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As a baby boomer whose parents met because of the Second World War, I grew up in its shadow, knowing it was a cataclysm that engulfed much of the world and cost millions of lives, with untold suffering for millions more. It was a memory of unspeakable human cruelty and depravity on a scale never before witnessed. The only light in all that darkness was the belief that a lesson had finally been learned by humanity, one so appalling it would never be forgotten. 

As I grew older and came to understand the history of the twentieth century better, I still found it impossible to understand how the country that was perhaps the most advanced and civilized in the world at the time, Germany, could have fallen into such a dark pit. This only increased after multiple trips to that country where I met some of the friendliest, most sophisticated, and civilized people I have ever encountered. But their collective efforts to atone for the crimes of their parents and grandparents, while remarkable and uplifting, reinforced the memory and the puzzle: how could it have happened? And for my generation at least, the certainty it would never happen again was always bracketed by a tiny doubt because, despite all the efforts to explain and rationalize how it came to be, none quite accounted for what looked like a complete descent into madness.

For the past eighty years labelling someone a Nazi or comparing them to Hitler was almost always a step too far, ending the argument because the charge was just too ridiculous. In the rare cases it was appropriate it almost always applied to someone or some group on the very outer fringes of society, someone easily dismissed as a crank and not worthy of further thought or concern. But, as we prepare to enter 2024, the awful fact is there is a real and growing threat to western liberal democracies by extreme right wing groups whose thoughts and ambitions align frighteningly with the fascists of the early and mid twentieth century. Those fascists gave us both Nazism and Hitler. 

Nowhere is this a greater threat than in the strongest, most prosperous democracy in the world, the United States, where the seemingly unstoppable ascent of Donald Trump to the Republican Presidential nomination should be ringing alarm bells from one end of the country to the other. But it is not. 

I’ve already conceded that comparing Trump to Hitler, or the ambitions of his MAGA followers to Nazis, may undermine whatever other arguments I make, but failing to heed the clear warning signs is sleep walking to disaster. 

Donald Trump is using language in his speeches that isn’t just a distant echo of Hitler and the Nazi message, it’s a direct crib. His description of immigrants as “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood of America” is the same language used by Hitler in “Mein Kampf” and in his subsequent speeches. And lest there be any doubt who he is referring to in his “vermin” comments, he goes on to stipulate they are coming from South and Central America, Africa and Asia or, in other words, anywhere other than white European societies. 

When confronted with his use of Hitler’s language, Trump responded he had never read Mein Kampf, which I believe because I doubt he’s ever read any book, but he’s certainly familiar with the language and its source. A recent news report, relying on evidence from his first divorce, revealed he kept copies of Hitler’s speeches by his bed. 

Why would anyone who is not a descendant of white Europeans think these comments would not also apply to them; that American citizens, no matter what generation, whose families are from Asia, Africa or Central/South America won’t be swept into the category of vermin poisoning the blood of America? It’s only a matter of time before that happens. And then what?

And, while we’re on the subject of “purifying” a population, why stop at people who have non European origins? Why not go after everyone who is different, who doesn’t fit into a pure, white, heterosexual, Christian population, unfettered from the obnoxious demands of minorities and people who don’t look like MAGA supporters, or even just don’t agree with them?

Donald Trump is promising to build massive detention camps to imprison illegal aliens, presumably before deporting them, although I can’t help wonder what the next step will be if deportation proves too expensive, too time consuming, too difficult or impossible. 

When the Nazis first came to power in Germany, they built concentration camps. At first, those camps weren’t used to murder millions of people. They were filled with enemies of the government, whether opposition politicians, labour leaders, clergy, intellectuals, and others. It was only later that the inevitable logic of their existence turned them into mass death camps where millions were murdered.

“Can’t happen in America” you say. Really? Why? 

“Because the ‘guard rails’ of the American political and judicial system will constrain a future President Trump” you say. 

One thing we’ve learned from the first Trump Presidency and its aftermath was how close those vaunted guard rails came to failing and how vulnerable they really are when extremists with no shared sense of civic responsibility or democratic/constitutional norms decide to breach them, particularly when those who should and could stand up for them, display the utter spinelessness of political opportunism.

“Because even if Trump wins the Presidency, the majority of Americans will almost certainly have voted against him so he couldn’t possibly cause the radical changes you fear” you say. 

In 1933 Adolph Hitler won the German election with 43.9% of the vote. That was the last election until after Germany’s defeat in the Second World War.

There is a cancer growing in America and it threatens not only the lives of immigrants and non European Americans, but also those who oppose it or are otherwise different from the MAGA view of true Americans. It also threatens to do incalculable damage to the international order and to the very idea of democracy itself. It must be stopped, but that can only happen if enough Americans recognize the threat and are prepared to stand up and fight for their democracy.

That didn’t happen in Germany in 1933.

Just sayin

GH

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• William Butler Yeats (from “The Second Coming”)

Henry Kissinger died this week, reigniting the debate over whether he was a great statesman or a war criminal. There are arguments supporting both claims and, in the end, he was probably both, although that doesn’t satisfy the need for absolutes those titles demand. Those arguing his greatness say he saw the world as it is and used the power of the United States to protect it and its interests, something that is the paramount obligation of an American Secretary of State. Others argue his decisions and behaviours gave the lie to American claims of moral superiority; of respect for human rights and the rule of law and, most of all, the assertion that “all men are created equal”. There is no doubt his actions caused the suffering and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in many parts of the world but, and I know this will seem an outrageous question to some, were those deaths justified, not by their ultimate results but by the world view that caused them?

Fifty years ago I would have had no difficulty calling Kissinger a War Criminal, armed as I was with the certainty of youth and the unyielding belief that the values I held should be shared by all and would eventually triumph. That certainty and optimism is appealing absent much experience. However, as history has taught us, the tyranny of the left can be just as awful as the tyranny of the right when left unchecked and un-moored from a shared understanding of rules and values.

