Shree Paradkar writes that the Right "have successfully co-opted a noble ideal of liberty for all into a vehicle for far-right grievances to mean the opposite: liberty for a few at the cost of many."
There are all kinds of symbols and outrages at this protest:
Let us for a moment, pretend that this is a protest that’s purely about freedoms. Let us pretend that the swastikas and white extremist flags that [Frank] Stronach denounced in his piece in the Star, but not in the Post, are just bad elements to be found at every protest.
Let’s pretend that HH at this rally truly stands for #HonkHonk and in any case, is cancelled out by the one guy who said on American TV that Canada’s mandates “were like Hitler’s Germany and we’re like the Jews, eh.” Let’s pretend that one of the funding organizers, Pat King, isn’t a known racist or doesn’t go on Islamophobic rants of a plan by non-white people to “depopulate Anglo-Saxons.”
Even if we ignore all these, what freedoms have been taken away?
What freedom is being eroded? Whose freedom? Those protesting say it can mean being asked for vaccine passports. Being shut in a lockdown. Being asked to wear a mask. Being asked to follow any public health measures at all. It all depends on whom you ask. But it looks like people who have the freedom to seek the dissolution of government, freedom to lay siege on the capital city and freedom to gather without fear of authorities feel they’re more hard done by than other Canadians.
When did science-based regulations for societal safety mean an unjustifiable lack of freedom? Are speed limits on roads government overreach? Being asked to drive on the right side of the street? Wearing seatbelts? Wearing helmets on bike rides?
When did freedom go from a humanitarian liberatory idea to a self-centred one? From an inclusive idea to a nationalist one?
The Right has been trying to rewrite recent history. Now they're trying to rewrite the dictionary.
Image: The Guardian
