Anti-Semitism and the IHRA's Unacceptable Definition

Is anti-Semitism really on the rise? 

There are instances that are undeniably anti-Semitic – the recent Texas synagogue hostage situation is an obvious case. There are also instances of vandalism, as well as physical and verbal assault that have apparently spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. But what about making comparisons between COVID-19 restrictions and certain aspects of the Holocaust? What about making Holocaust analogies towards Zionism? How about being a functionalist in the functionality-intentionality debate in Holocaust historiography? Well, under an increasing predominant definition of anti-Semitism, these latter cases would be so, too. 

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) ‘Working Definition of Anti-Semitism’ is being ever more accepted by countries around the world. 

Since being developed in 2004, the IHRA definition has been adopted by 33 countries, the European Union, and the United Nations, as well as hundreds local governments and institutions around the world. Its goal: to provide a clear definition of anti-Semitism in order to guide governments, organisations, and individuals in their efforts to identify and combat it. 

The definition reads: 

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. 

This is rather vague, and since one of its stated goals is to provide clarity, the IHRA has tripped over the first hurdle. Nonetheless, it tries to pick itself up, dust itself off, and soldier on by providing eleven illustrative examples of what would constitute anti-Semitism under its rubric.

Some examples are uncontroversial such as: 

Example 1: Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion. 

Example 3: Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

But other examples are far more debatable: 

Example 4: Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

The problem with this example is that its scope isn’t clearly demarcated, and as such, it could very well de-legitimise an entire field of historical inquiry. 

Though denying the existence and purpose of the 'gas chambers' is generally unacceptable, the disjunction in Example 4 includes a far less controversial position: the intentionality of the Holocaust. 

As mentioned at the outset, there is an ongoing historical debate about how much of the Holocaust was an intentional top-down plan by Hitler and his top officials, or whether it arose from functioning of the lower ranks of Nazi state bureaucracy. If taking the latter side in this debate is evidence of ‘denying the intentionality of the Holocaust’ then numerous respected historians would be tarnished as anti-Semites for their structuralist assumptions and historical methodologies. That is beyond acceptable.

Another debatable case is Example 10: Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

A major problem with this example is that it equates criticism - or at least a form of criticism - of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism by conflating the state of Israel with Jewish people. 

While this example restricts itself to Israeli policy – supposedly Israeli policy towards the Palestinians – it seems that the COVID-19 pandemic has widened the scope of applicable comparisons and thus applicable condemnations. For example, anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine mandate protests have offered up some rather silly and misguided theatrics whereby some protestors would make various analogies between Jewish mistreatment under the Nazi regime and COVID-19 restrictions and mandates. 

Such displays have been deemed ‘disgusting’, and ‘anti-Semitic’; and there have been calls for making the utilisation of Holocaust terms is ‘off limits’. 

These Holocaust comparisons are misguided, but they are hardly anti-Semitic. Additionally, why are Holocaust terms off limits in this case when such terms were used and abused liberally for four years under the Trump administration? The comparisons of ‘kids in cages’ with literal Nazi concentration camps, Trump being like Hitler, etc., were hurled non-stop by frenzied progressives – including numerous Jewish commentators – and yet they were accepted as informative analogies through which we could understand our time and caution us against slipping into barbarism; not as cynical attempts to weaponise history for political gain... right?

All of this having been said, even if Example 10 is strictly contained to Israeli policy, it is particularly bizarre since it seems to clash with another example the IHRA offers: 

Example 8: Applying double standards by requiring of [the State of Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

If Israel is to be held to the same standards of any other nation (as per Example: 8), and, if like any other nation, Israel could fall into fascism and/or racism, then why is it anti-Semitic when such comparisons are applied to Israel alone? Surely other democratic nations are held to standards that proscribe racism, genocide, targeting of civilians, expanding territory through war, and the like – and so Israel should be held to such standards and criticised for transgressing them with it does. If not, as it seems the IHRA definition contends, then the IHRA is allowing the Jewish State of Israel to be an unjustified exemption from the principles it proports to be subject to. 

Overall, the IHRA definition, as stated, is unclear, and the attempts to clarify it through its eleven examples offer up not insignificant problems of special pleading and scope creep. Since it is unclear, it fails in its mission to accurately identify anti-Semitic instances, and this lack of clarity will likely lead to abuses of power by the law enforcement the IHRA wishes to inform. 

Perhaps this is a price the IHRA and its allies are willing to pay since the cost of a rising anti-Semitic threat would be far worse than over-policing those who cross the IHRA's arbitrary lines. But such a mentality seems to be an inversion of the famed William Blackstone’s ratio: it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. Behold the IHRA ratio: it is better that ten suspected anti-Semites be captured than that one bona fide anti-Semite evade it. 

So it seems like they're stuck in a hard place: the IHRA either uses this definition and, as a result, get a bunch of false positives giving the appearance that the supply of anti-Semites is meeting the demand - which may, in turn, generate suspicion and hostility; or tighten up the definition that excludes the special pleading and relinquishes some of its applications. So, it either includes more than it should, or excludes more than it wants. 

Personally, I think that that IHRA definition should be scrapped, but since it is likely here to stay, it should be challenged and resisted as it poses a danger to intellectual freedom, speech, and liberty. 

