Juno News - This is what “decolonization” really means

00:00:00.000 Decolonization is code. It's a dog whistle, if you will. And it means the mass slaughter of civilians, or what the radical left likes to call settlers, as we saw on October 7th. Now, if we accept this warped academic theory, which is pushed and promoted across our society, usually dressed up as a diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative, if we accept it and we let it go to its logical conclusion, we will see more October 7th style massacres, not just in Israel, but across the West, and particularly in Canada. 0.55

00:00:27.760 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:40.600 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today, we're going to unpack the academic terms such as decolonization, settler and direct action, as well as resistance and many others.

00:00:51.820 I'm going to talk about the latest scandals, including at my university, the one that I graduated from, the University of Alberta. And later in the show, I am going to be debating my friend and colleague, Rupa Supramania, on free speech and its limits here in the West.

00:01:05.600 So stick around. If you're watching this video on YouTube or Rumble, please like this video, subscribe to True North and make sure to turn on notifications. So you don't miss any of our videos. If you're watching on Facebook, despite the C18 van, if you're able to still see this, please make sure you like our True North page, drop us a comment and share this video.

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00:01:50.060 The left loves to accuse conservatives of using dog whistles. Now, if you want to test this theory, just head on over to Google, type in Pierre Polyev and dog whistle, and you'll find about 100 legacy media stories accusing him of all kinds of things that he never said, but that some journalists decided that he must believe based on something totally different that he said. Do you get that?

00:02:10.740 Well, I'll give you an example. In March, Pierre Polyev's team posted an image on Instagram of a Canadian police logo. In the description, he included a beautiful commemoration for two brave police officers who were sadly killed in the line of duty in Edmonton.

00:02:25.360 Now, instead of just accepting this nice commemoration of brave police officers who sacrificed their lives for safety, the legacy media decided to pull out some kind of totally different conclusion. They accused him, I kid you not, of promoting anti-black racism. Yes, Trudeau's media decided that a police logo is actually a dog whistle for an extremist fascist movement, which apparently Pierre Polyev is trying to court.

00:02:53.040 Now, can someone please tell me, is there a large anti-black fascist community in Canada that Pierre Polyev desperately needs on his side? Who are these fascists? Seriously, and where do they live? What party are they currently voting for that Pierre Polyev has to supposedly work very hard to take their vote away and bring it over to the conservatives? Of course, the media never explain any of that. They never bother. But we're just supposed to believe their utter nonsense.

00:03:18.520 Well, what I find interesting when we're talking about dog whistles is the left's development of their own lexicon, usually obscure academic jargon that eventually makes its way into mainstream language.

00:03:30.800 Now, this jargon includes code words that actually means something quite different than they first appear. So I'll give you an example.

00:03:36.940 Over the weekend, left-wing writer and podcaster Nora Loretta posted this on X. She's celebrating the increased violence that we see at pro-Hamas rallies.

00:03:46.180 She doesn't come right out and call it violence, of course. Instead, she calls it direct action.

00:03:50.680 Here's your post. She writes,

00:03:52.140 Guys, the amount of direct action happening right now is incredible.

00:03:56.080 Now, we know that direct action means violence because Antifa put out a handbook that explicitly said this.

00:04:01.940 They defined direct action as proactive self-defense. Yes, very clever.

00:04:07.620 As in, I'm going to go attack those Nazis over there before they come and attack me. 0.95

00:04:12.120 The problem is, according to Antifa, anybody who doesn't join in their anarchy and destruction, they consider to be a Nazi. 0.97

00:04:19.200 So that means that just about everybody is fair game for actual violence.

00:04:23.760 Now, when Nora Loretta celebrates direct action, she's no doubt referring to the pro-Hamas rallies that we've seen devolve into riots.

00:04:31.360 We've seen the destruction of property, often Jewish-owned businesses in places of worship.

00:04:36.360 We've seen altercations and physical fights against the police, as we saw recently in Calgary.

00:04:41.160 And we've seen blockades of highways, bridges, railways, and other critical infrastructure.

00:04:45.980 Now, it's funny, and I have to note, that when the truckers in the Freedom Convoy went over and blocked the Ambassador Bridge for just a few hours,

00:04:53.480 that was enough for Justin Trudeau to call in the military and introduce martial law to break up the entire protest.

00:04:59.700 But, of course, when the pro-Hamas side does it, when they actually go and harass him in a restaurant in Vancouver,

00:05:05.500 and they tie up and block critical infrastructure across the country, what does Trudeau do?

00:05:11.240 Interestingly, it actually leads him to flip-flop on his position.

00:05:15.180 And in this case, he changed his mind and began to condemn Israel for fighting back against Hamas.

00:05:21.600 Funny, funny, strange world that we live in.

00:05:23.700 Now, back to the concept of direct action, which is considered self-defense to the radical left,

00:05:29.980 just like how many people on the radical left defended the October 7th massacre carried out by Hamas,

00:05:36.180 and they called it resistance, or they called it decolonization.

00:05:40.100 Decolonization.

00:05:40.700 We do hear that word a lot in Canada.

00:05:42.760 So let's dive into it.

00:05:43.780 What does it actually mean?

00:05:45.360 Well, Nanja Sharif, who is a writer at the Soho House magazine and Teen Vogue,

00:05:49.400 she stated it very clearly on X.

00:05:52.080 I don't think that anyone stated it this clearly.

00:05:54.320 This is what she wrote after October 7th.

00:05:56.640 She said,

00:05:57.640 What did y'all think decolonization meant?

00:06:00.040 Vibes?

00:06:00.840 Papers?

