Preventing the witnesses to a genocide from speaking is also an act of genocide.
A genocide half a world away is destroying what little remains of democracy in Canada, Britain, the EU and Australia. The right to free speech and peaceful assembly in these countries isn't in peril, it's moribund. Worse, I don't think we have the numbers to reverse the tide of totalitarianism coming our way because too many refuse to stand against a slaughter in Gaza that affects the rule of law at home.
Decades of neoliberalism and its evil alliance with fascists, amoral corporations, and asset management groups eroded individual freedom of conscience and liberty. Dissent in the 21st century, especially protest against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians has serious consequences. Doing so destroys careers, education prospects, your immigration status or political aspirations. You can even end up in jail or be disappeared by ICE if you live in the USA and exercise your democratic right to protest the West aiding and abetting Israel's eradication of Palestinians.
A genocide in Gaza is being live-streamed. Yet our governments and corporate news media insist that these self-evident truths that people in their tens of thousands are being erased is a lie, an exaggeration or an oversimplification of a complex geopolitical situation.
Canada's complicity in this crime against humanity runs so deep that at every turn, its news media, influencers and politicians demonise those who are protesting the genocide. Even where I live a small city in Ontario, there is an unofficial gag order to limit discussion about the genocide.
Only last week, the CEO of the local library cancelled a scheduled talk by medical care workers who had worked in Gaza and were eyewitnesses to the genocide. No reason was given but the silence from the library CEO about his motivation from preventing the discussion suggests agreement with the Netanyahu government. The thing is when libraries forbid discussions about genocides, it is Holocaust denialism. Silencing the witnesses to a genocide and preventing them from addressing the public is genocide.
We must never forget there are not two sides to a genocide except in who the killers are and who are the victims. There were not two sides to the Armenian genocide. There were not two sides to the Jewish genocide. There were not two sides to the Tutsi genocide. There were not two sides to the Bosnian genocide and there are not two sides to the Palestinian genocide.
Outside political pressure was so intense to stop Doctors against Genocide from speaking that despite organisers finding another venue to hold their talk, an adult community education centre. They too rescinded their offer to allow Doctors Against Genocide to hold an information session about the health care crisis occurring in Gaza.
Eventually, the city's Mosque hosted the discussion. I was in attendance with about 60 other people who wanted to show solidarity with those who are fighting to end the Genocide in Gaza. It was the least I could do.
If I hadn't done it, I would have had to answer to the history of my mother's early life in Nazi Germany. From a child's perspective, my mother witnessed Nazism erode the social conscience of German citizens. She saw books being burned and socialists like her dad being vilified. Each day Hitler was in power, the reason and compassion of citizens weakened until there was nothing left but blind acceptance of totalitarianism and the the slaughter of innocent people.
2025 is on the same path as 1933 Nazi Germany for every Western nation, with some more along the way while others lag behind because of resistance by citizens. The genocide against Palestinians has put blood on the hands of every Western Nation. It has obliterated our concepts of a rules-based system in war and peace. If we don't stand up and oppose the genocide of Palestinians will have condemned our future to be as bleak as if we lived in a digital version of 1930s Nazi Germany.
As always, thank you for reading my sub stack posts. I really need your help to keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith and his Last Stand alive, in the public eye and relevant. It’s the end of the month and that is when things get tight for me as I scramble to make the next month’s rent.
Your subscriptions to this newsletter do that and also keep my housed which has become a precarious thing thanks to getting cancer, interstitial lung disease and some other comorbidities during these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. There is also a tip jar for those inclined. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John PS. The Green & Pleasant Land edits are almost done. So Harry’s book from his birth in 1923 to Labour’s election in July 1945 is soon to be ready for a publisher. It’s a monumental history of a working class boy who grows into manhood before the Welfare State.
Down and down and down we go. Where we're headed, only idiots and those zombified in denial, don't know. Of all the things I ever did right, I'm now sadly confronted by the reality, that choosing to not create another sentient being, was the best of them all.
I completely agree