Marxist Critique of Sex Work

I was listening to some podcast that was talking about Only Fans, sex work and emancipation, and it got me thinking... Perhaps there is a Marxist critique of sex work. The sketch of the argument is below. 

1) Our sexual capacities and practices are an integral part human nature, as men and women.

2) Because (1), a person’s sexual autonomy should be non-alienable because to alienate it is to destroy a person’s wholeness/integrity.

3) Work, within the capitalist mode of production, alienates the worker from his ability to fully determine their goals, actions, and production of their own labour.

4) Sex work is a form of work within the capitalist mode of production.

5) Sex work, like all work within the capitalist mode of production, alienates the sex worker, though sex work, by definition, involves one’s sexual capacities and practices.

6) Because of (5) and (2), sex work destroys a person’s wholeness/integrity.

So, if this is correct, then sex work should be discouraged - at least in a capitalist context. Additionally, promoting sex work as a part of a sex positive feminism entrenches a form of capitalist-sexuality wherein women place their bodies in the market. (This latter claim will have to be developed in the future). 

Torture

Is torture ever permissible? 

It is generally assumed that torture is impermissible. It is an artefact of a more barbaric age and enlightened societies should reject it outright. 

‘Torture’ is a somewhat vague term as it includes various purposes such as: 1) the extracting confessions of guilt; 2) legally authorized punishment for criminals; 3) for extracting information; and 4) illegally, for sheer vengeance, sadistic pleasure, or intimidation.

To most people, (1), (2), and (4) are outright prohibited, though some will allow (3) in some cases – namely the extreme ‘ticking time bomb’ scenarios. 

It seems to me that once you concede that torture is justified in extreme cases, you have admitted that the decision to use torture is a matter of balancing innocent lives against the means needed to save them. 

Some think that torture is wrong because it violates the human rights of the one being tortured. Though that may be true in most cases, in cases like 3) it seems that letting innocents die in deference to one who flaunts his guilt is moral cowardice. Sometimes one has to get their hands dirty in order to do the right thing. 

What Are They Selling You?

Over the last seven or so years, there have been plenty of hiccups in the progressive trot down to utopia.
While they've been identified and rightly rebuked, all the acolytes have been able to do is muster up denial, obfuscation, false dichotomy, and ad hominem.

The issue of progressive inconsistency is seen in issues big and small. Inconvenient particularities of the perpetrators are glossed over and transported to society at large, the transgressions are minimised or contextualised, and double-standards are activated in order to avoid indictment of the perpetrators, if the perpetrators are deemed to be members of some protected class or other.

In doing so, victimhood is turned into a moving target, with the actual victims of violence and threat or misconduct being subordinated to an ad hoc hierarchy of progressive prioritisation.

The very act of criticising the malignant outgrowths of their unintended consequences is deemed to be a self-sabotaging act since, well, you wouldn't want to be the enemy of the good... would you?

You better get in line.

There is nothing to see here.

Below is a list of controversial events that have occurred since 2015 that I think embody the progressive inconsistency in a rather malignant fashion. It is malignant because it a does harm the social body in which it resides, and may, in fact, illustrate ill will towards portions of that social body. 

These are only a handful of offerings, and though many more can be added, and perhaps many more seem more prescient now than these below, the events discussed below were integral to how we got to where we are.


The Charlie Hebdo shootings:

In Janury 2015, two Muslim terrorists shot up the office of a French satirical publication called, 'Charlie Hebdo' killing 12 people. This attack was made in response to politically incorrect cartoons published by the magazine depicting Muhammed.

Media apologists for the attacks stated that there is some parity between European suspicion of Muslim immigrants and the Muslim killings of the Charlie Hebdo journalists, and to make this shooting about free speech and expression is overlooking the fact that the disrespect felt by Muslims is 'connected with memories of Western notions of cultural superiority and imperialism when Muslims were seen as inferior to Westerners'. In fact, this shooting is but a microcosmic example of the larger issues in France which '... has never really tolerated multiculturalism or the kind of cultural religious diversity... [Therefore] you can see how that would create the kinds of tensions that would bubble up occasionally into acts of violence on both sides.'

The 2015–16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany:

At least 2,000 men across Germany sexually assaulted hundreds of women during a New Years celebration. The women, who were German, stated that the men who attacked them were of Arab or North African in appearance. Police and government officials initially covered up the event, and reporting was minimal. Upon its release by press, the public was warned that anti-immigrant groups would use the attacks to stir up hatred against refugees. In fact, 'what happens on the right-wing platforms and in chatrooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women.' Also, women were told to stay in groups, not to go out at night alone, and  'keep at least an arm's distance from men at major events'. Additionally, feminists pleaded in an open letter that the anger after the Cologne incidents should not be directed against groups or ethnicities like Muslims, Arabs, blacks, and North Africans, and excoriated the public by stated that 'sexualised violence is omnipresent everyday and not only a problem of 'the others' who are not white 'non-Germans'. This is odd since, the Cologne police chief Wolfgang Albers stated that Germany had never experienced such mass sexual assaults before. The response to sexual assault, it seems, differs depending upon the ethnicity/race of the perpetrator, and the victims were initially side-lined for optics, and the singular nature of the sexual attacks by immigrant men was minimised by absorbing it into a narrative of the 'everyday' oppression by German men.