So, what happened to that brash young man, the one who proudly marched across the Granville Street Bridge in the first anti Vietnam war protest in Vancouver, and who stormed out of a dinner party when the British Consul General decided to lecture him on the virtues of America’s intervention in Vietnam? Life. Experience. Disappointment

It seems such a short time since human history appeared to be turning towards a bright, optimistic future, whether with the Good Friday Accords, the Camp David Agreement, the Oslo Accords, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the democratic stirrings in China, and advances in medicine and science that turned HIV from a death sentence into a chronic condition. All these and more seemed to validate my trust that humanity was basically good and that bringing western liberal values and science to the fore would result in a bright, free and progressive future.

It’s not clear when all this began to unravel. Perhaps it was the attacks on 911 and the decades of war and destruction that followed, although that was only the most spectacular of the events underlining the hubris of the West believing its values would be embraced by peoples the world over. We looked at others and saw juvenile pictures of ourselves, pictures that wilfully ignored the vast differences in cultures, experiences and beliefs across humanity. We believed that, once other peoples saw the merits of our systems and beliefs, they would embrace them and turn into newly minted Westerners. This was just an extension of the colonial overreach of European powers of the last several centuries but, even if it had been fundamentally different, that colonial experience would have fatally tainted it anyway. As it was, it was wrong on so many levels.

Wherever we look now, the dreamed of utopia is in tatters. America, the vital foundation of Western democracies, is teetering on the brink of dictatorship and/or division and collapse. The ancient blood hatreds of Europe are emerging from nearly a century of banishment as the terrible memories of the Second World War fade. Russia, historically the greatest menace from the east, is on the march, trying to regain its empire as it wages a brutal, merciless war on democratic Ukraine. Any flickering possibilities of democratic reform in China and Hong Kong have been extinguished by their communist/authoritarian leaders as they also threaten to invade democratic Taiwan. In the Middle East, the existential battle between Israelis and Palestinians takes on new forms of barbarity and horror. And these are only the most obvious as every corner of the globe seems consumed by ancient, nationalistic hatreds costing millions of lives.

Even on the scientific/medical front, the COVID pandemic showed many people’s deep distrust of science when it interfered with their claims to unfettered freedom, preferring instead to rely on rumours, conspiracy theories and quackery while effectively giving the finger to any sense of social responsibility. This distrust spills over into the greatest threat to humanity today, man made climate change, where otherwise adults behave like children refusing to believe inconvenient truths.

And that brings me back to Henry Kissinger’s world view. When I look out at the world today I see a hobbesian dystopia where human beings behave in brutal and shocking ways, seeking to dominate other human beings and to advance their interests no matter the effect on others. Even where their own survival is at stake, as with climate change, hubris and denial blocks any effective action or acknowledgement of responsibility.

Coming to terms with the realities of the modern world requires a fundamental rethink of some of the most important beliefs of the last century and it results in profound shock, even disbelief, when confronting the horror show out there. And just at the moment the west needs inspired leadership and a bright and optimistic pathway forward, there is none.

I don’t know what comes next. In fact, no one does, there are so many variables at play but I do know we need to cling to whatever is left of our belief in the possibility of progress and a better future. We also need to strengthen our democracies at home and oppose those amongst us who would import the hatreds and divisions of the rest of the world. This is a particular challenge in a country like Canada that welcomes so many immigrants from places with values so at odds with what we think of as typically Canadian beliefs.

So, was Henry Kissinger right? Well, I think the current state of the world lends credence to his world view, but I don’t think it necessarily leads to complete cynicism or despair. History has shown that the ebb and flow of freedom and human rights is a constant which, of course, means there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, just more struggle which will continue long after we are gone.

Of course, if Americans choose to jump back down the Trump rabbit hole next year, all bets are off.

Just sayin

GH

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I have spent most of the five weeks since Hamas terrorists slaughtered innocent Israelis, in America where I followed the developing story on its networks, including CNN, CBS and NBC all of which provided balanced and accurate reporting. I returned to Canada last week and on Thursday watched the national newscast from one of Canada’s major national networks. It wasn’t the CBC which, in my mind, disqualified itself from objective reporting of this story with its initial refusal to call the Hamas murderers “terrorists”, directing instead that they be referred to as “militants” or something similar.

What struck me watching the newscast was the not so subtle shifting of the narrative towards criticism of Israel and away from the horrific acts that precipitated the war and the evil behaviour of Hamas in both its tactics and behaviour. Against the backdrop of terrible scenes of bombed out buildings, including hospitals, of bloodied women and children, of corpses being carried through the streets, the newscaster repeatedly relied on the “Gaza authorities” to source its information on the total number of casualties and the party responsible for this or that attack or outrage. What was missing was a clear and consistent message that “Gaza authorities” meant Hamas, the party responsible not just for initiating this bloody conflict but also the terrorist organization that was deliberately using Palestinians as human shields, including embedding its command centres, weapons depots and weapons manufacturing sites in the very places that would ensure maximum casualties and suffering if the Israelis attacked those sites. In fact, in the newscast, this appalling cynicism wasn’t even acknowledged.

On the other hand, when the Israeli Defence Forces issued a statement or information it was completely bracketed by qualifications like “unconfirmed” or “according to” or “can’t be relied upon”. Why is that?

Mine is the last generation with any direct connection to the Second World War, being born to those who lived through and fought in it, and in the shadow of its horrific legacy. Certainly in my family the Holocaust was the darkest of dark, the event that displayed humanity at its most bestial, at its most depraved. And the words “never again” were always part of that conversation even as the incomprehensibility of the evil acts still stunned us. One glimmer of good that seemed to have emerged from this appalling darkness was the creation of the State of Israel, a place where Jews could always find refuge. And we watched as this tiny David of a state repeatedly fought its much larger and more powerful Goliath neighbours and won, always emerging standing and defiant.

