In some European countries, rallies calling for the end of Israel have been banned. Should we do the same in Canada?
Canada is no stranger to diaspora politics: where conflicts in the countries of origin of Canadians live on in the new land, or even where Canadians provide support to one side or another in a foreign conflict.
The Catholic-Protestant divide was once alive and well in Canada. It overlapped with the French-English animosity we inherited from the first two European countries to colonize our country.
Many Canadians have their world views informed by their country or culture of origin. I remember the leader of CUPW, the postal workers’ union, Joe Davidson, in the 1960s and 70s.
Listening to his Scots accent, you could hear an attitude to workers versus management conflict that reflected the class animosities that framed labour struggles in the United Kingdom. They jarred with Canadians’ attitudes. Don’t import your chip on your shoulder from Britain, I used to mutter at the TV screen, as we suffered postal disruption after postal disruption.
But in today’s Canada, the idea that you couldn’t get a job in the police force because you were a Catholic, or that fisticuffs occurred at Protestant Orange Day marches even in Oakville, seems hard to believe, given the many creeds and ethnicities that co-exist here peacefully now.
We have made tremendous progress at putting these ancient enmities behind us, and we have done it in a remarkably short time, really since the 1960s or at least since the second world war.
Manny Becerra on Unsplash
Palestinian protesters
The efforts of many Canadians over generations had led to a remarkable degree of success in "developing an understanding of and cherishing the diversity within our religious and cultural mosaic," in the words of one such great Canadian, A.Q. Mufti.
Mufti is the founder of the Halton Interfaith Council, Imam at Al-Falah Islamic Centre in Oakville, Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal honoree, twice awarded the Gold Medal of excellence for human rights. It is to Canadians like him we are indebted for our rich multicultural peace.
The great blot on the Canadian story is of course the history of treatment of Indigenous peoples and the pace of reconciliation. But one thing our Indigenous peoples taught us is the power of talking. Within their communities, the indigenous tradition is to continue to talk until a decision is reached that everyone can accept.
This is a significant difference from European tradition, which uses adversarial methods like the courts, or majority rule to arrive at decisions.
According to John Ralston Saul, this indigenous tradition is one reason for a greater facility for compromise in Canada. This is one of our great strengths. We need to bring it to bear when faced with the hatreds, grievances and divisions that some new Canadians cannot help but carry with them.
We are seeing this play out with Palestinian rights organizations demonstrating for a free Palestine. Calling for Israelis to leave Israel is obviously an entirely unrealistic goal. It leaves little room for Israel. But even if "From the River to the Sea" means that, in spite of its impossibility, it is not in and of itself genocidal.
It is difficult to justify banning a demonstration that even calls for the elimination of a state by people representing people whose state was eliminated.
We may believe the approach is not constructive, but in a world with freedom of speech, the answer to bad speech is good speech, not censorship or the banning of demonstrations, legally organized. Talking until you reach a conclusion acceptable to everyone, in the indigenous model, does not begin with silencing one point of view.
Instead, Canadians should respond with compassion for both sides and an acceptance that, even though the demonstrators are in Canada, they have every right to express their views on issues in other countries, whether they originate in those countries or support a position of one of the factions there.
We have refugees in Canada from many countries and with many stories. Sometimes, they come simply seeking a better life, and want to put behind them the conflicts that led to their need to come here.
Sometimes however, they come because they have no choice, they are not safe in their homeland, but they want to work to change it so that they can return. They are not coming here to build Canada or to make it their home, but to be safe and work towards change at home from abroad. As a humanitarian country should we accept one type and not another?
What if these factions retain their animosity in Canada, fomenting hatred between groups here, importing the Sri Lankan conflict, the Khalistan conflict, the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Actual hate speech is banned in Canada. But taking sides in foreign disputes is not. We survived and moved beyond our French-English and Catholic-Protestant divides. There were certainly Canadians giving support to the Irish Republican Army when it was branded terrorist, and to the African National Congress when it too was accused of terrorism.
As long as people are not fighting the foreign war on Canadian soil, or calling for the elimination of other people, we need to tolerate speech even when it is erroneous or objectionable. We need to counter it with understanding and compassion and encourage dialogue to reach agreement acceptable to all.
We are lucky enough here to have many who have direct connections to conflicts around the world. They can provide perspectives and insights which we could not gain from news reports or the reading of history. This can mean Canadians are better informed about world events, and more likely to be understanding of different sides.
In our fortunate country, we need to listen to all sides, and to help all sides listen to each other. We need to keep doing what has made us a place refugees feel they can safely come to, whether to build a better future for themselves here in Canada, or to work for justice in their homelands.
