Canadian “Freedom Fighters”: White Supremacy and Nationalism in COVID-19 Protests

Presenter Information

Kathleen Mah

Location

Bigfoot Room 124

Start Date

22-4-2023 2:25 PM

End Date

22-4-2023 3:40 PM

Publication Date

2023

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Law | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

In early 2020 Canada reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19. Since this case was reported the Canadian government and Canadian citizens have grappled with how to cope. Some have chosen to express their stress by protesting the usage of masks and other health mandates. Anti-maskers, or as they refer to themselves ‘Freedom Fighters’ (FF), are a vocal social movement prevalent in western Canada. This paper will seek to present the argument that anti-COVID-19 mandate protests are direct expressions of white supremacy and white nationalism that seek to reproduce and normalize the colonial white patriarchy in Canada. It will do so by drawing on the emotional roots of right-wing necropolitics and collective nostalgia to showcase how FF utilizes contradictory discourses to stabilize, justify, and reinvigorate racist sexist ideologies that reject social pressures of collective responsibility and progressive policies. This paper will begin with a short introduction to FF of Western Canada focusing on the translation of online rhetoric and conspiracy into direct and structural violence offline. It will then attempt to situate the consequences of this violence, positioning FF as non-state participants in necropolitics who police, maintain, and create conceptions of ideal bodies that construct ‘expendable’ sub-groups of the larger Canadian society. The final section of this paper will argue that the construction of expendable populations by FF help to stabilize the growing movement of white supremacy and nationalism in Canada.

Description Format

html

Full Text of Presentation

wf_no

Media Format

flash_audio

Session Title

Rejecting Modernity and the Rise of Hate Groups, Radicalism and Xenophobia

Type

Panel

Share

COinS
 
Apr 22nd, 2:25 PM Apr 22nd, 3:40 PM

Canadian “Freedom Fighters”: White Supremacy and Nationalism in COVID-19 Protests

Bigfoot Room 124

In early 2020 Canada reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19. Since this case was reported the Canadian government and Canadian citizens have grappled with how to cope. Some have chosen to express their stress by protesting the usage of masks and other health mandates. Anti-maskers, or as they refer to themselves ‘Freedom Fighters’ (FF), are a vocal social movement prevalent in western Canada. This paper will seek to present the argument that anti-COVID-19 mandate protests are direct expressions of white supremacy and white nationalism that seek to reproduce and normalize the colonial white patriarchy in Canada. It will do so by drawing on the emotional roots of right-wing necropolitics and collective nostalgia to showcase how FF utilizes contradictory discourses to stabilize, justify, and reinvigorate racist sexist ideologies that reject social pressures of collective responsibility and progressive policies. This paper will begin with a short introduction to FF of Western Canada focusing on the translation of online rhetoric and conspiracy into direct and structural violence offline. It will then attempt to situate the consequences of this violence, positioning FF as non-state participants in necropolitics who police, maintain, and create conceptions of ideal bodies that construct ‘expendable’ sub-groups of the larger Canadian society. The final section of this paper will argue that the construction of expendable populations by FF help to stabilize the growing movement of white supremacy and nationalism in Canada.