What’s more, not only did Israel survive but it built a mostly liberal democracy in the Middle East, a sharp contrast to its hostile, theocratic and authoritarian neighbours. It became a place where women enjoyed equality and where gays and lesbians could live their lives without fear of repression or worse. Of course it wasn’t perfect. It, like most other places on earth, had its extremists. Particularly in later years, it endured under incompetent, extreme and corrupt governments. And of course, the plight of the Palestinians always bedevilled it, although the Palestinians themselves were so often the authors of their own misfortune as time and again they managed to let peaceful and equitable settlements slip through their fingers.

The Palestinians are mostly the descendants of the approximately 700,000 Palestinians who fled, or were forcibly ejected from, the land that was awarded to Israel by the United Nations when the state of Israel was created. What is conveniently overlooked by critics of Israel is that at the same time approximately 900,000 Jews were expelled from Muslim countries as part of the same process and most of them re-settled in the new state of Israel. Some of these Jewish communities in the Maghreb and the Middle East had existed for millennia.

So, how did the tiny state of Israel, that shining example of liberal democracy in a sea of backward looking theocracies and dictatorships, become the “bad guy” for so many in the west and elsewhere as it fights to protect its people? I think there are several reasons.

For starters I discount the the loud shouts of university students. I was one once too and, looking back, wince at some of my more extreme positions then, although I must say none of them equalled the calls for the genocide that would result if the “from the river to the sea” chants of today’s protesters ever came to pass.

I also think Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and their supporters and enablers have done a masterful job of creating a narrative of victim-hood for the Palestinians and somehow have managed to elide their more extreme agendas. To many, they have successfully equated the Israelis with “settler/occupiers” and tied them into the anti colonial struggle and resistance despite the actual facts which few seem interested in learning. Of course some Israelis have made this task easier for them by seeming to dismiss the idea that the Palestinians should have any rights or land.

One particularly contentious matter that bears on how countries like Canada or, for that matter, many European countries respond is the fact that the demographics of those countries are being changed through immigration from countries whose values are very different from the host country. As a Canadian who has lived in one of the most racially diverse neighbourhoods in the world for over fifty years I have always celebrated Canada’s openness to newcomers no matter how different they seem from me and those I grew up with. That said, as a gay man, there has always been a tiny warning voice raising the alarm that people are coming to Canada who don’t think I and people like me should have rights or, for that matter, should be allowed to live. The same can be said for some immigrants attitudes towards Jews.

When I look at some of the more egregious statements made by pro-Palestinian protesters in Canada I can’t help but notice many of them have names that suggest their origins in Muslim countries even though they are Canadian citizens and, while not surprising, it does explain their simplistic pro-Palestinian and Hamas stands and their apparent unwillingness to concede even for a second Israel is the victim in this war.

And then there is the terrible poison of antisemitism that has infected the blood stream of so many countries since at least the birth of Christianity. Despite our constant disavowals of it, it is still there, lurking and waiting for the moment to raise its head and spew out its venom. And this is such a moment although, in some ways, just the culmination of several years of rising antisemitism peeking from behind the rocks of right wing populism both in North America and in Europe.

Like many others, I just don’t understand it. I don’t know where it comes from or why it persists although I can find some of its roots in the Christian doctrines taught to children: the murderers of Christ; the money changers in the Temple etc. but, as our societies become more secular, how can those blood libels still hold sway?

In this moment the “why” or “how” really don’t matter. What matters is that the poison of antisemitism lurks behind so much of the current response to the war in Gaza and no amount of excusing, qualifying or clarifying will change that. The first step is to see it clearly and to call it out and, of course, to stand by Israel and to support and guide it as it fights for its very survival.

GH

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It’s been nearly two weeks since Palestinian terrorists stormed across the border from Gaza and committed the mass murder of Israelis. Since then we’ve learned the awful details of the massacres. Women, children, babies, men, the elderly, Holocaust survivors, all slaughtered, some literally in their beds. Not to mention the rape, torture and kidnapping that accompanied the murders.

And even as the story broke, and before there was any clear picture of Israel’s response, pro Palestinian activists and supporters around the world were claiming the massacre was Israel’s fault, that the Israelis were “settler/occupiers” and because of that, were responsible for their own demise. Some of those comments came from Canada and the United States, both countries that, using their own terminology, would also be described as”settler/occupier” countries.

As the shape of Israel’s response becomes clearer the opposition voices are growing louder, demanding the Israelis “pause”, stop or just turn away from the awful murders that were inflicted upon them. And I can’t help but feel there is something unique about these calls, unique in the sense it involves Israel and not some other country confronted with similar atrocities. How would Canada or the U.S. (or for that matter, Australia or New Zealand also, presumably, falling into the category of “settler/occupiers”) react confronted with similar assaults and would the world rush to condemn them even before any action was taken?

Israel is facing threats on all sides: from Hamas in Gaza, from Hezbollah in Lebanon, from Shia militants in Yemen, from Iran and from the permanently unsettled Syria. How it responds to the Hamas attack will inevitably affect the behaviour of its other enemies. If, as the pro Palestinian protesters want, Israel simply turns the other cheek, perhaps accepts some kind of return of hostages in exchange for standing down, a lesson will have been learned. That lesson: you can attack Israel and its citizens with relative impunity, and it will only be a matter of time before all this happens again.

And to be clear, the Hamas attack is only the latest in a long history of it attacking Israel, whether with rockets, incendiary drones and terror squads. The first obligation of any government is to protect its citizens and that’s what Israel must do now, not just making it less likely future attacks will succeed, but ensuring there are no future attacks and that means eliminating the threat Hamas poses from Gaza.

I get the hand wringing over the fate of the citizens of Gaza who are caught between Hamas and the Israelis. But as a people, they share some of the blame and, in fact, polls show that a majority of Palestinian Gazans support Hamas. That many will likely die is awful but, for Israel, what is the alternative? And why, amongst so many progressives, is the fault Israel’s and not at least shared with Hamas?

