretrievably bounded by parochial perspective and closed identities, and challenges the very idea of a common citizenship, because it expresses a deep skepticism of common public projects per se. Rudyard was pulling on the thread of this question in his book ten years ago “Who We Are” which received too little attention.

Anyway, someone needs to follow the footnotes from our current cafe versions of post-modern nihilism, popular in our best post-secondary schools, back to their profoundly illiberal sources, more often than not, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Late 20th century intellectuals have a lot to answer for.

An intriguing starting point to interrogate this past is a startling debate, in writing, between Charles Taylor (the famous NDP prof from McGill, not the Liberian dictator) and Clifford Orwin, of UofT. See Taylor’s “The Politics of Recognition” in the text “Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition” and Clifford Orwin’s reply “Charles Taylor’s Pedagogy of Recognition” in the 90s text “Canadian Political Philosophy”. Sean will recall that he had a really edifying Hub Dialogue discussion with Francis Fukuyama (last year?) about the politics and psychology of recognition, and the challenge of illiberal identity politics which Fukuyama has taken up with some seriousness in the last few years. Anyway, the Taylor-Orwin debate sheds light on where we have come from, and thus, how we arrived in this dark place, where our cherished liberalism seems so threatened. My view: Taylor, well meaning, was wrong, but he won the conversation and debate in the universities, three decades ago. We are reaping the harvest today, as progressives from Wilfred Laurier to McMaster trip over themselves to celebrate the New Barbarism.

Great article and even read the comments. I was going to attend a walk by Palestinian group and I am not Palestinian. I was going to support the Palestinians trapped for 15 years in a getto somewhat like the ghettos some brown uniformed people placed the jews years ago. I will never agree with the Hamas attack, but I can under stand how frustrated and anger the people. When negotiating does work for 15 years something has to give. If we don’t learn from history,
Our Nobel PM said on TV if I showed up at the demonstration I was supporting hamas, defending terrorist, committing hate speak etc. etc. Heck he doesn’t even know me, just because I hold a view different than his, I am condemned.
a radical. Hmm sounds like the truckers convey.
My question is why the PM says he is totally against apartheid, against colonization and then totally supports Israel when they are openly practicing those behaviors against Palestinian s who are being held in Gasa. They are not there by choice. I also wonder why our PM says the Palestinians are killing Jews and that makes them
terrorists and dedicated to overthrowing Israel , but he is very quiet about Israeli dropped 2000 bombes in 24 hours on citizens who are trapped in Gaza with no were to hide and no help coming. If I was living in Gaza right now, and I had access to a weapon I would be fighting for my life, would that make me a terrorist or a citizen fighting for there life.

“Canada has essentially bet its future on pluralism”. I agree we are betting on immigration, but pluralism is what follows, and that is something quite different and that I’m not so sure about.

This is a terrible senseless tragedy that will only result in more deaths and destruction, and the continuation of the cycle of violence. The old adage that you reap what you sow rings true. A direct line can be drawn from Netanyahu’s policies to this unconscionable violence. Treat people like animals and they will lash out like animals.

Why would this shock me? Extremist Muslims from a number of majority Muslim mid eastern countries have been trying to destroy Israel since it’s inception. Yes there are many peaceful Muslims, but I read at one point that there is 15-25% who are radicalized. That is 300 million people who want to fight / terrorize / kill / destroy all non Muslims. This will not end until the peaceful Muslims say enough is enough. You don’t represent us. You will stop your unacceptable behaviour.

Police should be identifying these individuals and if they don’t have Canadian Citizenship they should be hauled off and thrown out of our country.
It’s bad enough we let those terrorists loving idiots into our country in the first place.

Sean I totally agree, very well written, now is the how to fence support for violence support.

Anyone who supports such animalistic, inhumane behaviour should be sent to Gaza…Live with your kind! u deserve none of the benefits of a country where u are free…u are disgusting! God will fight for Isreal! U however have a special place in hell reserved for soulless, immoral demonic entities in human form.

Eye for an eye mentality has, as far as I know, had positive outcomes.