00:06:01.440 Essays? 0.99

00:06:02.400 Losers? 0.99

00:06:03.300 That's right. 0.95

00:06:04.080 According to some on the left, if you didn't get it before, you get it now.

00:06:08.140 Decolonization means mass murder of civilians. 0.95

00:06:11.180 It means a massacre.

00:06:12.240 It means a deadly pogrom against children in their beds.

00:06:15.240 It means genocide of the so-called settlers.

00:06:17.640 Yes, settlers.

00:06:18.860 The same thing that I get called just about every day on social media by radical leftists.

00:06:22.740 So if you have skin color that looks like mine, if you have an English-sounding name like I do,

00:06:26.980 you're probably a settler too.

00:06:28.660 That means that you're not a civilian. 0.50

00:06:30.620 According to the radical left, you're fair game for violence, even murder.

00:06:34.320 Yes, you are a legitimate military target.

00:06:37.700 Now, if you think I'm being hyperbolic, I'm not.

00:06:40.140 Here's an example right here.

00:06:41.320 A professor at Yale University, one of the most prestigious institutions in the entire world,

00:06:45.840 saying just that.

00:06:46.880 Settlers are not civilians. 0.98

00:06:49.380 It's not hard.

00:06:50.300 Yes, that is what Professor Zarina Grewal, an American studies professor at Yale University, wrote.

00:06:56.320 And no, it isn't just the American radical left.

00:06:58.880 If anything, these phrases are even more common in Canada.

00:07:01.940 And the people who understand these words, what they truly mean,

00:07:04.920 the ones who are most confident and vocal in using them, are usually in Canada.

00:07:08.740 Here are just a few examples.

00:07:10.160 At York University, the Students' Union put out the following statement on October 12th.

00:07:15.040 They wrote, from Turtle Island to Palestine.

00:07:17.200 For those of you who don't know, Turtle Island is what they call North America or Canada.

00:07:22.140 They wrote, from Turtle Island to Palestine.

00:07:24.100 And across all occupied lands, these events serve as a reminder that resistance against colonial violence is justified and necessary.

00:07:31.480 This is decolonization and land-backed actualized as we continue to see the Palestinian people stand firm in their resistance against their oppressors.

00:07:41.480 Did you get all that?

00:07:42.120 I know it was pretty jargon heavy, but they said that resistance is justified.

00:07:46.780 Resistance is necessary.

00:07:48.240 Remember, resistance just means violence.

00:07:49.800 This is what decolonization looks like.

00:07:52.400 What we saw, the massacre, the despicable violence that we saw against civilians on October 7th in Israel.

00:07:57.640 That's all necessary.

00:07:58.980 That's all what we mean when we say decolonization. 0.83

00:08:01.360 Just making it perfectly clear.

00:08:03.060 And it isn't just a bunch of crazy students at York University in suburban Toronto.

00:08:06.740 We had a professor over at McMaster University, Emil Joseph, basically say the same thing.

00:08:11.700 He wrote the following on October 7th, before the massacre was probably even finished in Israel.

00:08:15.680 He wrote, post-colonial, anti-colonial, and decolonial are not just words you heard in your EDI workshop.

00:08:22.740 Next, here's a sign we saw at a Vancouver protest, just making it perfectly clear.

00:08:26.440 Again, the sign writes, decolonization is not a theory.

00:08:30.660 Finally, we have an Ontario member of the provincial parliament, formerly with the NDP.

00:08:35.020 She got ousted over all of this.

00:08:36.440 Her name is Sarah Jama.

00:08:38.000 She wrote this on October 10th.

00:08:39.620 She said, I'm reflecting on my role as a politician who's participating in this settler colonial system.

00:08:44.960 And I ask that all politicians do the same.

00:08:47.400 Hashtag, free Palestine.

00:08:49.540 She's just participating in this disgusting settler colonial system that we like to call Canada. 1.00

00:08:54.380 Our entire civilization is a disgrace, according to the far left. 0.97

00:08:58.580 Jama continues.

00:08:59.280 She writes, for 75 years, violence and retaliation rooted in settler colonialism have taken the lives of far too many innocent people.

00:09:06.400 So, as you know, and as we all saw, they're trying to justify.

00:09:09.600 They're trying to say that October 7th didn't just happen.

00:09:12.060 It was justified. 0.99

00:09:13.180 It was necessary.

00:09:13.960 It was all the fault of the Israelis for being colonial, being settlers, and colonizing Israel in the first place. 1.00

00:09:22.280 Much the same arguments that they make against Canadians.

00:09:25.600 So, following all this, we had a bunch of think pieces come out in Canadian publications.

00:09:29.540 I want to go through a few.

00:09:30.800 Tasha Carradine in the National Post wrote this on October 12th.

00:09:33.580 She writes, Jama's statements illustrate the absurd lengths to which the decolonization movement had been taken.

00:09:39.560 Today, the word decolonization has lost all meaning.

00:09:42.480 Now, I disagree with Tasha here.

00:09:44.440 I don't think that decolonization has lost its meaning.

00:09:47.220 It's the opposite.

00:09:48.000 We found its meaning.

00:09:49.300 Its meaning is clearer now than it's ever been.

00:09:51.600 The left is telling us exactly what the word means, and we need to listen.

00:09:56.180 Next, Howard Englund, writing in The Hub on October 13th, wrote,

00:09:59.300 Now, Howard is getting a little bit closer, but he still dances around the issue.

00:10:20.000 So, the point of decolonization means action.

00:10:23.580 It means direct action.

00:10:24.660 They told us this is not a theory.

00:10:26.080 This is something you hear about in a classroom or in a DEI workshop.

00:10:29.620 Decolonization means direct action. 0.64

00:10:31.540 It means violence.