How hard is it to condemn barbaric acts committed against innocent civilians? And yet, at best, so many of the condemnations are bracketed by equivocations, by the need to contextualize, to look for reasons that quickly lead to victim shaming. This reflects a profound failing by so called progressives and their movements, one that won’t be soon forgotten.

Just sayin

GH

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In the week since Palestinian terrorists crossed into Israel from Gaza we have learned more and more sickening detail of the slaughter of innocents they committed. Infants, the elderly, the infirm and young families, none were spared the horrific murder, torture, rape and pillage committed by these young Palestinian men. And that doesn’t even include the likely awful fate of the one hundred and fifty or more hostages taken back to Gaza. The details seem to scream out from an ancient hellish past, one we thought was behind us except, of course, if you’re Jewish. Then the memories of the Holocaust and the pogroms that were its predecessors are not much more than a generation old.

It would have been bad enough if the terrorists had simply shot and killed their victims as quickly and efficiently as they could. But what we are learning now is so much worse. Babies butchered, whole families burned alive, women raped, all with a sadistic glee that defies our normal understanding.

We have confronted this before when faced with seemingly unimaginable human cruelty towards other human beings. To the contemporary mind the Holocaust is the best, or worst if you like, example of humans displaying incomprehensible cruelty towards others on a scale that was, and still is, unimaginable. Look around you at other people and ask the question: “are they capable of this monstrous behaviour?” History says they are although that offends every sense of decency, of belief in the essential goodness of mankind, we try to nurture.

As Israel begins its offensive, we hear more and more about the innocent Palestinians trapped in Gaza. A useful fiction has emerged that there is a clear and important distinction between Palestinians in Gaza and Hamas, that somehow a force estimated to be no greater than thirty thousand people is holding over two million Palestinians hostage, using them as human shields or as camouflage to hide their weapons and their fighters. This fiction begins at the top with President Biden and other world leaders and goes all the way down to liberal commentators across the globe and online.

And it will only grow louder in a rising tide of criticism of Israel as it responds to this unprecedented assault on its citizens and its sovereignty. A response, by the way, that would be expected of any nation similarly invaded.

Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip since 2006 when it defeated Fatah in elections. There have been no further elections and Hamas has established a strict theocratic state in Gaza, one that harshly curtails the rights of women and has no tolerance for what it considers signs of western decadence, including the very right to life for lesbians and gay men. It doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist and has waged a relentless guerrilla campaign against it, including rocket attacks, incendiary devices, terrorist bombings, kidnappings and murders. These people are terrorists by any normal definition of the term, a fact that is acknowledged by Hamas’s designation as a terrorist organization by most western democracies, including Canada and the United States.

And where does Hamas come from? Is it some outside force, an ISIS type invasive species overwhelming the Palestinians? Not at all. Although technically an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Gaza is a homegrown Palestinian organization. Its fighters are young Palestinian men and its leaders are older Palestinian men (I don’t know to what extent women play an active role in the organization although, given Hamas’ treatment of women generally, I expect very little). In other words, the men who slaughtered Israelis last Saturday are the sons of Palestinian families in Gaza.

We have had to confront these issues before. To what extent is a general population guilty of the crimes committed in their name by leaders and soldiers? The most challenging example of this is post Second World War Germany and Japan, where confronted with the enormity of the evil committed by their wartime leaders and armies, the rest of the world created a kind of fiction that separated the leadership from the population. There seemed to be little alternative if the world was to move on but it never completely expunged the sense of massive complicity in the crimes of the Third Reich and the Empire of Japan.

I have known several Palestinians during my life, all of them either in America or Europe and, in that context, they seemed completely assimilated into the western value system but with one significant exception: their hatred of Israel and, by extension, Jews. The very existence of the state of Israel was an abomination that would only be expunged when that state ceased to exist, when, in the words of the slogan, “from the river to the sea” was free and a Palestinian state ruled over the entire area.

Now we see the so-called progressive left taking up that slogan although, when pressed, they never quite confront what should happen to the nine million Jews who live in the state of Israel. But now we know their answer even if they don’t state it clearly. The abominations that were committed last Saturday are simply prelude and are somehow justified by ideologies of liberation and re-occupation.

I accept that there are some Palestinians in Gaza who are “innocent”, starting with the children, but responsibility for the inevitable carnage in the coming days and weeks rests squarely with Hamas and its enablers in the Palestinian population of Gaza. They have sown the wind and they will now reap the whirlwind.

Just sayin

G

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Those of you who follow me on Facebook know I posted an article on Canada’s Residential Schools a few weeks ago. It was by an English academic and offered some controversial views on Canada’s Residential School system and its legacy. It provoked a fair bit of comment, generally split between negative and positive. One of those responses introduced me to a new word: “denialism”. While I had never encountered the word before and doubted it was even acceptable English, I had no difficulty getting its intended meaning given the context.

In fact, upon further inquiry, I found “denialism” to be a real word in the field of psychology. Quoting from Wikipedia (okay, I know it’s not the OED): “Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality”.

For some time in Canada groups and individuals have been pressing the federal government to bring in legislation that would criminalize denialism with respect to the country’s past residential school system. The proposal would also seek to open the door for civil litigation against anyone who, in the opinion of individuals or groups, was guilty of denialism on this topic. This is something that should concern civil libertarians and anyone else who cares about free speech as one of the cornerstones of Canadian democracy.

For those of you who are not familiar with the history of Residential Schools in Canada, here is a brief history. European settlement of North and South America led to the displacement and worse of the indigenous populations. In much of South and Central America this displacement was accompanied by ruthless campaigns to exterminate the native populations. This was also true to some degree in the United States. While there were undeniable instances of similar behaviour in Canada, on the whole, successive Canadian governments, beginning in the mid nineteenth century and continuing to the 1970’s, pursued a policy of trying to transform the native populations into integrated citizens of a Eurocentric country. The main instrument of this policy was the Residential School system where native children were separated from their families and placed in institutions usually run by religious orders. This much is not contested. Also not generally contested is that the policy and program was a failure and that successive generations of native Canadians remain scarred by the experience of separation from their families and societies, not to mention abuse that was inflicted on some of the children.

