Tag: Women’s March

Airing, rejecting bad ideas

Hundreds of thousands of women and allies marched in cities all over North America Saturday, bringing people from across the spectrum together to stand for equality and justice. It was the third annual network of women’s marches that sprang out of the shock and alarm after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

To ensure that the nearly spontaneous eruption of resistance to the direction of American (and world) politics was more than lightning in a bottle, a movement was solidified in the form of Women’s March Inc. This body, led by a small group of activists who quickly gained international fame and recognition, not only came to helm one of the most remarkable new grassroots movements in American history, they also became central figures in the cadre of leftist, socialist and progressive political activists that is loosely defined as “the resistance.”

Unfortunately – or, perhaps, fortunately, for reasons we’ll explain – the small group of Women’s March leaders has recently been beset by controversy. In a book-length analysis last month, Tablet magazine reconstructed accounts of the earliest hours of the march movement – including the marginalization of Jewish women who were there at the start and the assertion, apparently made in one of the earliest meetings, that “white Jews” were partly responsible for “white supremacy.”

Additionally, some of the leaders of Women’s March Inc. are associated with Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam and an unrepentant Jew-hater and Hitler admirer who last month capped a career of antisemitic rhetoric by declaring Jews “satanic.” Tamika Mallory, one of the most visible faces of the march movement, has referred to Farrakhan as “the GOAT” – the greatest of all time.

These developments led march organizers in various cities to disassociate their marches from Women’s March Inc. While some figures tried to patch over or reconcile divergences within the movement, such efforts were undermined by top leaders, including Mallory, who appeared on national TV the Monday before Saturday’s marches. She defended her position on Israel and Palestine. She declared “the Palestinians are native to the land,” and that “there are people who have a number of sort of ideologies around why the Jewish people feel this should be their land. I’m not Jewish. So for me to speak to that is not fair.” She’s not Palestinian, either, her interviewer noted, yet she had no qualms defending Palestinians’ right to national self-determination.

At a time when another organization might aim for conciliation, Women’s March Inc. leaders seemed to double down on their troubles. In her keynote speech to the march in Washington Saturday, Linda Sarsour, another leading figure, expressed support for the BDS movement. While she had, earlier, finally rejected Farrakhan’s antisemitism and homophobia, her decision to use her limited time on stage to focus on BDS – an issue peripheral at best to the women’s movement – suggests she is not finished enflaming tensions with Jewish people.

Notably, attendance was down at rallies across the continent, including here in Vancouver. There could be a range of explanations – Trump-fatigue, weather – but certainly some Jewish and non-Jewish women were motivated to stay away because of the association of march leaders with bad ideas.

Within the loose affiliation of “resistance” figures, several of the individuals elected to the U.S. Congress in November’s midterm elections have made themselves known for statements about Israel and Palestine. One of the freshmen, Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, came under criticism for a 2012 social media post in which she wrote: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” She has since said that she didn’t understand the implications in her choice of words.

Another new legislator, Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, made her entry into Washington known by displaying a map of the world with a Post-it note with the word “Palestine” covering Israel.

These examples – and there are more – are disheartening. That these ideas have moved from the recesses of crackpot online discussion forums and into Congress, into one of the most significant grassroots organizations and, apparently, into a significant swath of the Democratic party, is certainly concerning. But there is a silver lining: it also allows us to openly confront the trend and, perhaps, to gain allies in opposing it.

When we talk about the need to shine light on dark crevices of bigotry, this is exactly what we mean. Social media has, for better or worse, allowed anyone with any views to broadcast them. In the chaotic network of the internet, there is no practical, central force for contesting bigotry and other bad ideas. When those ideas and expressions seep into institutions like Women’s March Inc., Congress or, even more noticeably, the U.K. Labour party, this presents an opportunity unavailable elsewhere. It is a chance to bring these issues out in the open and contest them in the light of day. Among other things, it forces people with power and influence to make a choice.

Among those who made choices in recent weeks – the choice to withdraw as sponsors of Women’s March Inc. – are prominent individuals and organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, the Southern Poverty Law Centre, the women’s political action group EMILY’s List, the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, the pro-choice organization NARAL, the Centre for American Progress, and Amnesty International.

This is the kind of unified voice we need: a concerted rejection of antisemitism or Jew-baiting or Israel-bashing that has emerged as a force in important places.

