A Wolf in Sheep‘s Clothing: The “Freedom” Convoy
The Convoy is a Wolf in Sheeps Clothing
Many of the people in our community have sent messages asking for OCP to cover this issue. We hope to get a post to you soon, but tbh, it's triggering AF and is taking a lot longer than anticipated to write.
Some of you seem to think we'd be siding with those "fighting for freedom," as if this accounts belief in justice for the Black, Indigenous, Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim and human rights, equates to whatever this convoy stands for.
It's hard to read those messages. So many of the people on our project are from marginalized communities, and having someone equate not wanting to get a vaccine to the mass atrocities white supremacy and colonization have had on marginalized communities has left us literally sick to our stomachs.
Left: A supporter of the 'Freedom Convoy' carries a Confederate flag outside the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. Center: A truck blockading the road outside the Office of the Prime Minister in Ottawa bears a message for Justin Trudeau. Right: Canadians in Edmonton, Alberta, show off their politics at a rally in support of the convoy on Feb. 5. | Photos: via CPC; Justin Tang / The Canadian Press via AP; and Jason Franson / The Canadian Press via AP
The reality is that it is not the same thing. It means that over the past few years, while the rest of Canada was finally waking up to the realities of anti-Black racism and the genocide of Indigenous people on Turtle Island, there was a group of people who just fundamentally did not understand the assignment, and an even more sinister group that decided to capitalize on that - the alt-right extremists.
Here's the thing, maybe some people genuinely didn't get the assignment because the vast majority of Canadians weren't taught in our publically funded schools about systemic oppression in the way that we should have been. Want proof? How many of you were actually taught about what really happened in residential 'schools'? How many of you were taught about the ongoing genocide of Indigenous people by this country?
So we can almost understand why this 'assignment' might have been incredibly difficult because so many people were simply not given the tools.
So while we fundamentally disagree with why these people are protesting, we do believe that most people are good, so there must be good people at this protest fighting for a cause they think is genuine.
The problem is, even if there are good people there, many of the leaders and organizers of the convoy come from the alt-right movement. A movement that fundamentally upholds white supremacist ideologies. By now, we've all seen the confederate flag, swastikas, and other fucked up xenophobic and racist stuff has been proudly shown off by this convoy. It begs the question, if you are fighting for your rights, then what the fuck does the confederate flag have to do with this?
Listen, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Even if that duck tells you it's actually fighting for freedom and definitely not a duck, it is a duck.
Let's pivot to another part of this issue - the apparent reason everyone is gathered is to protest against the vaccine mandate. Fine, fair, we don't agree with you, but in theory, we should all have the right to peacefully protest (though in practice, only white people have this right but let's just skip by that for a second).
It is one thing to fight for your freedoms or peacefully protest an issue you disagree with. It's an entirely different thing to compare you passing on a life-saving vaccine that parts of the world don't even have access to during a global pandemic to the experience of Jewish people during the Holocaust.
A vaccine mandate isn't a violation of your rights. It just isn't. We're sorry if you were banking on that to be true, but it’s not. A violation of your rights would be something like not being able to wear a hijab while teaching your students fractions, which by the way, is a human rights violation currently happening in Quebec, thanks to Bill 21.
Before you tell us that not all of the people protesting are holding up swasticas, comparing their experiences to the Holocaust, or not all of the people are alt-righters, we'll remind you that enough of the visuals we are seeing show, at minimum, half of them are, which means at best, the other half are bystanders to the people promoting hateful and harmful beliefs.
We can't move on to showing you some tweets without also noting this: We believe in the right to protest peacefully, but the problem is in Canada that isn't a right; it's a privilege.
Every time we go to write a full post on this, we're genuinely gutted at how fucked up it is that when Indigenous land defenders are trying to protect our planet on land that is often their unceded territory, they are almost guaranteed to experience police brutality, and yet this swastika branding, Terry Fox statue destroying, war memorial defacing, white supremacist, backed group of people are just able to continue on without any consequences.
This is Canada. But it Doesn't Have to Be.
Most of you reading this will agree that peacefully protesting should be allowed, but that doing so with swastikas, confederate flags, and white supremacy shouldn't be.
We know that there is rhetoric out there about how this issue is complex but is it? When it comes to white supremacy the question you have to ask yourself is do you support white supremacists or do you think white supremacy needs to be dismantled in Canada?
This account wholeheartedly believes that white supremacy cannot continue to go unchecked in Canada and that we cannot continue to stay silent while white supremacists gather in our capital.
If you agree with us, we hope you'll do what you can to find those in your life that perhaps didn't understand the assignment but don't believe white supremacy is the answer either. We hope you use your personal platforms to compassionately and critically amplify posts, tweets and other content on your socials to show people this convoy is a wolf in sheep's clothing and it's hungry for the soul of our country.