For even moderately informed people this much would fall into the category of “empirically verified reality” that is cited in the definition of denialism. However, things become much more contested when it comes to the motivations of the people behind the Residential School Program, the actual treatment of the children in the schools and, most controversial, whether any good came to any of the children because of the program. And, it seems, this is where those pushing for the criminalizing denialism wish to take us.

It is impossible to fully understand the motivations of the mid nineteenth century political leaders in Canada who supported the Residential Schools Program although, when compared to all our neighbours to the south, it seems reasonable to infer that, on the whole, they were not seeking to physically eliminate native people from Canada because, if they were, why wouldn’t they have followed the examples to the south? In fact, from their perspective, and probably motivated by their sense of Christian responsibility, they likely thought they were doing good for the native population. Of course that collides with our twenty first century sensibilities but projecting those backwards a hundred and fifty years (or even fifty) does little to inform the evil or goodness of their intentions, as opposed to the consequences.

In the past several years native bands and their supporters have been implying, if not outright asserting, that there was mass killing of the children in the Residential Schools. To support this claim they have employed ground penetrating radar that locates “anomalies” in the soil around former Residential Schools, anomalies that are then equated with bodies. As a result a narrative has emerged that paints Canada as a genocidal nation whose territory is filled with mass unmarked graves of native children who were killed in the Residential Schools. Not surprisingly, other nations that consider Canada a foe have seized upon this narrative to denigrate Canada and to obfuscate their own past and current malign behaviour.

But, as of this date, not a single body has been found during the very limited excavations around the anomalies and it isn’t lost on many of us that the native bands seem reluctant to allow the types of investigations that would confirm or deny their claims of mass graves. The simple fact is, while there was undeniable abuse of some of the children in some of the schools, there is no evidence whatsoever there was ever a program of mass murder connected with them. Certainly, children died while at the schools but they died from the same diseases that were ravaging their home communities, mostly tuberculosis that was endemic in native communities in Canada at the time.

Perhaps the most controversial topic of all concerns whether or not any students benefited from their time in the Residential Schools. I think it probable that some did, whether from the education and skills they acquired or whether from the medical care they received that would not have been available in their native communities. I also think it extremely unlikely in the current environment that any of those children or their descendants are likely to come forward and make that claim. Even so, if Canada is to have a full reckoning with its past use of Residential Schools, all the truths must be acknowledged, not just those that fit a particular political and cultural agenda.

The responses to my postings on Residential Schools have been mostly respectful but, with very few exceptions, have failed to engage with the actual arguments I make. Generally they describe the school system as a terrible policy that left a terrible legacy, both for the actual students and their communities and cultures, and for the rest of Canadian society. As I hope is clear by now, I agree with them but resist the next step that seeks to escalate the trauma inflicted by the schools to the most horrific examples of modern human behaviour captured by the conventional meaning of genocide. To date at least, there is no “empirically verified” evidence to support that claim and asserting it does great damage to Canada and, perhaps most importantly, to the possibility of reconciliation between native and non native Canadians.

I’m not going to spend much time speculating upon why native peoples and their supporters feel a need to reach beyond the verifiable horror and damage of the schools, to try to make them out to be something they were not. It may be because of trauma and hurt and the need to express it in the most extreme ways possible. It may be because the story has gained such legs many genuinely believe it. It may be because it shifts all responsibility for the plight of native Canadians to non natives, eliminating any factors that may be the responsibility of the native communities themselves. Or it may be something to do with money. Most likely, it is some combination of these.

So, how does this relate to the proposal to criminalize denialism with regard to Residential Schools in Canada? Well, I don’t think it takes much imagination to believe that those pushing for this legislation would like to use it to prevent me from offering the views I have in this blog. If I believed it would somehow be limited to “empirically verified realities” I would be more sanguine. But I do not. In fact, based upon the responses I’ve received thus far, I’m absolutely convinced it would be used to silence anyone who tried to question the genocide narrative. And that should concern all Canadians tremendously. I take some comfort from the protection of freedom of expression in The Charter of Rights and Freedoms but I also know those protections are not absolute.

The proposal to criminalize most discussion of Residential Schools in Canada is an egregious assault on the rights of all Canadians. It must not be allowed to slip through under cover of the outrage over Residential Schools or the false narratives that are fostered about them. This is a five alarm fire and every Canadian who cares about basic freedoms in this country should let their Members of Parliament know it is completely unacceptable.

Just sayin

GH

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Lear. Coriolanus. Macbeth. Titus Andronicus. They all have nothing on the epic drama now playing out in the United States as a corrupt, venal, egotistic, proto-dictator crashes around as his enemies encircle and seek to bring him to account. For the first time in its 234 year history, a former President is facing felony indictments, ninety one in all: 34 felony counts in New York; 40 felony accounts in Florida; and 13 felony accounts in Georgia. These in addition to the ongoing criminal investigation into the Trump organization in New York and multiple civil cases, including one where he has already been found to have sexually assaulted a woman in New York. At the same time many of his enablers and henchmen and women are also facing criminal prosecution for, amongst other things, attempting to overthrow the results of the 2020 Presidential election.

If there was ever any doubt this man was appallingly unsuited to be President, it should have vanished by now. But, of course, for many Americans it hasn’t. That, itself, is a tragedy beyond the comprehension of most informed, intelligent adults, one that undermines some of our most basic assumptions about human decency and behaviour, not to mention cognition. It causes us to look at people we thought we knew and understood and ask “how is that possible?”.

Those of us who have grown up and lived next to the United States have become accustomed to the jingoism and delusion of the “American Dream”, the idea it is the greatest nation to have ever existed in the history of mankind; that it is a “shining city” on a hill that the rest of the world looks up to with envy; that success there could only happen there; that it is the most free, most democratic nation on earth; that it is, and always has been, the ultimate defender of freedom and democracy. We are all too familiar with its shortcomings and failures but tend to overlook them, rather like how we treat a noisy, rambunctious, boastful big brother or cousin who, despite those irritating behaviours, we still feel deep affection for.