00:10:32.720 That is what they're telling us.

00:10:34.280 Finally, JJ McCullough, who is a prominent Canadian YouTuber, he wrote on October 12th on X the following,

00:10:40.240 I'm a little troubled by the fact that decolonization, which is a very mainstream concept in Canadian political discourse,

00:10:45.660 is understood, at least by some faction of Canadians, to mean indiscriminate extrajudicial killing.

00:10:52.200 Just a little troubled by that.

00:10:53.900 Yes, JJ has hit the nail right on the head.

00:10:56.460 He is right.

00:10:57.560 He is troubled.

00:10:58.420 And we should all be very, very troubled by that.

00:11:01.420 Okay, let's move on to talk about how this is all playing out on university campuses,

00:11:05.180 which, as we know, are ground zero for radical leftism and extremism.

00:11:09.400 And as we're learning, ground zero for the violent ideology that is known as decolonization.

00:11:15.020 So my alma mater, where I graduated from the University of Alberta,

00:11:19.120 became something of a punchline in a joke over the week because of an open letter

00:11:24.840 that was signed by the University of Alberta's Sexual Assault Center.

00:11:29.980 So the center was one of the signatories.

00:11:32.040 It wasn't the only one.

00:11:32.880 There was about 40, from best I could tell, groups and individuals who signed this letter,

00:11:36.780 including Sarah Jamma, the disgraced MPP from Ontario.

00:11:40.020 And the letter, amongst many other things, denied that sexual violence happened against

00:11:46.220 Israeli women. 0.99

00:11:47.300 So I won't read the entire letter, but here is what it looked like.

00:11:49.940 It says, stand with Palestine, call on political leaders to end their complicity in genocide.

00:11:55.720 We know that when the far left calls Israel genocidal, they're really just using Hamas

00:12:00.020 talking points because, of course, it is Hamas that is genocidal against the Jews. 0.51

00:12:03.920 The Jews are just simply trying to protect themselves and have their own country. 1.00

00:12:07.080 I digress.

00:12:08.560 The letter rambles on and on and on.

00:12:10.320 One of the most interesting parts of the letter is that they specifically call out Jagmeet Singh,

00:12:15.520 the leader of the far left party in Canada, and they call them out.

00:12:18.480 They said Jagmeet Singh repeated the unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of 0.85

00:12:24.300 sexual violence. 0.99

00:12:26.200 And so that, of course, the total hypocrisy and ignorance of a sexual assault center, 0.97

00:12:32.740 a place where women are supposed to go on campus if they have been the victim of a horrible 1.00

00:12:37.300 assault, like sexual assault. 0.53

00:12:38.960 They're supposed to feel safe going there.

00:12:40.980 And here we have this group at the University of Alberta denying, openly denying, against

00:12:46.880 all evidence, against all proof that sexual violence took place.

00:12:50.220 I imagine being a Jewish woman on campus at the U of A and even considering going to a

00:12:55.340 place like that, the sexual assault center. 0.99

00:12:57.720 Such a disgrace. 0.76

00:12:58.660 No wonder it made headlines around the world.

00:13:00.500 Here's the Daily Mail in the UK, it says, sexual assault center at Canadian University

00:13:04.680 signs onto open letter that disputes women were raped and sexually assaulted during Hamas

00:13:09.840 terrorist attacks.

00:13:10.880 It made news across the US and even in Israel and, of course, across Canada.

00:13:16.420 Former Senator Linda Frum posted this on Twitter.

00:13:19.220 She posted the letter and wrote, the University of Alberta needs to find new professionals to

00:13:23.280 staff at sexual assault center, given that current members believe some women deserve 0.99

00:13:27.120 to be raped and that Jewish rape victims lie. 0.98

00:13:29.640 If you are a U of A alumni, please make your feelings known to President Flanagan. 0.99

00:13:33.360 I took up that call since, like I said, I am an alumni of the University of Alberta.

00:13:38.100 So I posted the letter that I wrote to President Flanagan right here.

00:13:42.560 Basically, it's come to my attention.

00:13:44.040 This has happened.

00:13:45.120 You know, I'd like to see you take some action.

00:13:47.060 Look forward to seeing how you will handle this situation.

00:13:49.800 I was pleasantly surprised that just one day later, the university did reply to my email

00:13:54.220 and they replied to my call and Linda Frum's call, many others, and they took action.

00:14:00.100 The University of Alberta's President and Vice Chancellor, Bill Flanagan, released the

00:14:03.880 following statement, basically saying, look, this person is no longer employed by the university.

00:14:08.520 The university has appointed a new interim director at the sexual assault center.

00:14:12.980 This was great to see.

00:14:14.380 Actually, pretty proud of my university for taking this action and showing some leadership

00:14:18.180 here.

00:14:18.900 I wasn't the only one.

00:14:19.740 International human rights lawyer, Halal Neuer, wrote the following.

00:14:22.760 He wrote, good news.

00:14:23.540 Samantha Pearson, denier of Hamas rape, has been fired from her position as head of the University

00:14:28.240 of Alberta's Sexual Assault Center.

00:14:29.980 Bravo to Mr. Flanagan at the U of A for his swift action.

00:14:33.500 All universities should fire Hamas apologists.

00:14:37.100 That is absolutely right.

00:14:38.640 Unfortunately, that's not going to happen.

00:14:40.480 And there are so many universities that employ Hamas apologists that promote them. 0.79

00:14:44.940 And the problem doesn't just end there.

00:14:46.620 Even in the covering of this story, you see the Globe and Mail do the exact same thing

00:14:52.300 that the woman who got fired from the crisis center said.

