Sunday, June 30, 2019

THE WAR AT HOME

I once sat at my desk into the evening, only for my phone to ring ... on the other end was a woman who was angry, asking if I was the "human rights tribunal'.  I calmly told her I was not, but we do handle matters before that Tribunal.  

Without listening, the woman immediately went into a rant about how she and her daughter were living at a 'family shelter' and she was being discriminated against.  I ask her how.  She then explains that she had no access to the kitchen during the Ramadan between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m.  I asked her why that was an issue, that Ramadan only went on for a certain period of time and there were 23.5 hours she was able to use the kitchen each day apart from that.  She then hurried on about how she was "kicked out" of the kitchen during those times because she was expressing her "freedom of speech".  I asked her kindly how she would take somebody else using their "freedom of speech" to say what was on their mind about her, perhaps her gender, her disability, her poverty, and so forth, but she did not respond, just that she was so wrought up over these Muslims who were also at the home.

Several weeks later, in my own community, somebody started setting up a business called the Islamic Boutique.  This place was not even an active business, as people can see inside that drywall, electrical work and other preparations were being made to put this business into place.  The following week I found all the windows smashed and the signage for the business removed.  A few days later, I was speaking to somebody downtown at a coffee shop who told me her husband was beat up by somebody in his residential complex because he was a Muslim.  I handed her my card to ask for her husband to give me a call.

I learn in June that a few Pride events were cancelled because there were threats made to the organizers of these events.  At the events that went ahead anyways, many were confronted by members of Yellow Vests Canada, Soldiers of Odin, National Party and other fringe elements that would invite somebody with a bullhorn to shout out Biblical "interpretations" to them and approach members of these events in anticipation of causing a fight.  In fact, many fights did erupt.  This happened at the Eaton's Centre where people from these elements were in attendance on Pride Sunday in Toronto with the intention of causing a fight.

In fact, many people from the LGBTQ community are remembering Stonewall and sadly, the mass shooting at Orlando, Florida.  While I know that most Christians do not think like this, the Internet is dominated by those that do.  We were somehow transported back to the 1950's where people were afraid of being who they were or admitting to anybody who they were.  For those of you that do not or refuse to remember, there were the words of Martin Niemoller:


First they came for the socialists, and I did 
not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did 
not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not 
speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was 
no one left to speak for me.

This was during the Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s, which people of the West had said 'never again'.  It is more than a generation later and we have encountered many genocides since, such as in Rawanda, Darfur, Tunisia, etc.  People did not feel much about these things because they happened so far away and believed this could never happen in a western "civilized" society.  What people don't remember is that prior to the second World World War, Germany was one of the most educated, civilized and advanced countries.  There were many daily newspapers and its citizenry were well educated and well-read.  If it can happen there, this can happen anywhere. 

There were signs as the German economy began to fail.  In difficult times, scapegoats become part of the national agenda.  There were significant developments that happened after the election of Hitler and his party, the National Socialist Party.  This was a party that sold itself as the party of the working class German.  It organized and implicitly rose against communists, immigrants, and others that could be targeted for Germany's unemployment at the time.  They decided to abandon the Treaty of Versailles at the time and push for Germany First.

Cultural discourse continued to go on a populist, hateful path, whereas certain statements were commonplace in the Germany of pre-war times.  Laws were passed to limit the rights of its Jewish citizens, as Hitler felt the Jewish people were responsible somehow for their woes.  Many German people just sat on the sidelines and watched this happen.  As we know today, it wasn't only the Jewish people, but immigrants, poor people, disabled people among others who were also scapegoated and rounded up and many were transported to facilities where they were either used as slave labour or killed.  The Aktion T4 Program utilized six facilities and eventually killed over 300,000 persons with disabilities, which technically ended in 1941, but afterwards started up again under a "wild euthanasia" program carried without mandate and only discovered after the Allies invaded Germany and ended the war.  They were exerting dominance of the so-called "Aryan race" and eventually denied rights to other non-Aryan peoples.  

In Canada today, we are hearing frightful stories about anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant hatred and below the surface, Canadians do not realize that many groups, especially aboriginals and many persons with disabilities do not have full citizenship rights that other citizens take for granted.  When such groups try to exert their rights under the charter, the populists try to use the notwithstanding clause to avoid taking responsibility for the abuses they heaped onto various minority groups over the years.  For example, many people do not know until recently many people with disabilities were subject to eugenics policies.  The Alberta Eugenics Board operated until 1973.

A woman named Leilani Muir sued the Alberta government on behalf of a class of plaintiffs who also were sterilized under its eugenics policies.  In 1997, the Alberta's court awarded the plaintiffs millions of dollars, Leilani herself receiving an award of $740,000 in 1996.  However, instead of relenting, the Alberta government used the notwithstanding clause to limit compensation to her and to further plaintiffs seeking their own compensation under the class action .  It was only complaints from the public that shut this down.  Sadly, I don't think we have a public today that would oppose this sort of thing, as once again we have fallen aboard a similar populist bandwagon.