And now we watch in horror as its most basic democratic and liberal foundations are challenged and shaken in a manner without equal since the Civil War because, whatever its shortcomings, for the democratic world America is now the indispensable nation without which the world becomes a much darker, chaotic and social Darwinian place.

So, how does this all end? Not sure. What I do expect is a period of unprecedented turmoil and danger as the last wall, the judiciary, moves to hold Donald Trump to account for all his illegal and treasonous acts. Like many other people, I suffer from a profound Trump fatigue and wish it would all just go away. In fact, some have suggested perhaps some kind of deal could be reached where he would withdraw from public life in exchange for immunity from all these prosecutions. Even if the very complex layers of charges and suits were amenable to that conclusion, which they most certainly are not, it would be a very bad idea with completely unpredictable future consequences for America. It would also confirm the most paranoid beliefs of his followers that the charges are nothing more than a politically motivated campaign to prevent him from regaining the Presidency. And then there’s the matter of trusting Trump to keep his end of the bargain. After the last eight years does anyone seriously believe he would just go quietly away?

America must demonstrate that nobody is above the law, that everyone from the most powerless to the most powerful must abide by the social, constitutional and legal contract that binds that society together. Otherwise, what? A complete collapse of trust in government and its institutions that would dwarf the current alienation that is so frequently commented upon and is offered as a kind of justification for Donald Trump and his followers. And ultimately, a failed state.

The next couple of years are going test the very foundations of the American nation as nothing has since the Civil War but the country must go through this fire if it is to endure as its founders hoped. Already, a woman has been arrested for threatening the life of the judge presiding over the Washington trial and I have no doubt she is but the first of many. Hopefully the example made by the arrest and prosecution of the January 6 insurrectionists will temper some of the angry responses but there will still be others so indoctrinated by the MAGA lies and so arrogantly believing in their own superiority that there will be further threats and probably violence.

Shakespeare wrote great tragedies that show mankind’s terrible moral failings, that describe the monsters that dwell amongst us in all their banality and ignore the most basic proscriptions that allow us to live together. But that was fiction. The current drama unfolding in America today is anything but.

Those of us who respect and value America can only watch from the sidelines and hope (pray if you’re so inclined) that it will endure, that all the good it contains will rise up and defend it. The alternative is unthinkable.

Just sayin

GH

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It began with complaints about transsexuals, usually focused on which bathroom they should use or whether male to female transsexuals should participate in girls’ sports. At least that’s when we first noticed it. But social conservatives in the United States and elsewhere had been plotting this attack for some time. We just didn’t know it. And if you want further proof of this check out the facts behind the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling permitting discrimination against gays and lesbians by a web designer in Colorado. You will find the woman behind the suit hadn’t even been asked to create a web site for a gay wedding and was just a stalking horse for part of a larger agenda.

Then it expanded to challenges within the education system, calling into question gender studies, particularly those that address issues of sexual orientation, as well as banning books in schools and public libraries that, in the eyes of social conservatives at least, portrayed non heterosexual individuals and relationships in a positive light.

Once the transsexual panic was ignited, social conservatives moved on to attack drag queens, particularly their story telling in libraries and schools. And one by one, states and cities in the United States passed laws limiting drag performances anywhere that a minor might encounter them. Although that hasn’t happened in Canada, there are ongoing protests and confrontations around such events all precipitated by the “drag scare” in the U.S.

As an older, white, assimilated gay man who has never been particularly comfortable around drag or transsexuals this might not concern me, but it does. I understand these to be only the first steps in an organized attempt to roll back the gains the LGBT community has made in western countries over the past half century. Also, it is so cruel and mean spirited. The percentage of transsexuals in the general population is vanishingly small and they are particularly vulnerable to attacks and abuse. The rates of assaults and murders of transsexuals far exceed those for the rest of the LGBT community, let alone the population at large. They’re such an easy target and, as most of us learned in school, bullies go for easy targets.

And as for the attacks on drag performances, well that would be just plain silly if it didn’t expose performers to danger and violence which is already spreading to the rest of the gay and lesbian communities. That men have performed as women for thousands of years in many cultures, sometimes for laughs and others for more serious reasons, without any apparent damage to their societies, goes unnoticed. Even today, the Panto in England continues this tradition with no apparent negative impact on children except, perhaps, encouraging them to have a sense of humour and to laugh at the foibles of human experience, a skill that will serve them well as they go through life.

The news is filled with reports of new laws curtailing the rights of the LGBT community, as well as protests and confrontations between supporters and opponents of gay rights. It was recently reported that three young men were arrested in Austria and charged with being part of a larger plot to violently attack Vienna’s Pride parade. And in Canada’s capital, Muslim mothers encouraged their children to stomp on Pride flags while looking up for parental approval and getting it. In Montana a man walked through the streets of his town shooting at the homes of people he knew, or suspected, to be members of the LGBT community. His goal was to kill them all. Human rights organizations and governments report the number of hate crimes against gays and lesbians is skyrocketing.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Having been on defense for decades, social conservatives see an opening as the post Second World War order trembles with shock after shock: Brexit, Donald Trump’s election, backsliding on commitments to human rights by some countries in eastern Europe, the transformation of Russia from an aspiring democratic state into an authoritarian kleptocracy, the increased influence of ultra orthodox Jews in the government of Israel, the invasion of Ukraine, and the increasing influence of right wing populist parties across the countries of western Europe with one, Italy, electing a government that is the direct descendent of its long flirtation with fascism.

