On Sept. 28, I wrote a letter arguing Kellie Leitch’s plan to screen immigrants for anti-Canadian values wouldn’t be inherently bad, so long as it was managed appropriately.
I have realized since then I was wrong when I said I agreed, and wrong on a lot of things I would like to reconcile.
I understood at the time Leitch is merely a typical political opportunist. But given recent terror attacks and other incidents in the past, I thought the extreme screening could be necessary. One that I remember very well was Mohammad Shafia’s honour killing, which happened right outside my hometown of Kingston, Ont.
I thought Leitch’s measure might be prudent. It would be a way of keeping us safe while not restricting our individual liberties from within.
But then I thought about it more, and realized the truth. Almost every myth about immigrants and refugees has been debunked, whether about crime, jobs, use of social services, and so on. In fact, a 2012 Maclean’s article found increased numbers of newcomers actually may help reduce crime.
Leitch’s proposal is Orwellian in two ways. The first is that screening for anti-Canadian values uncannily resembles “thought policing,” a concept first coined in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Instead of policing actual physical crimes, they would be policing values—something that only exists in the minds of people. The other is the concept of manufacturing an outside threat that doesn’t actually exist, for the purpose of keeping the masses controlled.
In fact, it’s amazing to think about just how similar our society is to Oceania. We have our Big Brother. We also have our own Newspeak and our DoubleThink, which both constrain the words used in acceptable political discourse, and distort language to make words mean the opposite of their original form. In current mainstream usage, words like “socialist,” “communist,” and “libertarian” to name a few now mean pretty much the opposite of what they originally meant.
We also have our Emmanuel Goldstein, the most likely non-existent nemesis of Oceania. Today, his equivalent is “terrorism” or “radical Islam.”
I was well aware demagogues have been using ghost threats from the exterior as a means of distracting the populace for a long time. It’s an age-old tactic. The Jews, Irish, Japanese and more all went through this. Somehow, I couldn’t put two and two together and realize Leitch’s proposal and the xenophobic climate is just that: a distraction.
It’s a distraction from the fact the West played a significant role in escalating the Syrian migrant crisis, from the fact our political leaders have been unable to spur economic growth, from the fact global inequality is at a practically unprecedented level, from the fact our environment is degrading, and from the fact the mass surveillance state has restricted our privacy and civil liberties.
Andrew Coyne wrote a column for the National Post pointing out that if there is a security threat from an immigrant, this could be dealt with more effectively if it were done quietly. He called Leitch’s suggestion “dog-whistling.”
You see, it is an age-old solution to quell the masses. Scapegoat a particular group or demonize immigrants, to divide, distract, and confuse the people, usually for the benefits of private concentrations of wealth and power. I’m just ashamed at my small part in joining in on it. I rescind every word.
