Shades of Angry

The contoversy over the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammed continues to rage. At least two people died in Pakistan yesterday as unrest there escalated:

Thousands rampaged Tuesday through two Pakistani cities to protest cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, burning buildings housing a hotel, banks and a KFC and breaking windows at a Holiday Inn and a Pizza Hut.

In Canada, the conservative magazine Western Standard – the “independent voice of the new west”, in their words – published the cartoons, prompting the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed Elmasry, to label their publication a hate crime, according to several publications (I have not been able to find a direct quote attributed to Elmasry that includes phrases like “hate crime” or “hate literature”, I’m taking reports that he made these sort of comments on faith, perhaps unwisely).

Ezra Levant, the magazine’s editor, responded with the freedom of speech argument and by calling Elmasry an “idiot”, several times.

The natural complement to the freedom of speech defense appears to be insults, something convincingly demonstrated on the blog of this self-described conservative. This post starts by lamenting the state of “individual freedom” in Canada, then labels Muslims who oppose the publication of the cartoons (in this case, entirely peacefully) as “barbarians”, and says that

Muslims riot. Muslims burn. Muslims rampage. And Muslims get their way.

Which is followed by a series of inflammatory and insulting comments that, ironically, include an incitement to violence in the jihadist tradition: “Time to stop pussy footing around and eliminate this leadership. Cut the head off the snake, the body dies.”

My point is not to bring up previous arguments. My point is to illustrate the connection between the opinions and commentary of some Canadian conservatives and Ezra Levant’s decision to print the cartoons in the conservative Western Standard.

Simply put, this is deliberate provocation, the inflaming of what one article calls “a proxy for the Clash of Civilizations”.

In Canada, this takes on a new dimension, one that is closely linked to the recent election of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party. For some time now, I’ve been sensing a deliberate campaign to polarize political debate the same way it’s happened in the United States.

American politics is firmly entrenched in a war between two opposing ideological camps, the left and the right. Alevo has good insight into this:

[A]ny ideology stretched too far is dangerous…the world is not composed of ideological teams: the left, the right, the Christians, the Muslims. There is no prize to be won folks.

[Too often], people’s observations rely entirely on the assumption that a political left, or political right operates as a coherent stream of uniform thought.

The right has succeeded in demonizing their opponents to the point that the term liberal has become an epithet. Many American liberals now reject liberal in favour of progressive.

The book Rescuing Canada’s Right, which I haven’t read, but which claims to be a “blueprint for a conservative revolution” in Canada, includes, among other advice, “What Canadian conservatives can learn from the American and British experiences”. If there is anything to be learned, it is this: by polarizing debate, thrusting one’s opponents into ideological “teams” and resorting to false populism and jingoistic patriotism, one can win elections.

Canada’s Muslims aren’t terribly influential, nor are they militant. Insulting Muslims here isn’t meant to provoke a clash between them and Canadian non-Muslims. Instead, it’s aimed at provoking a clash between Canada’s numerous liberals and newly confident conservatives.

One problem with the attempt to paint moderate Canadians as Islamist-sympathizers who’d rather appease bin Laden than defend free speech is that a lot of paint has ended up splashed on conservatives in the process. And the shades – which run from matte bigot to semi-glossy xenophobe – aren’t too flattering.

Another problem is that for a strategy like this to work, Canadian liberals need to take the bait, which means responding in kind. Some do and some don’t. My hope is that most don’t, so that Canadians see two sides to this debate, one that is calm and thoughtful, the other that is angry, intolerant and proudly anti-intellectual.