The Chicago Kidnapping and Torture case:

In 2017, a mentally disabled young white man was kidnapped, and filmed being physically and verbally abused by four black individuals. In the video, the young man can be seen cowering in a corner as his kidnappers physically assaulted him, threatened him, and spouted anti-white and other racist slurs at him. They also made some political statements like 'F*ck Donald Trump'. This story was spun by some right-wing pundits as being related to Black Lives Matter (BLM) - the social justice activist movement for reform and/or abolition of law enforcement and incarceration. There was no credible evidence that the criminals had anything to do with BLM. What resulted was BLM activists and their representatives in the media pivot away from the black people engaging in a clearly racist crime, and to focus on the smear campaign against them. By taking these black people to be representative of BLM and BLM to be representative of black people over all, we were treated with articles arguing that black people, as a group, were the real victims of a handicapped white guy getting tortured by four black people. (Some more analysis on this event can be found on a previous blogpost: New Racism.)

Covington Catholic Kids Debacle versus March for Our Lives: 

A group students from an all-boys Catholic high school in Kentucky went to the US capital for a Pro-Life march. There they were met with protest by a small group of Black Hebrew Israelites who believe that they're descendants of ancient Israelites. The Black Israelites taunted the students, calling them 'child molesters', stating that Trump is a 'fa**ot', and that the black students should depart from the group because 'ni**a, they're gonna steal your organs'.

In an attempt to drown out the Black Israelites' taunts, or rather to taunt right back, the students began to engage in their high school cheers. During this, Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist of sorts, was observing the commotion and decided to intervene in an attempt to 'diffuse the situation'.

He walked up to the students whilst drumming and singing the American Indian Movement (AIM) song. The cadence of his drumming matched the cadence of the students' chants and they, apparently, thought that he was drumming to their chants. In accordance, they continued to chant in the cadence of his drumming.

As Phillips walked into the crowd of students, they parted, and he continued to walk until he met Nick Sandmann, a student who stood in Phillips' way. Sandmann said he did so in order to demonstrate that he didn't want any trouble - figuring that if he stood still, he wouldn't be doing anything wrong. Sadly for Sandmann, he was wearing a MAGA hat, and as soon as the video hit social media, the shit hit the fan.

The 'Blue Checkmarks' on Twitter calling for these kids and their families to be harassed, doxxed or even attacked with bizarrely sadistic and fantastical calls for the torture and killing of the Covington kids.

(Some more analysis on this event can be found on a previous blogpost: MAGA Kids and Progressive Scapegoating's Religious Undercurrent).

Meanwhile, we have very different reaction towards the March For Our Lives kids.

These were students who survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14th, 2018.

Some of these students had harrowing stories to tell, and there shouldn't be any need to criticism them for what they went through. Though some criticism did occur on the fringes of conspiracy, most people met these students with compassion and sympathy.

After the smoke cleared, however, some of the students went head-on into the spotlight: engaging in media interviews, documentaries and all sorts of marches, protests and demonstrations.

Some of the most vocal students put their faces willingly into the public debate on gun rights in the US, and have said some remarkably provocative stuff: that pro-gun rights politicians and groups have blood on their hands, or are complicit in child murder; that 'when you give an inch [on some gun reform] we'll take a mile', or that '[the NRA] are pathetic fuckers who keep wanting to kill our children'; that 'our parents don't know how to use f**kin' democracy', and the like.

Truth from the mouth of babes.

These kids have thrown themselves into the public square as spokespeople for a anti-gun rights movement, and have exhibited more aggression and vitriol than any of the Covington kids, and yet when they're met with any criticism the Left, the anti-gun Left, will decry such criticism as 'attacking children'.

Which one is it? Aren't the Covington kids 'children', too? I suppose some children matter more than others.

Toronto Hijab Hoax: 

A girl reported to the police that she had been attacked by an unknown Asian man with a pair of scissors - the man ran up to her and tried to cut of her hijab. This attack sprang into the news and within hours the Mayor of Toronto, the Premiere of the Province of Ontario, and Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, all lept to the cameras to decry the rampant Islamophobia in Canada. Stating that '[t]hat is not what Canada is, and that is not what Canadians are... and that we are better than this', and yet '[w]e have seen an unfortunate pattern of increased hate crimes in past months directed towards religious minorities, particularly towards women... [this is] a warning sign of increased intolerance'. These two statements seem to be in conflict, here...

I couldn't help but the see that the outpouring of symapthy and concern for the young girl was overtly couched in the language of condemnation and suspicion towards Canadians, and I'm not alone since there were numerous protests across the country condemning Trudeau's

I still cannot believe that Trudeau didn’t offer an apology for his conduct towards to hijab hoax. He and others leapt to the nearest microphone and camera crew and just castigated Canadians without any evidence. 

A line from the film Rob Roy comes to mind. It’s during a scene wherein Rob and a fellow clansman, Alasdair, are looking for a member of their clan who had gone missing with a large sum of cash. Unbeknownst to Rob and his men, their compatriot was ambushed and killed by the viallan, Cunningham, an evil aristocrat. Alasdair insists that their fellow may have taken the cash for himself and sailed off to America. Rob says, ‘its worse enough that it may have happened, without you wishing it so’. I feel the same thing towards the reaction to the hijab hoax.

Manchester Arena Bombing (plus any UK-based Terror Attack) versus The Grenfell Tower Fire:

On May 22nd, 2017, an Islamic extremist suicide bomber detonated a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb as people were leaving the Manchester Arena, England following a concert by the American singer Ariana Grande.

