The chill in the air is more than the change of seasons

OTTAWA—Anyone else feel demoralized? Last week’s column generated kind messages of hope, thanks, and support due to the fact that those in marginalized communities—and those who support the rights of, and care for, marginalized communities in times of heightened perceptions—are putting themselves at risk. Many of those notes I received emphasized my need for safety and self-care because I had entered into a fraught debate with serious consequences. Pacinthe Mattar, a Nieman Foundation for Journalism fellow at Harvard University, spoke on the Canadaland Short Cuts podcast about the fear coursing through specific communities regarding speaking about the war in Gaza outside of their immediate support systems. She also spoke about the fear Palestinian journalists feel in speaking about Gaza in any way. There is a definite chill in the air. Winter is coming. However, we must also be aware of the increasing level of hate that this war is perpetuating. Both antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise. The ugly cliché of “Jews control everything” is alive and well, and plays into the right-wing antisemitic tropes of “the globalists.” Palestinians, Muslims and anyone else with a hint of non-Mediterranean brown report rising levels of Islamophobia. We are in a rightward swing, bereft of a commitment to life and humanity, unless it’s in a womb. As we round out three weeks of the war in Gaza, we are treated to a maelstrom of death, destruction, hate, and human suffering. The fact that we, as ordinary people, can’t do anything to stop it could make one question just how democratic democracies are these days. Canada is no stranger to administrative and institutional violence, in addition to silencing, and personal and professional alienation. The intention is to isolate the wrongdoer from the herd in order to weaken their resolve until they either repent and beg to be let back into the pack (with appropriate penance), or they disappear and go off to die, serving as a lesson to those who even think of defying the orientation of power. A great example of that is Sarah Jama, the then-Ontario NDP MPP I wrote about last week, who's been the object of institutional violence for calling for a ceasefire a week too early. She has now been censured by the scandal-ridden Doug Ford government, meaning she will not be allowed to vote or speak in the legislature. This is systemic silencing of Black and Muslim voices, and we should all be afraid of the precedent this sets. Instead of supporting her right to express those views, Ontario NDP head Marit Stiles doubled down on the institutional violence and kicked Jama out of NDP’s caucus. This is a warning to us all because Black women most often are the canaries in the coal mine. Structural violence is a term coined by Johan Galtung, a Norwegian sociologist who founded the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He defines it as: “injustice and inequality built into the structure of society, resulting in unequal power and, subsequently, imbalanced life chances. There is no requirement for a clear actor to be defined as committing the violence, rather it is embedded within the institutions of the society, where the power to decide the distribution of resources is uneven.” And the Canadian state is a master at this. It is through the mechanisms of marginalization, and then criminalization, that structural violence imposed. Courage, as shown by politicians like Jama and the 30 MPs who signed a letter calling for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, does not reside with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or in his office, writes Erica Ifill. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade The NDP is not just a political organization. As a party it is also part of the political institution, which introduces the concept of institutional violence. This type of violence is more specific, but a function of structural violence. The academic website, ScienceDirect, defines the term: “Institutional violence refers to the structural violence that can occur when someone confronts the attitudes, beliefs, practices, and policies employed by specific organizations to marginalize or exploit vulnerable groups.” And this is what Jama and others are experiencing. We are losing our humanity. We are losing our way. But there is hope. As this war drags on and social media puts every one of us up close and personal with the immediate aftereffects, more people are speaking out against our leaders' absence of humanity. For every Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and American President Joe Biden pushing this war—or co-signing the destruction of a people while we witness the terrors of human suffering—there is pushback building. We are seeing demonstrations across the country and the globe, trying to rally support for the Palestinian people (not Hamas, they are not the same); #GenocideJoe, as Black Twitter has nicknamed him, trends on social media, meaning he is threatening to lose a consequential voting bloc that put him in office; Trudeau was booed at a mosque in the Greater Toronto Area; and some Jewish activists are calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and justice for Palestinians in Israel under the banner “Not In My Name.” Politically, more than 30 MPs have written a letter to the prime minister to advocate for a ceasefire, and although the PM is resisting the issue, pressure will likely build. As I tweeted when I shared the letter: “Also I will be honest: I am proud of these MPs who stuck their necks out and put their political careers on the line for penning this letter. If you want to know what courage looks like this is it”—because it does not reside with the prime minister or in his office. It resides with people like Jama and the MPs who looked past their vote counts and advocated for a ceasefire. Erica Ifill is a co-host of the Bad+Bitchy podcast. The Hill Times

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The chill in the air is more than the change of seasons

The fact that we, as ordinary people, can’t do anything to stop the maelstrom of human suffering could make one question just how democratic democracies are these days.

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