00:14:56.460 So here's a headline from the Globe and Mail.

00:14:58.560 University of Alberta replaces sexual assault center director over a letter questioning alleged

00:15:04.440 Hamas rape. 0.95

00:15:05.400 So the Globe and Mail throws in the term alleged just again to throw doubt at what is now at 0.75

00:15:12.560 this point very much verified claims that Hamas used rape as one of the tools of their horrific

00:15:18.780 attack on October 7th.

00:15:21.260 Despite this very small glimmer of hope from the University of Alberta, the problems run

00:15:25.460 much deeper.

00:15:26.300 I pointed this out last night, Tuesday, November 21st.

00:15:30.220 There was an event at the U of A called Glory to Our Martyrs.

00:15:34.400 Our martyrs.

00:15:35.220 Yes. 0.94

00:15:35.800 The Hamas terrorists who murder Jews are known as martyrs.

00:15:40.020 And according to whoever's organized this event at the University of Alberta inside an

00:15:44.500 official building, those are our martyrs.

00:15:46.620 Those are our martyrs.

00:15:47.520 According to some people at the U of A, a University of Montreal lecturer who shouted

00:15:53.200 at a Jewish student to go back to Poland has been suspended for the rest of the term.

00:15:58.060 Suspended with pay, of course.

00:15:59.500 So not really that big of a deal.

00:16:01.220 Imagine still getting paid for a job you no longer have to do.

00:16:03.700 And that's the supposed punishment.

00:16:05.700 Over at the University of British Columbia, we saw these stickers popping up all over campus.

00:16:09.780 Yes, I love Hamas. 0.99

00:16:11.500 Again, the left is saying the quiet part out loud.

00:16:13.940 They're saying it really, really loudly.

00:16:15.540 They don't just quietly support terrorism.

00:16:18.380 They love terrorism.

00:16:19.760 They love Hamas. 0.97

00:16:20.820 And they're very, very open about it.

00:16:22.260 They want everybody to know.

00:16:23.420 They're saying the quiet part out loud.

00:16:24.840 They're saying it really, really, really loudly.

00:16:26.840 They think violence is great.

00:16:28.380 They love Hamas. 0.97

00:16:29.740 Now, of course, there are a million examples on university campuses of radical leftist students

00:16:34.440 and faculty.

00:16:35.140 Sometimes you can't even tell the difference between the students and the faculty.

00:16:38.360 But they are making absurd and obscene comments celebrating Hamas, celebrating terrorism,

00:16:43.500 celebrating October 7th.

00:16:45.140 Resistance is justified when people are occupied, they say.

00:16:48.060 By any means necessary, they say.

00:16:50.780 Globalize the intifada, they say.

00:16:53.240 Decolonize Canada. 0.96

00:16:54.500 All of this just means justification for violence.

00:16:57.620 It's all a call to action.

00:16:59.100 A call to violence.

00:17:00.080 A call for more. 0.69

00:17:01.360 Massacre.

00:17:02.060 Now, thankfully, I'm not the only one noticing.

00:17:04.240 Thankfully, Elon Musk sees it the same way.

00:17:06.500 So I want to point out a series of tweets from the other day.

00:17:09.920 Individual named Colin Wright wrote this.

00:17:12.140 He wrote, decolonization is the woke version of jihad, and it should be viewed and treated

00:17:16.740 the same way.

00:17:17.600 100% I completely agree with this.

00:17:20.280 Now, Elon Musk saw this tweet and he replied, yes, decolonization necessarily implies a Jewish 0.95

00:17:25.640 genocide.

00:17:26.080 Thus, it is unacceptable to any reasonable person.

00:17:29.420 I would go way beyond that.

00:17:30.400 I would not say that it implies a Jewish genocide.

00:17:32.960 I would say it's a genocide against any group that the left calls settlers or the left considers

00:17:38.140 the need for decolonization.

00:17:40.000 And Canada is ground zero for that.

00:17:42.200 This is where so much of these ideas are coming from.

00:17:45.720 Elon clarified, and he went even further.

00:17:47.820 He said on November 17th, as I said earlier this week, decolonization from the river to

00:17:53.280 the sea and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide.

00:17:57.840 Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension.

00:18:02.760 Now, this is a good first step.

00:18:04.780 A big public platform like X recognizing that these veiled calls for violence are still calls

00:18:10.560 for actual violence.

00:18:11.780 They have no place in our society.

00:18:13.340 The next important step would be for Canadians to begin to recognize that this term, decolonization,

00:18:19.380 decolonization is simply a call for violence. 0.99

00:18:22.620 When you hear it at your place of work, your children's school, or by any government official,

00:18:27.440 you need to stop them.

00:18:28.640 You need to voice your concern and explain to them that it is an extreme call for violence

00:18:33.400 and extreme calls for violence have no place in Canada.

00:18:36.780 So how can we fight back against the radical left, their newfound confidence to openly call

00:18:42.080 for violence, or at least veiled calls for violence using terms like direct action, resistance,

00:18:47.580 and decolonization, which we know are just euphemisms that mean violence and in some cases

00:18:51.420 even mass murder?

00:18:53.180 I wanted to bring in my friend and colleague, Rupa Subramania, to have a discussion on this

00:18:57.700 topic.

00:18:58.040 I don't know if we always agree, especially on this issue, but I always really respect your

00:19:02.860 position and the research that I thought that goes into it.

00:19:05.220 So a couple of weeks ago on Twitter, there was a sort of brouhaha over a column by Warren

00:19:11.820 Kinsella.

00:19:12.780 He basically pointed to some of the very vicious pro-Hamas rallies and some of the sort of more

00:19:18.260 vocal people that were more or less calling for genocide.

