There was apprehension ahead of the Paris Olympics about urban unrest. The banlieues of Paris erupt in violent riots from time to time. The poor suburbs were last aflame in July 2023. What if it happened again this summer?
Thankfully, Paris was peaceful. The riots were across the Channel in England, where mobs rampaged in the streets of multiple cities. The violence edged toward mass murder, with attempts to block the doors at hotels housing migrants — before setting them alight. This particular lawless violence is an foul expression of “white identity” politics, driven in part by racism and hatred of Muslims. Hence the brick-throwing at mosques.
There’s more to it than bigotry. Decades of neglect and social decay have contributed to the current eruptions.
“The scenes have been horrifying, but somehow not surprising,” writes Andrew MacDougall in The Line. “Something like this has felt inevitable for some time. While the recent brutal murders are what set this off, it has been fuelled by a series of governments not only ignoring the tinder and undergrowth that has been accumulating on British soil, but adding to it as well.”
When the ethnic minority banlieues are set aflame, there is widespread attention to the underlying social dynamics — “the tinder and undergrowth.” So when that lethal virus infects the white majority in parts of Britain, identifying the tinder is to be expected, even as the lethal violence and hatred is condemned unequivocally — as MacDougall does.
Instead of the attention to decreases in manufacturing jobs and increases in immigration, I suggest Canadians be attentive to one specific part of that flammable undergrowth.
When the police lose control of the streets and public spaces to one set of protesters, agitators, occupiers, vandals and aggressors, another set will eventually follow. If antisemitic marauders are more or less permitted to run wild — or sit wild, in the case of campus occupations — then others will take note.
Americans learned that lesson the hard way. Many who characterized the Black Lives Matter riots as “mostly peaceful” in the summer of 2020 were less inclined to characterize the assault on the U.S. Capitol as “mostly peaceful.”
Tit for tat is no justification, but those of all kinds who would disturb the peace pay attention when the police seem unwilling or unable to keep the peace.
Britain has had its share of Muslim riots and disorder that seemed beyond the capacity of the police to put down. Now come the anti-Muslim riots.
Are there lessons for Canada?
Surely. For months since the Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israeli-Hamas war, a motley crew of peace activists, Hamas sympathizers and outright Jew haters have been allowed remarkable latitude in the blockades and occupations of public spaces. The failure to deal adequately with anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish lawlessness will have other consequences.
Who’s next we do not know. That some group will be next is likely. If it has happened in Britain and America, why not here?
Consider analogous circumstances. In 2020, some Indigenous protesters and sympathizers blockaded railways in protest of pipelines. In response, Alberta passed the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, with heavy penalties for blocking rail lines, highways and the like.
In 2023, the law was used to charge not environmental blockages of railways, but pandemic protesters blocking the border crossing at Coutts.
The trucker convoy that blockaded downtown Ottawa in 2022 took inspiration in part from Indigenous and environmental activists who had staged occupations and blockades stretching back more than 30 years.
Different priorities, different politics, similar tactics.
Canada has not suffered the degree of property damage and lives lost as have Britain and the United States. But that is not a reason for complacency.
Just this past week a group of about 40 protesters blocked the on-ramp of the busy Gardiner Expressway in Toronto. Some motorists likely considered men clad in masks and approaching their cars to be menacing and were thus disinclined to stop. Police arrested one motorist who collided with protesters, although no charges were laid. The protesters were not charged for blocking the highway.
Then there was this interesting note: “Police would not confirm what the protest was about.”
It appeared to be a “pro-Palestine” demonstration, to no great surprise.
The police more or less tolerated the blockade of moving traffic on an active highway and did not arrest those who did it. They did arrest the driver whom the protesters impeded. Those who are broadly sympathetic to “pro-Palestine” activists might consider that the right response. It’s not, and next month, next year, another group might take note of the response this week and blockade and menace traffic coming out of a mosque. That, writ large, is partly what is happening in Britain.
Canadians would be foolish to think that it cannot happen here.
National Post