But what does all this have to do with the increasing assaults on the rights of gays and lesbians? Quite a bit actually. The movement towards a very different world in the past fifty years, whether through increasing population diversity or the profound change in the nature of work and the resulting distribution of wealth, has fundamentally undermined the security and sense of worth for many lower and middle income people. Many of the disruptions to the world order have, as at least part of their genesis, this sense of alienation and displacement, as well as fear of replacement, resulting in populist revolts, usually fed by opportunistic and unscrupulous politicians. Whether it was Silvio Berlusconi, Nigel Farage, Viktor Orban, Jair Bolsonaro, Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, not to mention the rogues gallery of unsuccessful wannabe proto-dictators, all seized upon the sense of displacement and loss of status and power to feed their political and personal ambitions. And to get the masses really riled up they needed a villain, someone or something their followers can easily identify as the cause or emblem of all that makes them unhappy. And what could be an easier target than Transsexuals?

To assume the attacks on transsexuals can be isolated is to ignore the lessons of history. They have already expanded to include gay men and lesbians and, increasingly, right wing political leaders are openly calling for the rollback of many of the gains gays and lesbians have achieved over the past half century. It would have been unthinkable even ten years ago for any mainstream politicians in the west to so openly attack gays and lesbians. And yet here we are.

I have never believed the gains by the LGBT community represented a seismic shift in opinion by the majority populations in countries like the United States or Canada. In fact, I always assumed the “progress” was, for many, nothing more than tolerance enforced by pressure from elite and governing groups. The election of people like Donald Trump ripped that scab off, giving permission to some of the darkest, nastiest impulses in human nature. And this is not restricted to attitudes towards gays and lesbians. It includes anyone who is perceived as different, whose existence challenges the orthodoxy of conformity to norms that have privileged mostly white heterosexuals.

But when I speak of privileging white heterosexuals there is one glaring exception: Jewish people. Remember the Charlottesville march, the one where young white men, carrying lit Tiki torches, chanted “Jews will not replace us”, while bathing in Donald Trump’s praise? The Tiki torches lent a kind of kitsch faux Americana to the spectacle but didn’t lessen the the terrible fact of what was happening. We’re not yet at the point where mainstream politicians are openly calling for attacks on Jews but remember Donald Trump’s response after the Charlottesville march where he described “very fine people on both sides” as if there was any moral equivalence between those standing up against hatred and antisemitism and those perpetrating it. And each time something like this happens it becomes easier for others to go further until all the constraints that have been so carefully erected mean nothing.

Not surprisingly, antisemitic speech and attacks are on the rise, both in North America and Europe. In fact, I was in the U.S. last week and was surprised to see reports of hate groups openly gathering and protesting outside Synagogues. That hasn’t happened in Canada…yet, but like so much else both good and bad, what happens in the United States usually finds its way up to Canada.

And what of the Muslims trying to make common cause with cultural conservatives? The mothers encouraging their children to stomp on pride flags may have been unusual but that it could even happen in Canada is noteworthy and shocking. Without even speculating on whether or not these are “new Canadians”, the fact they would so openly insult a significant part of the Canadian population is deeply troubling. But it is also worth noting that conservative Muslims who try to make common cause with white, Christian, social conservatives had better watch their backs because, as surely as I am sitting here, it is only a matter of time before they become the object of scorn, stigmatization and prejudice that will exceed even that following the attacks of 911.

History tells us these waves rise until they break and, not to forget, the break last time was the Second World War with its indescribable carnage and destruction. I’m not convinced we’re at a moment where that is the inevitable outcome but I do believe we are at a point where some very dangerous options confront us. And to ensure a better outcome everyone needs to stand up and denounce the hate mongers and their enablers. Everyone needs to stand with the marginalized who they are attacking even when we feel little in common with them.

Just sayin

G

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I’m sitting on a wooden platform just outside my room that hangs over the beach at Fire Island. Steps lead down to the beach that seems to stretch forever in both directions, wild and empty except for a couple sitting on the sand in the distance. The air is sparkling with tiny crystals from the crashing waves that combine with the warm, humid air. Looking east across the water, there really is no horizon. At some distant point, the silver water and the sky become one. And beyond that? Africa? Portugal? Spain?…who knows.

I’m from Vancouver where the ocean is mostly placid because of shelter provided from the Pacific by Vancouver Island, so the crash of the mighty waves against this beach is thrilling and, in some ways, very restful. This is my favourite beach in the world. It’s both wild and immense, usually mostly vacant, and yet welcoming and calming. Somewhere to the south of me, Frank O’Hara died after being hit by a dune buggy as he walked home along the beach one night.

For anyone unfamiliar with Fire Island it’s a barrier island east of Long Island and serves as a breakwater against the Atlantic Ocean. It’s lee side protects a bay that is comparatively calm. Although Fire Island is best known in some circles as a gay destination, that is only partly true. Several communities dot its length, and two of them, Cherry Grove and The Pines, are indeed predominantly populated by gay and lesbian residents and visitors. The rest are determinately straight, although their inhabitants occasionally take a trip to the wild side and visit the Grove or The Pines to sample their distractions.

Although I don’t know how and when they came to the island, there is a large population of deer here. I don’t think they have any natural predators and, although residents think them a nuisance, it would be deeply unpopular to interfere with them. I consider them the magical guardians of the island. They’ve seen it all. They have little if any fear of humans, and it’s not unusual to open the door in the morning to find one or more exploring the patio. They don’t immediately flee when that happens. They usually just stare at me, thinking I know not what. And then they bolt. Literally. It’s as if their legs were Pogo sticks that propel them straight up and away into the brush or the mist, leaving me wondering if they were ever there at all.

I first came to Fire Island with my partner Jan nearly fifty years ago. For some reason we didn’t take the usual train and boat but, instead, took a small float plane from the East River to The Pines where we stayed with a friend from Vancouver who had a timeshare that summer. He’s dead now. And of course it had to be The Pines we visited because in those days of newly liberated young gay men it was THE place to be and certainly not the Grove that was rumoured to be filled with old gay men and lesbians. It was several years before I set foot in the Grove.

In those early post Stonewall days there were several vacation destinations that offered a kind of Xanadu for newly “out” young gay men: Mykonos, Ibiza, Provincetown, Key West and Fire Island Pines. I visited them all in fairly short order but, perhaps because of its proximity to New York, Fire Island had the strongest gravitational pull.