00:19:22.620 And in his original tweet, he wrote this, again, if they're here on a visa or do not have

00:19:29.320 citizenship, deport them. 0.80

00:19:31.000 If they have citizenship, charge them. 1.00

00:19:32.660 I think that they deleted that tweet and changed the headline a little bit, watered it down a

00:19:36.940 little bit.

00:19:37.280 I believe that the latest version of the headline said, charge them, prosecute them, convict

00:19:42.180 them, and then jail them. 0.98

00:19:43.760 Either way, Ben Mulroney, who is the son of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and he's

00:19:47.760 a sort of well-known TV host in Canada, he quote tweeted, Warren Kinsella quote posted

00:19:53.480 and wrote, oh, I co-sign this.

00:19:55.860 And he sort of took issue to it and said, you know, I don't like the fact that people's

00:20:00.740 civil liberties could potentially be violated.

00:20:03.040 We're talking about deporting people just because we don't like their views.

00:20:05.540 So I'm wondering if you could sort of expand on your thinking and talk about why you do

00:20:10.660 not think we should deport people who promote and celebrate mass murder.

00:20:15.440 Well, first of all, I mean, let's unpack what you said.

00:20:18.460 I mean, you know, you're asserting they're celebrating mass murder.

00:20:22.720 All of these things are up for interpretation.

00:20:25.740 They're highly, highly contested.

00:20:27.980 Your view may be that they're calling for mass murder.

00:20:32.180 I've been to three of these rallies here in Ottawa.

00:20:35.200 There are people who, there are all kinds of people who are part of this movement, including

00:20:40.480 people who are calling for mass murder.

00:20:42.480 I'm not denying that.

00:20:43.980 But let's stipulate for the sake of argument that saying river to the sea or free Palestine

00:20:49.980 is inciting violence.

00:20:52.100 Now, that falls under criminal law and should be prosecuted as such.

00:21:00.080 That's my opinion.

00:21:01.560 There is no legal, but there is no legal or ethical basis for deportation on such grounds

00:21:06.800 that I'm aware of.

00:21:08.140 It would be, first of all, it would be unconstitutional.

00:21:10.340 Unconstitutional.

00:21:12.480 And this is the kind of stuff that happens in totalitarian countries, countries in the

00:21:19.600 Middle East, countries like China, where you question the state or you question Islam,

00:21:25.360 for example.

00:21:26.320 I've lived in some of these places.

00:21:28.920 You do get deported for crossing that red line.

00:21:32.880 And the red line in these countries happens to be these things.

00:21:35.880 I personally don't want to go there.

00:21:37.660 I'm a free speech absolutist, but I want to make it clear that incitement to violence

00:21:45.480 is where there's a clear red line for me there.

00:21:49.520 So, for example, if you tell someone to go buy a gun and tell them to go and kill a bunch

00:21:54.640 of people, that is not protected speech anywhere that I'm aware of, neither in the U.S. nor

00:22:00.040 in Canada.

00:22:01.660 But we get into more difficult terrain, in my opinion, when it comes to expressions such

00:22:06.700 as from the river to the sea and free Palestine.

00:22:09.600 Now, on one reading of it, it would seem like this is a call for the destruction of Israel

00:22:14.040 and this would not be considered protected speech.

00:22:17.840 However, another reading is that this is just a trope or a refrain used on behalf of the

00:22:25.320 Palestinian cause that goes back several decades.

00:22:27.980 It is even used by entities such as the Palestinian Authority, which does not call for the destruction

00:22:34.100 of Israel.

00:22:34.720 It does not wish to unhighlight Israel off the map.

00:22:39.440 So it would be a stretch to say that this is an incitement to violence for someone to take

00:22:45.780 up arms against the state of Israel.

00:22:48.720 Now, I want to point to, I mean, I don't know how much you want to go into this, but, you

00:22:56.740 know, Candace, you and I spoke earlier about how this is a battle for civilization in a sense.

00:23:05.920 I don't know if you want to go into that, but I'm happy to talk about it.

00:23:09.020 But those are roughly, yeah.

00:23:11.920 Well, we can get into that in a minute, Rupa, because I just want to pick up on what you

00:23:15.120 said, look, I don't think that Canada is immune from going down a totalitarian path.

00:23:19.360 I think that we saw glimpses of that during COVID and with the trucker convoy and Trudeau

00:23:23.440 just sort of quashing a protest simply because he doesn't like it.

00:23:26.440 So I am with you on this.

00:23:27.980 I think that we need to preserve the right to peaceful assembly, the right to protest

00:23:32.000 and the right to free speech.

00:23:33.220 Those are absolute cornerstones of our society.

00:23:36.320 But when we're talking about the difference between a country like Canada, which is an open,

00:23:40.740 diverse, tolerant, pluralistic society, we come across a sort of fundamental problem.

00:23:47.320 I think it's an existential problem when we also pair that with mass unchecked immigration.

00:23:53.000 So people are allowed to come from anywhere in the world.

00:23:55.900 We don't screen for ideology.

00:23:57.660 We don't screen for values.

00:23:58.740 So for all we know of the people coming to Canada, they could all be fervent, you know, 0.98

00:24:04.480 crazed Jew haters. 0.98

00:24:06.420 They could hate gay people and want to, you know, implement some kind of a law where we 1.00

00:24:11.580 kill these people, right? 0.99

00:24:13.120 And so it's like sooner or later in a liberal democracy like Canada, we're going to have 0.98

00:24:17.720 to deal with the problem that many people around the world hold views that are simply

00:24:21.960 incompatible with the West.

00:24:23.860 And I do believe it's a civilizational struggle.