When will it be enough?

For a people who make up a fraction of one percent of the world’s population, Jews sure do gather a lot of attention and get credit for an extraordinary amount of bad doings on the planet.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who evidence suggests directly meddled in American politics and is partly (if not entirely) responsible for Donald Trump’s election, said maybe it was “Jews” who meddled in the election.

Why wouldn’t he? It’s a strategy that has worked in Europe for centuries. In trouble? Look around. Find a Jew. Blame them.

About the same time, Trump was giving a farewell address to Gary Cohn, his erstwhile chief economic adviser, who resigned last week because of disagreements over tariff policy.

In his toast to Cohn, Trump said: “He may be a globalist but I still like him.” An untrained ear could hear the president’s remarks and assume Cohn is a free trade proponent in an administration filled with economic protectionists. But anyone familiar with alt-right radio broadcasts and white supremacist dialectics knows exactly what it means: Jew.

Jonathan Greenblatt, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, says the term was adopted in extremist and white supremacist circles as a euphemism for a stereotype of someone engaged in a global conspiracy. And the president of the United States feels confident he can use it with impunity.

Also at the same time – because fighting antisemitism these days is rather like the carnival game Whack-a-Mole – the leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, was found to have been an active participant on a hidden Facebook page called Palestine Live, where overt antisemitism, Holocaust denial and white supremacism were rampant. He even hosted an event at Westminster for the leaders of the secret group. Now, confronted with his past association with it, Corbyn’s response is, essentially, “What? I didn’t see any antisemitism. I don’t spend all day reading social media.” This comes as Corbyn’s supporters are being investigated for and purged from his party by the head office over seemingly incessant expressions of Jew-hatred and repetition of classical antisemitism. A glance at the evidence being presented online by anti-hate wings of the Labour party include every imaginable accusation against Jews – and plenty more that are beyond the imaginings of a healthy mind.

Then there is Louis Farrakhan. The head of the American-based Nation of Islam held his annual Saviour’s Day event in late February. There, Farrakhan declared Jews his enemy, “the mother and father of apartheid,” claimed that Jews have chemically induced homosexuality in black men through marijuana and are “responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behaviour that Hollywood is putting out, turning men into women and women into men.” He added: “When you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door.” Most chilling, and self-aggrandizingly, he declared: “Farrakhan … has pulled the cover off the eyes of that Satanic Jew, and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.”

Oddly, rather than holding Farrakhan to account for his words, perhaps because that is deemed a futile endeavour, most of the fallout has been around the association leaders of the Women’s March have with Farrakhan. Individuals like Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory have attended Saviour’s Day events and refused to condemn Farrakhan’s latest broadside on Jews. The march organization issued a statement, saying that his words were “not aligned with the Women’s March Unity Principles.” (By contrast, organizers of the Women’s March in Canada issued an unequivocal repudiation of Farrakhan and his remarks.)

Yet another notable incident happened recently. Residents of the Montreal borough of Outremont attended a public meeting to complain about a network of buses used by their Chassidic neighbours. Some of their complaints seemed justified. It appears the buses cause congestion on neighbourhood streets. But some of the residents appeared at the meeting wearing strips of yellow tape on their clothing. The allusion was obvious to anyone. This was meant to invoke the Nazi “Jude” star.

Some residents defended their choice, saying, effectively, “What? No! The yellow tape represents the buses that are disturbing our neighbourhood.” But one forgot to follow the script. “[The Jews] always bring up their painful past,” Ginette Chartre said. “They do it to muzzle us.”

In this month’s issue of The Atlantic, Armando Iannucci, an acute political observer who created the satirical TV program Veep and the recent film The Death of Stalin, noted: “Things are being said now that you wouldn’t have tolerated 10 year ago.”

As we approach Passover, we reflect on our history and celebrate our freedom. It is simplistic and insufficient to say that history and freedom have seen their ups and downs. But this time of year does invite us to put today’s events in a broader context. As much as the situation has worsened for us, we are not the only targeted minority, and oppressors to rival Pharaoh still abound. When we toast to next year in Jerusalem, we might also add wishes for the strength and wisdom to help bring about a tipping point at which people of goodwill say “Enough!” – and work even harder to ensure that our better natures win out.