Canadian “Freedom Fighters”: White Supremacy and Nationalism in COVID-19 Protests
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
Recommended Citation
Mah, Kathleen, "Canadian “Freedom Fighters”: White Supremacy and Nationalism in COVID-19 Protests" (2023). International Conference on Hate Studies. 70.
https://repository.gonzaga.edu/icohs/2023/seventh/70
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
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.