00:24:26.040 I think that Canada has made a lot of problems when it comes to just allowing anybody to come 1.00

00:24:29.960 in.

00:24:30.480 And then on top of that, you have this festering ideologies on college campuses, as I mentioned

00:24:34.340 previously in the show, terms like decolonization, which people will openly say it means mass

00:24:40.440 violence.

00:24:40.780 It means massacres like October 7th.

00:24:44.100 So again, you know, not to just simply repeat the question, but I'm wondering if you could

00:24:49.120 get into like, how does a country like Canada preserve pluralism while also maintaining the

00:24:54.580 freedoms?

00:24:54.840 Because I think that these people will happily use our freedoms against us.

00:24:57.740 They don't actually believe in free speech rupa.

00:24:59.420 Because as soon as it comes to people who criticize Islam, criticize the prophet, criticize even

00:25:06.440 Hamas leaders, we saw a Washington Post cartoon taken down a couple of weeks ago because it

00:25:10.820 was offensive to Hamas leaders.

00:25:13.260 You know, they're happy to use that sword against us.

00:25:16.020 But then at the same time, when it suits them, they're going to drape themselves in the veil 0.93

00:25:19.840 of we deserve free speech, we deserve peaceful protests or the right to free assembly.

00:25:24.880 They don't actually hold those values.

00:25:26.120 So how do we deal with that?

00:25:26.860 Well, we have to deal with it because it goes back to the fundamental tenets of Western

00:25:32.300 civilization.

00:25:34.060 Before I get into that, I want to address the values thing when it comes to citizenship.

00:25:39.360 I'm inclined to agree with you.

00:25:41.180 I don't think we should be allowing people who want to come to Canada and want to implement 1.00

00:25:45.780 Sharia law, for example.

00:25:47.460 That's not going to that's not the direction in which we want to go.

00:25:50.040 So so, for example, I think the U.S., as far as I am aware, expects you to sign a saying

00:25:58.820 that you are you don't belong to a Communist Party or a Nazi Party or something to that effect.

00:26:04.480 So, yes, I think we we could we could develop something along those lines for sure.

00:26:09.540 So we're in agreement there.

00:26:10.920 But how do we how do we preserve this?

00:26:13.980 Now, a lot of people have talked talked about this in terms of a civilizational battle, what

00:26:20.740 is happening in the Middle East.

00:26:22.100 But it's also that term has also been used in the context of free speech.

00:26:27.420 You know, a clash of civilization, as Samuel Huntington put it.

00:26:33.700 And so therefore, we must suppress views that we don't like.

00:26:38.260 I think that by going down that route, we're actually undermining a core Western value that

00:26:43.360 goes back to the Enlightenment, which is free and open debate.

00:26:47.860 You might find that kind of speech deplorable and repugnant.

00:26:52.700 And I find that absolutely to be the case.

00:26:56.060 But free speech is not about liking something or upholding the rights of views that we agree

00:27:04.260 with.

00:27:04.540 It is actually it comes down to protecting the protecting views that we disagree with.

00:27:10.720 And that's the fundamental litmus test of free speech of any civilized society.

00:27:16.000 I want to talk about civilization.

00:27:17.860 Why is this important?

00:27:19.000 Why is this a fundamental core of Western civilization?

00:27:21.680 Well, our Western civilization was founded on two sets of ideas and cultures.

00:27:27.920 One was Greece and Rome, and the other was the Judeo-Christian heritage.

00:27:35.040 So Greece and Rome, all of the knowledge and antiquity accomplishments during classical antiquity,

00:27:41.360 and then the Judeo-Christian heritage.

00:27:43.780 And then, you know, and then the Renaissance happened, which we discovered the glories of 0.99

00:27:48.620 Greece and Rome.

00:27:49.200 And then you had the Protestant Reformation, and then finally, the Enlightenment of the

00:27:53.280 18th century, which included thinkers across Europe like Voltaire in France, Immanuel Kant

00:28:00.080 in Germany, David Hume and Adam Smith in Great Britain.

00:28:03.460 But here's the crux.

00:28:04.600 And this is why this is so important.

00:28:07.060 All of these thinkers of the Enlightenment agreed on one thing, which is free, open and civilized

00:28:13.020 and rational debate.

00:28:14.320 This was one of the fundamental tenets of a free, open and liberal society.

00:28:19.400 They, you know, look at what happened to Galileo, who was persecuted by the Catholic Church for

00:28:23.820 saying that the earth revolved around the sun and he had to recant his view just to save

00:28:28.820 his life.

00:28:30.420 Let me remind you, all of this was happening in the context of the 18th century, which witnessed

00:28:34.720 horrific wars and revolutions, you know, notably the Revolutionary War in the U.S. in 1776.

00:28:41.820 And then you had the, as a consequence of that, you had the First Amendment in the U.S., which

00:28:47.500 offers the most robust protection for free speech anywhere in the world.

00:28:52.200 And then you had the French Revolution of 1789 and beyond, you know, which saw the high ideals

00:29:00.620 of revolutionaries, you know, which was liberté, égalité and fraternité, subverted by a brutal

00:29:09.120 dictator named Napoleon.

00:29:10.380 The Enlightenment thinkers like David Hume, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, then you go into the 20th

00:29:18.320 century, like Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, all of my heroes, put freedom of

00:29:23.940 expression as a core fundamental value for any free and civilized society.

00:29:29.080 So our Western civilization, as we know it right now, has been refracted through evolution over

00:29:36.540 the centuries in one that prizes public reasoning based on free, open, and civilized debate as

00:29:44.800 a way to discuss and resolve problems of public policy.