And then there is the tea dance. I’ve never been sure why tea dances are called “tea dances” although I suspect the name is a riff on English high tea or some such similar event. They began in New York in the 1950’s and 60’s and reached their apogee at The Pines. They continue around the world to this day but nothing could compare to their heyday at the Pines.

My first encounter with that tea dance was with Jan when we were a newly minted couple on our first vacation together. I’d never seen or heard anything like it. It was on a deck adjacent to the Botel and above the dock. On our first night on the island and after an early dinner with our host and his partner we all headed to tea dance. It wasn’t hard to find as the boom boom of the disco echoed across the island and bay, a kind of tribal call to the bacchanal.

And there it was. A sea of dancing half naked men, some so entranced with the music they were completely oblivious to anything else around them. Men danced alone, in couples and in groups. Groups formed dispersed and formed anew. And oh did we dance and dance. To Donna Summer, our reigning disco queen until she became born again and nearly ended her career, Grace Jones, Thelma Houston, The Weather Girls, Gloria Gaynor, Chaka Khan, Patti Labelle and on and on, mostly black women, but also Sylvester, a gay black man.

The opening cords of “Love to Love You Baby” by Donna Summer, or the Weather Girls’ “It’s Raining Men”, brought everyone to the dance floor and deck. And what a mix: bespectacled skinny guys, muscle boys, men whose face and body you had seen only hours before on a billboard in Manhattan advertising Calvin Klein underwear but, once on the dance floor, all were equal, writhing, stomping, shouting and singing the lyrics. An absolute celebration of freedom, of the tearing down of the walls of bigotry and hatred and alienation we all experienced growing up. This was our tribe and, as long as we were with it, nothing could harm us.

After that first tea dance, and probably one or two too many cocktails, I wandered down the boardwalk to the famous, or infamous if you like, “meat-rack” (don’t ask). Sometime later, when I stumbled into our bedroom where Jan had been waiting and seething, he hit me. Not a gentle tap…a full thrown punch. I deserved it and, for the record, neither of us ever hit the other again over the next ten years together. Come to think of it, taking my new partner to Fire Island in the seventies might not have been the brightest thing to do.

Fire Island has been a destination for famous gay visitors since at least 1882 when Oscar Wilde visited Cherry Grove during his trip to America. It’s not unusual to run into a celebrity on the island. Some of them maintain homes here. My most memorable encounter was seeing Truman Capote, naked but for a Panama hat, sitting on the beach like a little Buddha, surrounded by his acolytes. It was a long way from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (although, apparently, he wrote the first draft on Fire Island). Less famous, but in our circles in those days certainly noticeable, seventies gay “soft” porn star Casey Donovan seen tossing a Frisbee with another god on the beach. Don’t stare. Act nonchalant. Keep walking.

The list of poets, writers, dramatists, and actors on the island over the years reads like a whose who of twentieth century American literature and theatre. A couple of years ago I decided to walk from the Grove to the Pines, not on the beach but on the bay side. I had forgotten how difficult that is. Once the boardwalk runs out, and then the sand trail, there are patches that are almost impenetrable, at least after recent rain. Several areas would qualify as a swamp. Confronted with this, I didn’t turn back but pushed on, finally emerging covered in insect bites, scratches from countless brambles and branches and ruined new shoes. In front of me was a fairly large old house, covered in weathered shingles and seemingly empty. In fact, not just empty, it seemed abandoned although all the windows were still in place. I felt like a child in a Grimm Fairy Tale stumbling upon a sinister house in the woods. It was only later I found out the house had been the home/lodging of some famous poets/writers/dramatists. My difficulty now is I can’t remember which ones although it could have been some combination of Frank O’Hara, Joe LeSueur, Mark Blitzstein, John Ashbery, W.H. Auden, Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Edmund White, Felice Picano, Terrence McNally and on and on because they, and so many others, worked and played on the Island. And that doesn’t even include the women who preferred the Grove. Imagine if the walls of that old house could talk.

And, at least in The Pines, there were (are) those other houses. Magnificent modern glass and wood structures, most placed so as to look out across the beach to the crashing ocean below, their owners some of the most famous names in fashion, design and entertainment. Canada’s own Arthur Erickson and his partner owned one of the most spectacular. It’s still standing, although I have no idea who owns it now.

Although the best way to get invited to parties at any of these houses was to be a) very rich or b) very good-looking, I somehow managed to get a few invites. I don’t remember much about them except they always included a swimming pool, many beautiful people and many more stimulants than anyone should consume.

It seemed like the party would never end. Until it did as the shroud of AIDS crashed down upon it. As in the rest of America, AIDS didn’t arrive all at once on the island. At first there were only a few isolated cases of whatever this disease was. And then there were more. And more. And more. Until the tribe was completely decimated. I had friends who went to Fire Island every summer and who, after they both became ill, angrily condemned the place as if it, not the disease, was the enemy. They’re both dead now, as is Jan, also from that plague.

Fire Island became a very sad place for me. The first time I visited after Jan’s death, sometime in the late eighties, I found myself alone after dinner one evening, sitting at the top of one of the staircases that led down to the beach. It was a clear warm night with the moon shining across the open Atlantic. The waves, while still crashing against the shore, seemed to have subsided somewhat. I felt indescribably sad and haunted. It was as if all the boys were hovering around me, all of them long dead. I left the next day and didn’t return for many years, going instead to Key West which was also a wonderful place to get off the grid but, in my case, with no memories.

Then, about five years ago, I decided to return to Fire Island, although this time I chose to stay in the Grove (it seemed more age appropriate). The island is still haunted but not in a bad way for me at least. When I’m alone on the beach or sitting as I am now above it, I feel the boys again as if they are encased in some kind of special golden memory, their spirits reaching out to me, calming me, reassuring me, beckoning me.

Just sayin

G

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