Twenty-three people died, including the attacker, and 139 were wounded, more than half of them children. 

Reactions were swift, with all manner of government and religious officials coming out to condemn the attackers, and, of course, stating that they had nothing to do with Islam. 

At a large benefit concert, Oasis played the song 'Don't Look Back In Anger' which became a symbolic motif of 'defiance' for how the British people were to deal with their trauma, shock, and anger. The motif was also put on display in response to other terrorist attacks in London. I don't see this as 'defiance' but 'resignation'. When you get angry, the terrorists win, I guess.

On the night of June 14, 2017, a fire broke out in the 24-story Grenfell Tower in West London. It caused 72 deaths, injured more than 70 others. 

An investigation into the cause of the fire and the events of that night determined that the cause of the fire came from a malfunctioning refrigerator, and that building's exterior was the central reason why the fire spread because it didn't comply with building regulations. Additionally, fire service were too late in advising residents to evacuate.

A number of protests followed, one called 'A Day of Rage', which aimed to 'bring down the government', provide housing for the displaced survivors of the fire, and force Theresa May to resign due to her 'austerity and bigotry'. Politicians like David Lammy have stated that the fire was a 'vision of hell'; that those 'who let this fire happen' should stand trial, and that  was a cover up of the number of dead. 

Less than a month apart and we see two tragedies beget very different responses: a deliberate and vicious religiously'motivated attack on innocent children is met with calls for stoicism and resilience amongst the British people, and yet an accidental though tragic fire engulfing people in a high-rise building is met with real calls of defiance, pointing fingers, and uncompromising anger to get justice for their community. 

I wonder who really matters, here. 

The Rape Gangs of the UK: 

This has to be the creme de la creme.

Thousands of girls and young women were victims of child sexual exploitation (CSE) across the cities of Rotherham, Rochdale, Derby, Huddersfield, Newcastle, Telford, Peterborough, Newcastle, Oxford, and Bristol between the 1980s and the 2010s.

Responses to the issues are contentious because findings showed most of the perpetrators, 84% in fact, are Asian men. 'Asian', in the UK, is a loose term that doesn't point out any one ethnicity, but tends to lump in Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Most perps, as well, were British citizens, and other perpetrators have been Somali, Romani, Kosovan, Kurdish, and White British. 

As with Cologne, the concern the Left had was with a) denying the over-representation of 'Asian' men in these crimes, and b) concocting explanations of how the observation of said over-representation is evidence of racism, and therefore is unsubstantiated, and, in fact, is the real problem. 

Though it is true that child abuse is not uniquely or largely a problem of particular demographics, the grooming gangs – that is, multiple offenders exploiting women they have met, manipulated, and abused outside their homes – is. On top of the demographic make up of the perpetrators, there is also the demographic make up of the victims: 'the vast majority' of the victims were White British girls and young women. 

The Left consistently motte-and-baileys the issue. Despite the steady flow of cases that consistently show the perps are Asian men, we're constantly reminded that it is not only Asian men who commit CSE. When it is shown that roughly 80% of the perps are Asian men, we're told that  the greatest numbers of perpetrators of CSE are White men. Well, according to the 2011 Census, 80% of the UK population is White, and 6.8% is Asian. So, the Asian men are well over-represented here - but then people are told it is 'irresponsible' to dwell on the data. 

We're told that we should reject the idea that such gangs were specifically targeting White girls because they were White, but suggested vulnerable girls on the street were more likely to be White since Asian girls were subjected to stricter parenting which was more likely to keep them off the streets. 

We're also told that the claim of Asian gangs targeting White girls flies in the face of evidence that shows that those who violate children are most likely to target those who are closest to them and most easily accessible. 

We're told that there isn't an ethnic component. We're told that there is misogyny, class-bias, and institutional bias.

Yes. I do not deny that these are elements, but explain the radical ethnic over-representation of the perps and the absolutely remarkable scale of the abuse? Is it really the case that everyone else's attitudes towards these girls as lesser-thans is operable in their actions and in-actions, but the perps are just opportunists? Would they have gone after Asian or Black girls if they could? 

I do not deny that this is surely a layered matter, that involves class and other prejudices. These girls were treated like trash not only by their abusers, but by those who were supposed to protect them. The Jay Report, an investigation into what happened in Rotherham, for instance, found that police thought of the young girls as 'undesirables' and they were not worthy of police protection.

The Jay Report also found that there was 'a general nervousness in the earlier years about discussing [the backgrounds of the perpetrators], for fear of being thought racist.'

So many excuses, and no work was done to save these girls. And we all know, as cheap and as easy as it may sound, that if the ethnicities were reversed, and there was gangs of White men sexually abusing Asian girls, there'd be a swift response. 

Finally we have the example of: 

The Entire Year of 2020 and the Derek Chauvin Trial:

I've written on the Chauvin trial previously, and will link that article here. Those who wish to read that can do so, and I'll now wrap this post up... 

Conclusion:

There are dozens of other such cases that can be added to lists like this - the Rittenhouse case, January 6th, all the COVID-19 bullshit, the Residential Schools Findings in Canada, etc., - but these are some of the more indicative cases in my experience.

