The far right has co-opted ‘freedom’
Freedom. It can’t escape our notice that the protests that have shut down parts of Ottawa, blocked border crossings and triggered an Ontario-wide “state of emergency” have successfully co-opted a noble ideal of liberty for allinto a vehicle for far-right grievances to mean the opposite: liberty for a few at the cost of many.
“It’s important for me to come down here to fight for my freedoms,” John Van Vleet, a trucker from Ontario, told the BBC.
“The Canadian truckers are modern-day freedom fighters,” billionaire businessman Frank Stronach wrote unblushingly in the National Post. In the Star, where he is a contributing columnist, he spoke of “dismantling the chains of domination.”
It’s not difficult to employ soaring rhetoric when it comes to a highfalutin’ concept like freedom. But comparing millions of freedom fighters around the world who sacrificed their lives to fight colonial and oppressive powers to protesters who are blocking health-care workers from going freely to work, masked people from walking freely on the streets, businesses from freely operating, and truckers from freely crossing borders is either disingenuous or driven by vested interest, even if that vested interest is a general Richie Rich resentment to being somewhat regulated by government. Unfettered capitalism is about unfettered greed.
However, far from being reined in, the rich and powerful have the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, guaranteed by the Charter of Rights, even to opinions that don’t merit a space in cartoon thought bubbles.
But let us for a moment, pretend that this is a protest that’s purely about freedoms. Let us pretend that the swastikas and white extremist flags that Stronach denounced in his piece in the Star, but not in the Post, are just bad elements to be found at every protest.
Let’s pretend that HH at this rally truly stands for #HonkHonk and in any case, is cancelled out by the one guy who said on American TV that Canada’s mandates “were like Hitler’s Germany and we’re like the Jews, eh.” Let’s pretend that one of the funding organizers, Pat King, isn’t a known racist or doesn’t go on Islamophobic rants of a plan by non-white people to “depopulate Anglo-Saxons.”
Let’s pretend that the Ottawa police didn’t have to set up a hate hotline, which has now received more than 400 complaints.
Let’s pretend that the protest is being partly funded by good ole American money because who loves freedom more than the Americans?
“They hate our freedoms,” President George W. Bush said, as he launched a full-scale war on Afghanistan for hosting Osama bin Laden. American donors to our “freedom convoy” appear to have forgotten that COVID is killing as many Americans every single day as were killed that one day on 9/11.
Heck, let us even pretend that the protesters are indeed all truckers, “fiercely proud and independent,” as Stronach says. So what if they’re fighting for is not safety and pay structures and threats of deportation that besiege fellow truckers, but “freedom.”
What freedom is being eroded? Whose freedom? Those protesting say it can mean being asked for vaccine passports. Being shut in a lockdown. Being asked to wear a mask. Being asked to follow any public health measures at all. It all depends on whom you ask. But it looks like people who have the freedom to seek the dissolution of government, freedom to lay siege on the capital city and freedom to gather without fear of authorities feel they’re more hard done by than other Canadians.
When did science-based regulations for societal safety mean an unjustifiable lack of freedom? Are speed limits on roads government overreach? Being asked to drive on the right side of the street? Wearing seatbelts? Wearing helmets on bike rides?
What about the consequences of offering these “freedoms” in a hasty, irresponsible way? Do at-risk populations have to risk death so that these people can go shopping without being vaccinated? And if they don’t die, risk long COVID, which has not yet been fully understood so these people can go to Tim Hortons without showing a passport? So many who have lost livelihoods have still taken the scientist-approved vaccines without sulking. Were these freedom seekers fighting for the rights of disabled people to access restaurants?
When did freedom go from a humanitarian liberatory idea to a selfcentred one? From an inclusive idea to a nationalist one?
Toronto Star reader Nathalie Emer said by email, “One of my many fears is that the word ‘freedom’ becomes a dog whistle like the words ‘patriot’ or ‘patriotic’ have become south of the border. This is a too important and easily thrown around word to let it be used and abused by those who wish to instill fear and hatred amongst us.”
Another reader, Jim McKnight, said, “As Canadians, they enjoy every kind of freedom. In a world where so many millions do not have the freedom to go to school or love the ones they love or worship as they wish or have access to the career of their dreams or be treated equally under the law, how is it that there is no groundswell decrying the truckers’ ghastly diminution of the word ‘freedom,’ especially in Black History Month?”
We haven’t as a society fully reckoned with the cost of lockdowns with domestic abuse rates, business closures and mental health issues. But evaluating those costs means looking at who is most affected by the pandemic. Let me tell you, and the data will attest to this, those ain’t the folks who will mingle so laughingly with hate groups.