Anti-Semitic Firebombings in Montreal: Really Combating Racism

    Anti-Semitic Firebombings in Montreal: Really
Combating Racism.

Macdonald Stainsby

     Prime Minister Paul Martin, Quebec Premier Jean Charest and others 
have stepped out of their usual role of slashing social spending, giving 
insurance salesman smiles and cutting ribbons on new stretches of pavement 
to instead deliver an impassioned denunciation of recent anti-Semitic 
firebombings in Montreal. And it's a good thing to see. I can't help but 
wonder, however, is it a sign of their own racism that they didn't do this 
when hate crimes swept every corner of the state north of the 49th 
parallel? Is it only political opportunism in response to a powerful 
Zionist lobby, rather than any real condemnation of anti-Semitism or 
concern for Jewish people living in Montreal?
     Where was the just outrage when, in the wake of 9-11-01, many North 
American racists burned down everything ignorance could associate with 
'vengeance' for the Twin Towers? Less than ten days after September 11, 
racist attacks had occurred on Mosques in St Catherines and Oshawa, while a 
Hindu Samaj Temple in Hamilton was firebombed in a display of a frightening 
combination of xenophobia and fanaticism? While the frenzied hatred that 
came out of the mosaic of 'multi-culturalism' that we so carefully 
constructed might have died down, the reaffirmation of white supremacy 
remains. When the continent as a whole became engulfed, did politicians 
then state, as Martin has, that the firebombings were “...an act of 
violence directed at all Canadians and one to which we must all 
collectively respond”?
     I am seldom in agreement with Paul Martin on anything, but on this I 
partially concur. However, what is problematic is what is clearly the 
identification of “Canadian”.
     Immediately following the attacks of 9-11, regardless of the passport 
and 'official' status the persons might maintain, 'dark-skinned' people 
could be attacked and lynched with pretty much impunity. When people want 
to rationalize this wave of attacks, they immediately think how 'it makes 
sense' in the context of the plane attacks on New York and Washington, and 
how revenge attacks, even on false targets, makes some form of rational 
sense. However, let me assure all that this too contains a seed of racism: 
what if not a far greater human tragedy have the Arab and Muslim population 
lived the last 30 plus years?
     The implicit assumption that is to be made over the last week, in the 
tone of Canadian political officialdom, has been to 'identify' with the 
targets of hatred. And we must. But the form of identification is itself 
racist-- by being so very vigilant about these attacks, and speaking nary a 
word over attacks of the same variety on different 'Canadians'. This in 
itself reinforces the definition of Canadian as one collection of peoples, 
from white Europe or associated with various settler colonies, and then 
'others' from Chinese 'boat people' to Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and other 
mere tolerated guests. Even swearing loyalty to the British Queen and 
taking citizenship doesn't get you 'in the club' in Canada, you are born 
with it or you don't get it.   So it is of no real comfort to me that 
Jewish people have been given honorary membership in the white supremacist 
settler colony.
     The brave voices after the towers collapsed were few among us, and 
they were not among the leaders or politicians. But some of us did ask 
“what might have caused any to do this?” and the answer was never pretty. 
Such an asking is not a matter of justification, it is part of a quest for 
answers and ultimately a way out. Such a question must now also be asked 
but not in order to merely rout one particularly vile form of inhumanity in 
anti-Semitism, but in order to deal hammer blows to the concept of racism 
itself, in all of the cultural and structural forms.
     Structural racism is one of the most visible, if one has not been 
trained not to see it. It leads to and props up all of the cultural norms 
that are only symptomatic. While people have given much space to the 
problems of murderous force coming from the Israeli state in the form of 
housing demolitions, live ammunition to break up demonstrations  or 
extra-judicial murder of resistance leaders among Palestinians in the 
Occupied Territories, one tends to forget that the population of 
Palestinians is over two-thirds refugees. The reason this bears repeating 
is not in the moral suasion realm, though it certainly could be. The reason 
is that this refugee 'problem', this result of ethnic cleansing, is the 
strongest foundation (but not the only perpetuation) of the entire racist 
dynamic engulfing Muslims, Arabs and Jews. When 80% of the population of a 
region are denied their full humanity, and not allowed the same rights as 
afforded, on paper at least, every other peoples in the world then that 
racism creates a counter supremacy. In the case of Israel, structurally 
that has created an internal Jewish supremacy. International law is clear 
on the treatment of refugees, they have the full right of return to their 
homes and so do their descendants, and this right is non-representative nor 
collective but individually based.
      The state of Israel understands the problems of legal equality and as 
such can not write a proper constitution. For in modern law, a constitution 
would render Israel non-existent, as the equality of all humans before the 
law would dissolve the Jewish State concept.
     Zionism, like all political forms that elevate the status of one 
peoples at the expense of the basic individual human rights of others, will 
cease being acceptable or else one can not realistically combat the 
anti-Semitism now sweeping much of 'Canada' and elsewhere; Zionism has 
institutionalized both anti-Semitism and Jewish supremacy structurally. 
That is simply because anti-Semitism must be de-politicized; we do not 
respond with revulsion against anti-Semitism in the one-sided and 
implicitly racist way that political leaders did in and around Montreal 
this week: It wasn't an attack on 'our values', and we shouldn't identify 
with the target because it was directed against Jews, but because it was 
the lowest form of vulgar racism period. It isn't because Israel and Canada 
share the same fate that we should reject hatred, though such a statement 
is true, however. Both Canada and Israel live on a pillar of racism, from 
the structural definitions of who is and who is not a citizen to the theft 
of resources from indigenous populations. The most important link we must 
make is the link between a fight against anti-Semitism and a struggle 
against all forms of racists. This will include both a struggle for the 
rights of Palestinians in North America and a struggle to divest from and 
isolate Israeli Apartheid, before that failed national experiment in 
structural racism drowns all in a typhoon of reaction.
     One government statement included the note that this was a “racist 
hate crime”. Good to hear, if only they understood what that meant, but of 
course that's not really possible within the confines of this settler 
state. Racism is constantly on display, one only need look at who is being 
deported from 'Canada'. One could look to Guantanamo Bay, or to prisons on 
both sides of the 49th holding refugees, and one could look to laws that 
have made it illegal for people with a Canadian Passport to have Arab 
language television beamed into their homes.
     Paul Martin was at his oratorial best the other day as he denounced 
the acts of anti-Semitism in play burning Montreals United Talmud Torah 
elementary. He declared “that there are perils to silence and consequences 
to indifference.” That's definitely something I can agree with him about. 
However, his most oft-quoted statement after the fires raged in the school 
was the headline of the Globe and Mail's front page. It read “This is not 
our Canada”. Oh, but it is Paul, it is as Canadian as the reservation 
system, immigration quotas and colonialism itself.

-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
         --Brecht.


-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
		--Brecht.



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