Whenever a vicious act occurs, we're told that the evil isn't all that unique, and we are only noticing it now because different looking people are doing it. In fact, if it hadn't been some member of some racialised other, it surely would have been some local native man. After all, what is in the heads of the recently-arrived perpetrators is really nothing different than what is in the heads of those who have been born and raised in their homelands with ancestry stretching back generations... 

That said, you are a heartless monster or even positing that the opposite is true.

This is what they're trying to sell you.

Are these acceptable costs?

No. 

Naomi Wolf and Bio-Power

Naomi Wolf spoke with Steve Bannon about the Biden Administration's imposition of a nation-wide vaccine mandate. (Full video in link).

This seemed to be a moment of clarity for Wolf.

Though she is still trapped in the false paradigm wherein 'fascism = things I don't like', which makes her term 'bio-fascism' silly; and her diagnosis ultimately miss its target, she is at least open to critically assessing the team she was on.

What the Biden administration is engaging in is certainly medical authoritarianism, but it ain't fascist.

Now, Biden is making aggressive statements. He has stated that he'd use his powers, as President, to get uncooperative governors 'out of the way', that he'd force employers to hold employees to vaccine mandates, and that he'd also use the military, if necessary, to see these mandates through. 

This isn't the first time Biden has threatened his own citizens. In June, he implied that attempts to over-throw the US government would be met with F-15s or 'maybe some nuclear weapons'. 

One may argue that Biden wasn't threatening anyone, but just pointing out the disparity in arms that exist between rebellious citizens and their government. This seems a bit odd, though, when one considers how the US government has targeted and murdered its citizens in the past: from Waco, to Ruby Ridge, to Anwar al-Awlaqi. 

The threat also seems misguided given Biden's statements on the Jan. 6th Capitol Hill riots. He has called it an insurrection, an attempted coup, and a breach of the 'citadel of our democracy'. Well, all of that was done without any weapons used. Also, Biden's threats are made even more misguided given the context of the US' loss to the Taliban, recently. This apparent disparity of arms, it would seem, isn't a deciding factor... So, credit where credit is due. 

But despite Biden's inane blustering, what is actually going on? 

Wolf is stating that what we're seeing is a violent, coercive, fascist coup that is stripping the US citizens of their rights, and undermining the duly elected politicians who represent them. 

While some of this is certainly happening, I don't think that framing it in terms of 'fascism' is correct.

What we're seeing isn't the exercise of some fascist impulse, rather we're seeing the all-to-familiar logic of cosmopolitan neo-liberalism. 

There is no strong leader, but rather an entrenched bureaucracy. There is no orderly vision imposed in the service of a national ideal, but rather anarcho-tyranny. There is no concept of the human spirit to aspire towards, but rather the dull grinding of the economy that the populace is subordinate to.

What this is biopower on steroids – it’s about fostering life or to disallowing it to the point of death.

Biopower is a term coined by Michel Foucault that refers to the myriad ways by which for populations are managed. 

Individuals, as well as populations are born, live, grow, and die, and biopower is used to administer to those entities. This is done through numerous and diverse techniques which form an anatomo-politics of the human body - health and bodies become a political concern. In order to do this, bio-power incorporates certain aspects of disciplinary power such as normalisation and surveillance. Nonetheless, there are major differences in both scope and method: if disciplinary power is about training the actions of bodies, then bio-power is about managing the births, deaths, reproduction and illnesses of a population. 

By 'population', Foucault means 'a multiplicity of individuals who are and fundamentally and essentially only exist biologically bound to the materiality in which they live'. The population is understood naturalistically, and human beings are understood as biological entities that exist in tandem with other biological systems. Human beings were seen as a species, a biological being not over-and-above the natural world, but very much a part of it. In turn, this new understanding of populations led to the development of new techniques of governance and control.

According to Foucault, biopower is exercised through myriad channels such as medical institutions, welfare funds, insurance, the civil engineering of towns and cities, and the like. I wish to broaden these channels because it seems that biopower isn't only exercised by policy-makers and bureaucrats of the state, but also by doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, economists, et cetera. This is because these actors act within and in accordance to disciplines that have knowledge which can be exercised upon individuals and populations in order to bring them into a normalised mode of existence. In fact, these disciplines are often called into service by the state to normalise, enforce, and corral opinions and public action. 

All of this has grown out of the long tradition of liberalism that arose in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Whereas an ordered society was maintained through a blunt practice of simply imposing the laws of the sovereign upon its subjects in the 16th-18th centuries, later developments in social management resulted in laissez-faire approaches that favoured the influencing the environment and letting individual self-interest play itself out. 

People, therefore, are managed through the management of things so that they perform in the way they ought to perform when they are asked to consent to how they are governed under law. In other words, the individual is made to behave in the way various dominant institutions think that they ought to behave. This cannot be made any clearer than the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccination campaigns. 

So, Wolf is wrong to claim that Biden - or any similar government - is engaging in some fascist coup. What Biden is doing is in fact engaging in a long-established process of managing populations and dealing with unruly dissidents. They're first use the carrot to entice compliance, and if that form of manipulation doesn't work, then they'll bring out the stick in the hopes that the dissident hold-outs will act in their self-interest and save themselves the abuse. 