00:29:48.500 So in the context of the current situation where you have these pro-Palestinian rallies,

00:29:56.480 I think it would be absolutely detrimental to suppress these voices because all it's going

00:30:05.120 to do is it's just going to move the stuff underground.

00:30:09.000 We've seen this play out over and over again.

00:30:11.160 Just look at what is happening in Germany right now.

00:30:13.400 They banned pro-Palestinian protests.

00:30:15.620 Has that reduced the number of anti-Semitic attacks?

00:30:18.780 Can you, can someone actually say that is happening?

00:30:21.560 It hasn't.

00:30:22.520 In fact, it's gotten worse.

00:30:24.520 It's certainly a Band-Aid.

00:30:25.920 It's a remedy.

00:30:26.460 And I'll agree with you on that, Rupa.

00:30:27.860 I just want to jump in, though, because I agree with you on the value of the Enlightenment

00:30:32.640 and those great thinkers that you mentioned.

00:30:35.200 I'll just say that they all had a foundational and fundamental agreement, whether they wrote

00:30:40.300 about it or not, whether they believe themselves to be theists or atheists or Christians.

00:30:44.460 They all held a fundamental ideal of what it meant to be a citizen, what it meant to contribute,

00:30:51.340 what it meant to be an equal member of society.

00:30:55.460 And what I worry about, what I see today, is that we don't share that foundational belief,

00:30:59.760 that that foundational belief has been torn apart and ripped apart, that we don't have

00:31:03.340 the same basis starting point.

00:31:05.280 And I agree that sometimes these bans, these ad hoc bans, aren't necessarily fixing the

00:31:10.540 root of the problem.

00:31:11.240 And I worry that that root of the problem is so foregone that I don't know how we can repair

00:31:15.800 it, you know, starting by saying, look, we have these core values that we all have

00:31:19.240 to agree on.

00:31:20.400 I think that might be a first step in helping.

00:31:23.860 But I agree that you need to be able to think, you need to be able to critique the system,

00:31:29.920 and that that's all happening.

00:31:31.580 But I fear, and another example of this was the viral TikTok trend that we saw last week

00:31:36.840 of young Americans talking about Osama bin Laden and their reverence for him and his letter

00:31:41.700 to America and how it's changed their world and they're having an existential crisis.

00:31:44.960 It's like when we don't have a core belief, when we don't have a message that unites our

00:31:48.860 society that tells us why, tells a story to ourselves about why we're here, why what we're

00:31:54.360 doing is important, why we all share, you know, a collective belief, which is something

00:31:58.640 that they did have in the Enlightenment.

00:32:00.200 I worry that we don't have that now.

00:32:01.680 And so we're trying to save, preserve freedom of speech, but it's actually freedom of speech

00:32:05.540 is one of the things that's helping to sort of unravel our whole civilization.

00:32:09.620 We do have it.

00:32:10.480 I disagree with you there.

00:32:11.940 We do have all of the core values, you know, with us.

00:32:16.500 It's just that we've, we as a not you and I, because I think you and I have consistently

00:32:22.980 stood up for individual liberties and freedom and that sort of thing.

00:32:27.540 But Western society, at least over the last 10 years or so, has taken a wrong turn.

00:32:33.820 You know, for the last few years, it was the left, the progressive left that presided over

00:32:41.200 a culture of, you know, canceling people for views that they disagreed with.

00:32:47.280 And, and, and, and, you know, and especially so here in Canada.

00:32:52.300 But all we have right now is to continue to, all we can do right now is to continue to uphold

00:32:58.920 these rights values, stand up for them every single time that it is under threat.

00:33:05.020 And that is my battle, right?

00:33:06.860 I see the free speech debate, the free expression debate.

00:33:10.980 I see all of these things in an abstract way.

00:33:13.440 For me, it is not specific to a certain crisis, not specific to a certain issue.

00:33:19.620 It is in an abstract way.

00:33:21.840 I look at these things and it is not an emotional issue for me.

00:33:25.380 I look at it in a clinical kind of way.

00:33:27.300 Is this actually going to get us more freedom?

00:33:31.240 And, and look what happened during the pandemic, right?

00:33:35.160 That wasn't too long ago.

00:33:36.520 The pandemic was sold to us as an existential crisis.

00:33:40.100 You don't abide by these restrictions.

00:33:41.960 You don't abide by these lockdowns.

00:33:43.900 We're all going to die.

00:33:45.260 That was basically the messaging from our public health authorities.

00:33:48.800 Some of us, including myself, momentary, momentarily believe that messaging.

00:33:53.680 And I, and I regret that to this very day.

00:33:56.240 Um, and, and, and so there was this mass justification, uh, for the curtailment of our civil liberties

00:34:02.520 and peacetime.

00:34:03.460 It was imposed on us saying this was an emergency, uh, doctors who dissented were canceled and

00:34:09.220 fired.

00:34:09.640 Um, and, uh, you know, and then you saw the freedom convoy and people who supported the

00:34:14.400 convoy had their bank accounts frozen.

00:34:16.140 It was an Orwellian reaction by the state.

00:34:19.360 And, and I, I, I fear that we are repeating the same mistake here.

00:34:23.920 Um, I find many of the things that are being said at these protests, absolutely abhorrent.

00:34:30.080 By the way, let me point this out.

00:34:32.260 None of this is new.

00:34:33.500 We are only waking up to this problem.

00:34:35.380 Now.

00:34:35.920 I remember walking, uh, in downtown Ottawa two years ago, a year and a half ago, there was

00:34:41.180 another protest reacting to something that was happening, um, uh, in, in between Israel

00:34:46.840 and Hamas and, uh, these, you know, everybody was chanting from the river to the sea, free

00:34:51.700 Palestine and so on and so forth, intifada, uh, and all of that stuff.