I attend meetings once a month with others who are interested in thinking.  This group of people I meet with include educators, retired business persons, IT consultants, journalists, etc.  These meetings are on hold over the summer, to start again in September.  We talk about a variety of subjects.  The facilitator of the group is a career educator, journalist and presenter.  He explained how society tends to move to different extremes, with today society being swayed to the alt-right.  Most in society do not believe or understand how they are repeating history, but many of us around that table have understood this to be the case.  We talk about how we as individuals can help.

I find thinking a rarity among the general population, because too many people think Dr. Google will diagnose their medical problems, that You Tube saviours will help you prepare for the end of the world and Facebook profiteers push fake news to get you to distrust moderate politicians by getting you to believe almost anything they want you to believe about them, much like Hitler's supporters got the population to buy into the new laws against the Jews.  An example of this is the Pizzagate scandal to get many Americans to believe that Hilary Clinton was behind some kind of pedophile ring.  In Canada, these same people (yes ... these are the same interests that brought Donald Trump into power) are trying to get people convinced the Trudeau wants to turn Canada into an Islamic state.  Both stories are horribly false and not only defamatory, but dangerous for democracy.       

These things are dangerous for democracy.  It has started with Muslims in our country.  Who is next?  Mexicans?  The LGBTQ community? Maybe people will just turn against each other, perhaps start dumping on people with disabilities.  This is already happening even though most readers probably don't know this.  Most people don't realize that people with disabilities that are unable to work or find work enough to support themselves are relegated to an inferior status and forced to abide by laws that nobody else is.  For example, there is no marriage equality for such persons with disabilities.  If they do try to work off the system, they will pay among the highest marginal effective tax rates in an attempt to reach self-sufficiency that no non-disabled person will ever accept.  But like the German people who watched the Nazi regime attack its minorities, today's Canadians are standing by and only thinking about themselves, wanting tax cuts, less immigration, etc. while even if all of these policies were put into effect, these individuals would not be one penny better off.  Yes, even if we spent nothing on other countries, immigrants, refugees, etc., Canadians would not be one penny better off.  Mark my words. This is something I know, but many folks refuse to believe or understand.

This "otherness" trajectory has also followed itself into my own profession, although with less of a working class flare that the anti-Muslim rhetoric plays out.  In our recent elections for the Law Society's board of directors, a slate of candidates ran on a single issue.  This was to StopSOP or to repeal the requirement that the society's licensees create a 'statement of principles' which basically gets each of us to recognize and think about our obligations under the Human Rights Code to other licensees, staff, clients and the public.  Sadly enough, certain members of our profession made a fuss about "forced speech" which it is not.  One of them already took this to court and lost, but is appealing.  To me, "forced speech" is citing the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of each day, even if you are not a Christian.  The Lord's Prayer is not a law or a way for people to consider their obligations under a law, but a belief.  This is in response to members of our profession "knowing" they have obligations under the Code, but don't really believe there is a lot of infringements at a systemic level.  There is, as many people spoke out about this.

However, the StopSOP slate won, every last one of them.  This doesn't mean they are racists, but this single issue campaign has driven away other important discussions that our profession should be having, such as access to justice, the role of the profession in systemic issues and how to deal with the onslaught of technology.  However, one must wonder.  Because the Statement of Principles was founded from a report on challenges faced by racialized licensees, folks supporting the Statement of Principles were quick to notice that twenty of the twenty two people who were part of the slate were white males and none of them were racialized minorities.  I have no problems with white males, but I have problems when a community resists diversity for its own sake.  The victory by the StopSOP may now leave a gap as to how to deal with discrimination issues felt by racialized members, who are now going the other way to express concerns about "what about them" now.

Our communities have done this writ large.  If you are not a white, Canadian born Anglo-Saxon Christian able-bodied person, preferably a male, you have a lot to worry about.  Ford's government is constantly re-iterating how "the best social program is a job", but unless Ford plans to give everybody who wants a job a position with a living wage within their communities, he can't use this.  This is part of why I do not like simple minded people.  Solutions to these issues are not that simple, or they would have resolved long ago.  

What I want to say to people here is that please think about this.  Our society has been through these things for thousands of years where it was always the "other" who was at fault for society's problems, even during the times of the Black Plague, the witches trials, slavery (and attempts to escape it), and so on and so on.  Today, our economy is changing again.  Our governments have been busy in the past few years bombing countries in the Middle East and we do not expect people to show up at our door to ask for shelter and protection?  Maybe we need to re-think our war strategies.  I don't mean to preach on these things, but I am very well educated.  I used to teach this stuff.

Sadly, one of the questions I used to ask my students is coming to fruition.  I asked them if it were possible to have the pre-holocaust killings of persons with disabilities, etc. happen again.  It has been happening in the UK under it's work assessment program, where it is cited in the British Medical Journal that over 120,000 people died or were killed as a result of this.  This excludes the 400% hike in hate crimes against people with disabilities in Great Britain as cited by author Katherine Quarmby in her book Scapegoat.  People in the UK know this is happening, but sadly continue to stand around and assume most of them are "scroungers", just like the Conservative leaders referred to them as, when this program was first implemented.  And sadly, many Ontarians continue to stand around as Doug Ford slashes program after program, thinking it will never affect them ... but then, again, remember Martin Niemoller.  It can and it will happen to you if we don't act now.