Whether or not the abuse will come from the government is yet to be seen. That said, there have been numerous instances of such abuse imposed by the private sector. People have had their jobs taken from them, had their bank accounts shut down, had police raid their homes, and all manner of abuse simply because they voice opinions the state doesn't like and mobilised others to their cause. Now, with a strong network of medical authoritarians who can make up and enforce rules, coupled with a compliant and desperate population willing to throw people to the wolves, it certainly seems likely that the abuse will come. 

And if it does come, it isn't coming from fascists. Its coming from liberals. 

 

Afghanistan, President Jocko, and the Forever War Hawk

While the bravado can be appreciated, this little exercise remains focused on the negative effects of the withdrawal and not the 20 years of waste, death, and quagmire - let alone the realities of the fragility of the Afghan government and its 'forces'. The former pales in comparison to the latter. As such, President Jocko doesn't flagellate himself enough for not knowing what was going on in a country he has been occupying for 20 years. 

The moving of the goal posts (from getting Bin Laden, to tamping down insurgencies, to 'defending human rights') is certainly a factor in why the US is still present in Afghanistan and speaks to the fraudulent nature of the war, itself - a fraud that Jocko is willing to continue unless/until there is a withdrawal.

Additionally, when Jocko says that 'we'll kill everyone who gets in the way of us getting all of our citizens, allies, and friends out', and if by 'all' he literally means 'every single person' that meets these three designations, then he's arguing for a persistent military presence. He's also implicitly accepting ongoing civilian death committed at the hands of US forces. 

In closing, President Jocko isn't very interested in ending the war. He's arguing for its continuation. 

Whatever one thinks of the execution of the withdrawal, the withdrawal is the right thing to do. 

‘Mass Graves’, Religious Hate, and European Erasure

Discovery of ‘Mass Graves’

On May 27, 2021, Chief Rosanne Casimir said that she had confirmed the preliminary findings of the remains of 215 children who were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. With the help of a ‘ground penetrating radar specialist’, that which was spoken about but never documented, was finally brought to light.

According to Chief Casimir,

We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify. To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths… Some were as young as three years old… This work was undertaken by [the] Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Language and Culture Department with ceremonial Knowledge Keepers who ensured that the work was conducted respectfully in light of the serious nature of the investigation with cultural protocols being upheld.

Now, how Chief Casimir claims to ‘know’ any of this is questionable. Her assertions of knowledge could very-well be exceeding her epistemic grasp, here. After all, ground-penetrating radar isn’t like some fish-finder that provides a more finely-grained image: pin-pointing the locations of your intended target. In fact, such data from ground penetrating radar surveys are seldom obvious or self-evident and require methodical interpretations and finally unearthing of the objects in question. Additionally, readings from such radar can be influenced by myriad natural and man-made sources, as well as human error.

Chief Casimir had stated that her community was aided by a ‘ground penetrating radar specialist’, but never provided the name of the individual nor of the company that individual worked for. Additionally, she never offered up the interpretations of the radar scans that led them to believe that they had found 215 children. Also, Chief Casimir stated that some children ‘as young as three’ were found. Well, ground penetrating radar scans cannot tell you the age of the remains – that can only be determined after exhumation. Moreover, children three-years-old and younger were not admitted to residential schools. Perhaps these issues will be cleared up, but so far, they are waiting for confirmation.

Further, Niigaan James Sinclair, an Anishinaabe writer, associate professor at the University of Manitoba, and son of Calvin Murray Sinclair, who was the chairman of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) from 2009 to 2015, has opined:

‘It's a story that I think Canadians are surprised about because they are not prepared for what has been the truth of this country, which is that this is the kind of abuses that were perpetrated against Indigenous people -- my people -- for over a century and a half in these places.’

Again, given the questions above, I am unsure to what ‘truth’ Niigaan is referring. Perhaps it is some ‘greater truth’ that is not affected by the truth or falsehood of the individual claims made in its service.  

That said, and with questions aside, what we are being told is a tragic story: the deaths of children are always tragic, and the context of their deaths in residential schools only exacerbates that.

Despite the good intentions may have motivated the residential school project of assimilation of indigenous peoples into a burgeoning Canadian society, the tales of abuse at the hands of staff and students, the poor conditions of housing and food due to persistent lack of Federal funding, as well as child separation from family and community are harsh and ought not be minimized.

Having extended that olive branch, I think that what we have been fed by media and motivated actors like Niigaan Sinclair, are likely instances of exaggerated evils.

For instance, the labelling of the Kamloops residential school – and subsequent ‘discoveries’ – as ‘mass graves’ by some in the media is utterly false and misleading. Though Chief Casimir, to her credit, has cautioned against using that term.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) defines ‘mass grave’ as a ‘burial site containing remains of two or more victims of extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and/or is a potential repository of evidence of mass killings of civilians and prisoners of wars during of an armed conflict.’

Like ‘genocide’, however, there is not unanimous agreement on this definition. The disagreements can lie in nitpickings over the number of individual remains in the burial site, but they are also motivated by the activist desire to craft weapons for the subaltern to use against their enemies in culture wars instead of finding truthful descriptions of events.

Nonetheless, the common definition of a mass grave involves the burial of numerous bodies resulting from mass violence, and its use in the residential school context is either hysterical or meant to gin up hysterical visions of dead children being unceremoniously tossed into a hole in the ground.

In her initial press release, on May 27^th, 2021, Chief Casimir referenced a report entitled ‘Where are the Children buried?’, which was completed by Dr. Scott Hamilton in 2015. The report was only made public following the press release.