00:34:56.280 There, there was absolutely no, a debate.

00:34:59.960 There was no attention paid to this issue.

00:35:02.400 None of this is new.

00:35:03.620 My point is that, you know, we have to allow this to, we, we have to allow, uh, views that

00:35:11.680 we find absolutely abhorrent, we have to, we have to allow that because it is not going

00:35:16.360 to, you're not going to destroy Hamas ideology or radical Islam or any of the things that we

00:35:21.460 find absolutely abhorrent.

00:35:23.120 We're not going to destroy that by suppressing someone else's right to express that, uh, freely.

00:35:28.020 It's not going to go away that way.

00:35:29.740 I think the, the only way we can, uh, do that is through debate.

00:35:34.280 And, and even if the other party does not engage in debate, we must, we must insist on upholding

00:35:39.800 the right to free speech.

00:35:42.640 Okay.

00:35:43.100 I, I, I definitely see where you're coming from and I, and I appreciate your defense of,

00:35:47.180 of sort of basis of, of, of freedom of speech and, and, and fighting against sort of tyrannical

00:35:52.340 government.

00:35:52.860 I'm just going to ask you a couple of questions because I know, you know, you said that a lot

00:35:56.520 of it is up for interpretation.

00:35:57.560 So from the river to the sea, it's nuanced, perhaps you could say that it doesn't mean what

00:36:01.620 we think it means, uh, but some of the words, you know, we've been seeing more and more,

00:36:05.660 right?

00:36:05.900 So, uh, just, just sort of rapid fire here.

00:36:08.540 Uh, if someone calls for jihad, do you think that that's, that's a call for violence?

00:36:12.940 Again, it's, uh, I mean, this is a discussion I had with a senior official in the UK, uh,

00:36:19.040 when I was working on my free speech in the UK story last week, and, uh, we had this very

00:36:25.020 same conversation.

00:36:25.920 Uh, now he's, you know, uh, said that he, he wants to basically see these protests banned,

00:36:32.660 but even he had to concede.

00:36:33.920 It's hard to, you know, from, from, from, uh, um, from a legal perspective, it really

00:36:40.480 is hard.

00:36:41.060 You know, it, you know, everything is context specific, right?

00:36:44.320 Jihad, a Muslim will tell you it is an internal battle, but we also know that it means, uh, 0.55

00:36:50.180 you know, it could potentially mean.

00:36:51.820 I think, I think, I think most Muslims won't say that Rupa.

00:36:54.320 I think most Muslims will say that, that jihad has long been understood to mean a physical.

00:36:58.760 I, I, I, I don't know.

00:37:00.080 I mean, the Muslims that I, I, I have, uh, I, I have interacted, I've lived in the Middle

00:37:04.740 East.

00:37:05.140 It is, it is up for interpretation, just like intifada, intifada, uh, again, uh, has been,

00:37:11.620 it, it, it means resistance.

00:37:12.860 It means a resistance or opposition.

00:37:15.120 Uh, nobody had any problems, uh, using the word intifada in the context of the Arab spring.

00:37:20.580 You see, the thing is, even, even having said all of that, you and I can disagree on what

00:37:25.780 these things actually mean.

00:37:27.060 My point is that it is still, as far as I'm concerned, it is still protected speech.

00:37:31.900 If there's active support for a terrorist cause, material support for a terrorist cause, let's 1.00

00:37:37.380 take the Kalistani problem for a second.

00:37:40.200 There are people in Canada, in, in, in our cities who take, uh, out floats and parades glorifying,

00:37:47.340 uh, uh, Kalistani terrorists as martyrs. 0.71

00:37:50.200 I find that absolutely repugnant. 0.96

00:37:52.420 It, it makes, it makes me sick when I see that.

00:37:55.420 But, but I hope I uphold the right to free expression as long as they're doing it peacefully,

00:38:00.120 uh, as long as they're-

00:38:01.140 Including the mastermind of the Air India bombing?

00:38:03.320 You think if, if someone's holding up a banner-

00:38:04.700 They are doing it.

00:38:05.740 They are doing that.

00:38:06.840 That's protected speech?

00:38:07.700 They, they are doing that.

00:38:08.880 They are doing that.

00:38:09.760 I mean, they are absolutely doing that.

00:38:11.860 I'm a free speech absolutist.

00:38:13.460 I find it distasteful and repugnant.

00:38:15.880 Again, it goes back to the core value of Western civilization, which is what I care about.

00:38:21.200 Um, you know, it is for me, the litmus test of free speech really is not if you agree with

00:38:26.400 someone, but if you strongly disagree with someone and you respect their right to speak

00:38:30.920 freely, that's the litmus test for a civilized society.

00:38:33.840 And I just don't, I've lived in repressive societies where, uh, you know, things are

00:38:39.760 interpreted differently by someone who wants to come after you.

00:38:42.760 And I've, I've faced the consequences of that and I've seen others face the consequences

00:38:47.780 of that.

00:38:48.320 And we are, uh, going down a slippery slope here in Canada.

00:38:51.320 We've already, we came very close to being a totalitarian society under the pandemic.

00:38:55.800 And I seriously, I do not want us to go down the same path.

00:39:01.220 Okay.

00:39:01.600 I think that's a great place to leave it.

00:39:03.100 Rupra, Supermania, thank you so much for joining.

00:39:04.960 Thank you for your insights.

00:39:05.980 We really appreciate it.

00:39:07.440 And thank you so much for tuning in.

00:39:08.920 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:39:12.760 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

Juno News - November 22, 2023

This is what “decolonization” really means

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