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April 6, 2001
Passover edition
The Social Credit's darker side
Canadian Jewish Congress cut its teeth fighting Socreds, says
author.
PAT JOHNSON REPORTER
The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) cut its teeth battling
institutionalized anti-Semitism in the early Social Credit movement.
And though it lost the battle against Social Credit, it learned
invaluable lessons for its ongoing war against intolerance in this
country.
That is the opinion of Dr. Janine Stingel, an author and historian
who spoke at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre last month.
In her book Social Discredit: Anti-Semitism, Social Credit and
the Jewish Response, Stingel outlines the efforts of the CJC
to confront the stereotypes of Jewish power and financial control
that were being perpetrated by the Social Credit government of Alberta
and its federal cousin from the 1930s onward. She spoke to the Bulletin
while visiting Vancouver; she lives in Ottawa.
Stingel has a personal interest in the issue, as an Alberta native
and a high school student in a nearby town when Jim Keegstra was
teaching anti-Semitic "history" in Eckville, Alta. Her
first university paper was on what Stingel calls Canada's "triumvirate
of hate": Keegstra, Ernst Zundel and Malcolm Ross. The issue
continued to concern her and the book is a version of her PhD thesis,
which she completed at McGill University.
William Aberhart, leader of Social Credit in Alberta, swept to power
in the 1935 election. Stingel outlines the elaborate economic and
social theories underlying Social Credit from its roots in England
to its appropriation as a Prairie populist movement in Canada. Although
there were very few Jews in Alberta at the time, the concept of
a worldwide Jewish conspiracy overseeing the entire economic order
made Jews fine scapegoats for the Alberta leader. A Christian minister
and radio evangelist, Aberhart was able to whip up enthusiasm and
make straw dogs out of the mythical Jewish menace.
It would be simplistic to suggest that anti-Semitism resulted in
the election of Social Credit to power in Alberta. In the heart
of the Depression dustbowl, Aberhart promised every adult citizen
with $25 a month in scrip (the "social credit" which gave
the movement its name), though throwing in a whack of anti-Semitism
probably didn't hurt the campaign. Canada's Supreme Court later
ruled the $25 scheme unconstitutional.
Social Credit publications propagated typical Jew-baiting propaganda.
Aberhart bought into the theories of Social Credit's English founder,
Maj. C.H. Douglas, who blamed the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease
in the 1940s - and the British government's efforts to control it
through mass slaughtering of all infected cattle - as a "Jewish-socialist
plot" against English cattle owners.
Using his own words, Aberhart melded his Christian fervor with Douglas's
political conspiracies to create a stereotypical portrayal of the
financial system.
"[T]he principles of the old-line politicians and their henchmen
are like those of the man who betrayed the Christ," Aberhart
said. "Gold was his god and millions have suffered because
of it. The moneychangers upheld his right and crucified the Christ
and they have been crucifying everyone since who follows in the
steps of the Savior."
In a similar vein, Solon Low, the provincial treasurer, had some
advice for Jews in combatting anti-Semitism.
"[A]nti-Semitism is spreading," he said, "because
people cannot fail to observe that a disproportionate number of
Jews occupy positions of control in international finance, in revolutionary
activities and in some propaganda institutions, the common policy
of which is the centralization of power and the perversion of religious
and cultural ideals."
Ending anti-Semitism, he said, would require Jews to denounce those
"arch-criminals" in their midsts who are responsible for
these initiatives.
This argument would continue for years, with the CJC calling on
Social Credit to reject its anti-Semitism, and Social Crediters
responding that they would be happy to do so as soon as the CJC
rejects the perpetrators of world domination, and so it went.
Later, in 1947, when Low was federal leader of the Social Credit
party, he used a national CBC broadcast to lambaste "the international
power maniacs who aim to destroy Christianity" and the "international
gangsters who are day-to-day scheming for world revolution."
He also couldn't resist the "close tie-up between international
communism, international finance and international political Zionism."
Originally, the CJC paid little attention to the Alberta phenomenon.
With the vast majority of Canada's Jewish population situated in
Montreal, Toronto and, to a lesser extent, Winnipeg, Congress was
dealing with issues closer to these areas. There were outbreaks
of anti-Semitism throughout the Depression and war era that could
have kept the CJC officials busy. But Stingel credits the relentless
lobbying of Winnipegger Louis Rosenberg with forcing the CJC to
face the threat presented by Social Credit.
Stingel points out that, while anti-Semitic sparks were emerging
throughout the country at the time, they differed from the Social
Credit experience, which represented an institutionalization of
Jew-hatred within a legitimately elected Canadian government.
In 1947, the anti-Semitism of Alberta's Social Credit government
began to be recognized as a liability. With the boom of the post-war
years, economic scapegoating lost its cachet. The backwater anti-Semitism
became even more anachronistic when the oil resources turned Alberta
from a "have-not" province to an economic powerhouse.
At that time, Aberhart's successor, Ernest Manning, initiated a
purge of anti-Semites in the party ranks, though the CJC viewed
the purge - as Stingel does today - as a politically expedient and
cosmetic change. In fact, there is reason to believe that the purge
had as much to do with internal power plays between the federal
and Alberta branches of the party as it did with any moral distaste
for bigotry.
Manning's opponents in the party declared that he had joined the
side of the Zionists. In Quebec, Réal Caouette, who would
become the de facto leader of the francophone Socred rump, declared
that the party had been taken over by "those who aspire to
establish a world Jewish and Freemasonry government."
During this time, of course, some of the realities of the Holocaust
were coming to world attention and suggestions of a world order
governed by Jews seemed, as Stingel wryly puts it, "ill-timed."
It was far more expedient for the party to jump the gun on the Cold
War and zero in on international communism, which they had previously
attacked alongside "international Jewry" all along.
Stingel notes that the provincial Social Credit party in British
Columbia was Social Credit in name only; really just a convenient
label used by W.A.C. Bennett as a vehicle to oppose the established
parties.
Although Social Credit still exists and emphasizes a Christian perspective
on politics, it has ceased to be a force in Canadian politics at
federal or provincial levels. Stingel laments that Manning has gone
down in the annals as the man who purged the anti-Semites from Social
Credit, something she considers a generous assessment from what
she knows of the machinations around the issue.
She also sees a direct ideological (and blood) relationship between
Social Credit and the Reform party/Canadian Alliance, which was
formed by Ernest Manning's son, Preston. She will address the political
similarities in an essay this summer in the academic journal Canadian
Jewish Studies titled "From father to son."
Stingel concludes that this turn of events has little to do with
the CJC's best efforts, but rather to a combination of forces, including
the loss of a need for scapegoating in a "have" province.
The happier ending to this story, she concludes, is that Canadian
Jewish Congress learned from the Socred experience how to battle
defamation at the highest levels. Though its efforts against the
Social Credit party took much energy and saw limited tangible results,
it was a proving ground that has helped make the CJC one of Canada's
foremost fighters against intolerance wherever it rears its head.
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