According to Dr. Hamilton, records reveal ‘wild fluctuations from year to year’ which may reflect periodic epidemics at the schools, as well as poor record keeping and/or sporadic survival of records.

Archival records, as well as the TRC’s own statistical research, illustrated that the death rate of children (ages 5-14) at residential schools was about 19 times greater than the general population of the same age cohort. These higher death rates persisted until 1945 and thereafter plummeted to levels consistent with the general population.  

In recent interviews, Dr. Hamilton has expressed concern over the press’ use of the term ‘mass grave’, arguing that is misses the point of the situation being presented. Instead, Hamilton argues that what may have been found is a graveyard that accrued the corpses of children – and likely others – for over a century because of truly appalling conditions which led to high rates of devastating disease (like tuberculosis, influenza, and pneumonia) ending in death. Children also died from abuses, and others died whilst running away. However, the main cause of death was disease.

Children who died were buried in simple graveyards often located near the schools, however, sometimes, due to sickness, the staff would be incapable of burying the children on their school grounds, themselves. In these cases, and to ensure proper burial of the deceased, the school would sometimes contract out the burial to a neighbouring community’s undertaker to be buried at their graveyard.

Along with disease, another persistent issue was a lack of Federal funding which precluded sending the bodies home to their families or conducting proper burials.

According to Dr. Hamilton,   

Indian Affairs would only pay for a child’s burial under unusual circumstances, and if it paid, it expected the costs to be kept as low as possible. In this the department conformed to the general practice of the period in the treatment of those who died in institutions. It was not uncommon for hospitals to have cemeteries into which indigent patients were buried, while workhouses for the poor also had cemeteries. Many Canadians ended up in unmarked paupers’ graves.

The graves of the residential school children, and the cemeteries in which they lie, were simple and common; with wooden caskets and wooden crosses for markings which have disintegrated over time because of weather, lack of care, and being long forgotten. Dr. Hamilton also mentions how some residential school staff were worried about run away cattle trampling their cemeteries. All in all, these graves that have been purportedly discovered are not mass graves, and the use of the terminology is wrong and misleading - likely deliberately so given the lack of correction by news media. The graves may not have been initially unmarked since, as stated, their markings have likely been erased by weather and time. Also, most children were not killed, but, sadly, perished due to disease and poor living conditions caused by inadequate housing and funding. Finally, Dr. Hamilton stated that he found no evidence that school officials intended to hide the graves. In fact, according to the documentation, 

Ordinarily the body will be returned to the reserve for burial only when transportation, embalming costs and all other expenses are borne by next of kin. Transportation may be authorized, however, in cases where the cost of burial on the reserve is sufficiently low to make transportation economically advantageous.

Given that the reluctance of the Federal government to supply funds for such treatment and transport, it is unsurprising that many children would not have been returned home. 

All of these point to a long tragic story whose actual details are not nearly as sensational as headlines and activists would have the public believe.  

So, when assessing the facts and comparing them to the claims in the media, I think what we have are claims of exaggerated evils. Now, to say ‘exaggerated evil’ still implies the existence of ‘evil’. The abuse and neglect of children is evil, inhumane separation of children from their families is evil, and the involuntary assimilation of cultures is evil. And I think these can all be stated whilst still assessing the facts and acknowledging the context, motivations, and struggles of the parties involved. Residential schools were a part of a civilising effort that aimed to enfranchise the indigenous peoples of Canada so they could participate and survive in a world that was changing whether they liked it or not. Such a project was aligned with the civilising missions of Western colonial powers that were viewed as being inexorably guided by God and History. Concerns over ‘cultural genocide’ are beyond the scope of this article, and given that the definition of ‘genocide’, itself, is contested, I imagine determinations of cultural genocide will be contested, too.

 

Instances of Religious Hate

Since the discovery of these ‘unmarked graves’, over a dozen churches have been vandalised and numerous others have been set ablaze across Canada. Ten churches in Alberta were vandalised on Canada Day, alone.  

Condemnation of these acts has been tepid at best, with the repetitive chorus being ‘we understand the anger. But this isn’t the way to move forward’.

Arlen Dumas, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said ‘I personally wouldn’t have participated in that. Mind you, it has been a very triggering time over the past few weeks.’

Prime Minister Trudeau stated, ‘It’s real and it is fully understandable given the shameful history we are all become more aware of. I can’t help but think that burning down churches is actually depriving people who are in need of grieving and healing and mourning from places where they can grieve and reflect and look for support.’

A telling response came from a former residential school student who said, ‘[w]hoever is doing this, you're going to wake up a very ugly, evil spirit in this country’.

I would like to ask: how are these arsons and acts of vandalism not being condemned as examples of crimes motivated by religious hatred? These acts are clearly being perpetrated against a well-known religious group in Canada – namely the Catholic Church, but Christianity, in general – a group, in fact, which has been incessantly demonized in the press in recent weeks.

The Criminal Code of Canada says a ‘hate crime is one in which hate is the motive and can involve intimidation, harassment, physical force or threat of physical force against a person, a group or a property.’ The victims and/or their property are targeted for who they are, not because of anything they have done.

Well, given that no one in the targeted communities actually did anything in the residential schools, these attacks on churches obviously fit the bill. However, perhaps the perpetrators and their apologists would argue that the ‘genocide’ is still ongoing and that the Catholic Church, as well as individual Christians, who are not sufficiently upset by the findings are complicit in it. After all, ‘just because you didn’t actually do anything in residential schools doesn’t mean that you have nothing to do with it.’ The trap gets sprung and guilt is imposed – no evidence needed.

One can easily point to instances of double-standards at play, and so I encourage you, dear reader, to think of your own examples.

Now, I’m no fan of hate crime laws. But I’m also not a fan of inconsistent application of law. If hate-motivated crimes exist in this country, and if a perpetrator can be motivated by religious hatred, then surely these attacks on churches count as such crimes. The cowardice of our ‘leaders’ causing them not apply equal standards in quite evident.

 

Attempts at European Erasure

The acts of vandalism and arson are clearly motivated by anti-Christian hate, and Christianity is a proxy for European. How so? Because the attacks are not limited to churches but extended outward to signifiers of European heritage.

As is to be expected, statues and monuments of prominent figures in European Canadian history were vandalised on Canada Day. There were also calls to ‘cancel’ Canada Day – and some municipalities did just that.

A statue of Queen Victoria at the Manitoba Legislature was toppled by protestors, as was a statue of Queen Elizabeth II.  

Activists in Victoria, British Columbia also knocked down a statue of Captain James Cook and tossed it in the city’s harbour.

Sir John A. MacDonald’s gravesite in Kingston, Ontario was vandalised. His statue at Kingston Park has been previously removed on June 18^th, 2021.

Names of buildings, neighbourhoods, and roads are being petitioned for removal and replacement, and the list goes on.

One person who has been making the rounds in the news media is Niigaan Sinclair. For Niigaan, there hasn’t been a statue of a European Canadian that he hasn’t wanted torn down. He is a man who is fighting for his people, and I respect that, though I don’t respect his duplicity.

When asked about the toppling of the statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II Niigaan responded, ‘[l]et's get some scope here. A statue being re-altered or edited or vandalized, whatever you want to call it, is nowhere near the kind of scope [of violence] that Indigenous peoples continue to experience every day… [W]e saw a peaceful indicator of change in our community. And I think that's a cause for celebration’.

Well, that is one way someone can frame what’s going on here. But I think there is a more appropriate framing - one that does not rely on a ‘altered’, ‘edited’ or ‘vandalized’ post-modern version of history.

So, let’s get some scope here: what we are seeing are belligerent mobs engaging in vandalism and property destruction of elements of European heritage in this country in a bid to engage in an undemocratic and hostile take-over of the public square. These belligerents are also backed by a sympathetic consent-generating apparatus made up of academia, news media, and some politicians.

Prime Minister Trudeau, for instance, stated:

‘Even as I was speaking with people who chose to wear red and white [on Canada Day] instead of orange, they were reflecting on how their fellow citizens are hurting, how we need to respect and understand that not everyone felt like celebrating yesterday. Celebrating was the last thing on the minds of many many people in this country for whom we need to do better.’

One thing that ‘we’ can do better is developing confidence in ourselves and our history and standing up for both.

We are simultaneously told that we need to acknowledge our ‘true’ history whilst also respecting calls for representations of that history to be torn down and erased from the public square because they serve as reminders of past oppression.

Such attitudes are hinted at in the contemporary monikers of 'settler Canadian' or 'coloniser' - which attempt to reach back to the past and imbue today's European Canadians with the stain of generations long past.

We are told that we should be aware of the trauma that gets passed from generation to generation, however, we are also told that 'we' need to learn the 'uncomfortable truths' about our history, and to learn 'what it really is'. Indeed, so why, then, should the statues come down? If 'we' are to learn of our complicated history, then having memorials to it better serves that purpose than not.

The history of the residential schools is fraught with horror but declaring mea culpa over and over without accompanying action only intensifies tension between groups by amplifying certain negative aspects of the past whilst also engendering a permanent state of grievance.

That is the final olive branch.

A less gentle response also presents itself: why acquiesce to the offence that some people feel towards statues, names, or monuments anyway? I think we should reject this acquiesce wholeheartedly.

National identity and its symbols should not be left up to the dictates and whims of the capital, the government, let alone the mob.

National identity is retained by old and inherited sentiments of belong and tradition and it is cultivated through the consideration and practice of those who share in it. It is not bought, imported, or signed into existence on a sheet of paper. It is not universal or borderless; there particularities and there are sides. It is also personal, rooted and deeply normative. Challenges to it from the ‘outside’ must be seen as challenges to all these things – especially if they are cloaked in the language of social justice and equity. (For a more detailed assessment, feel free to check out my article: Statues, Legacy, and Sanitising the Public Square)

These people who wish to tear down monuments and the like are not working towards some collective emancipation that will be shared by all. Instead, they are severing people from their past in a way that remedies how they view their own past was torn from their ancestors. It is not about justice. It is about vengeance.

Every piece of art, every legacy of exploration, history, militarism, and religion will be deemed as enforcing white supremacy. As such, to live in such a society and see these elements of worthy of remembrance and not trauma is an example of white privilege.

What exactly does this entail? I take it to mean that the history, society, culture, and benefits that we, descendants of Europe have accrued from our ancestors is illegitimate. I see no reason to accept this.

It is not an argument in good faith, but rather is meant to manipulate empathy and good will to self-destructive ends.