Pictures of student protesters who have lately taken to giving Nazi salutes during their demonstrations might have imparted the wrong impression to some in the rest of the world.
People unfamiliar with the context in which the gestures are being made might be excused for thinking that there is an outbreak of neo-Nazi fervour here, as there is in some European countries. In fact, those indulging in the practice are doing it to mock police tasked with upholding the laws of a free and democratic society in the face of demonstrations that have frequently degenerated into violence.
Officers have been called fascists and equated with the infamous SS Nazi storm troopers. Premier Jean Charest has been caricatured as Adolf Hitler on protest placards, and anti-police pamphlets distributed by protesters have been adorned with swastikas. All this from people who profess to stand for a more enlightened social order.
This wretched nonsense has been rightly denounced by Canadian Jewish organizations as a sad example of how low the level of public debate has fallen on the streets of Montreal since the eruption of the protest movement against the provincial government’s proposed university tuition hikes. B’nai Brith Canada pointedly noted that the gratuitous use of the highly-charged salute defiles the memory of those who died in the Holocaust, of those who survived the Nazi regime in Europe, and those who fought against that regime in the Second World War.
The group didn’t say so, but it might also be said that if anyone in this crisis is resorting to fascist tactics it is those protesters who have resorted to vandalism and disruption during demonstrations, who have forcibly blocked access to educational institutions to students who simply wanted to attend classes, attacked the subway system with smoke bombs and bricks, and sought to intimidate critics of their protests – in the case of auto-racer Jacques Villeneuve, with death threats.
It was welcome to see that the message got through to some of the protest leaders who acknowledged the Nazi references as hateful and shamefully inappropriate, and advised their cohorts to cut it out. Martine Desjardins, the head of the university-student federation, commendably went so far as to formally apologize on behalf of her organization for any distress the ignorant louts with their Nazi referencing might have caused to people of decent sensibilities.
It was also welcome to see that the student federations and their allies have taken the proper and lawful step of bringing their grievance against the government’s emergency legislation to curb violent demonstrations, Bill 78, for arbitration before a court of law.
In hearings that began this week in Quebec Superior Court, the plaintiffs maintain that the rule calling on protest organizers to give eight hours of notice of demonstrations and disclosure of their planned route amounts to an unconstitutional stifling of their freedom of expression and assembly as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They maintain that hefty fines for student associations that participate in blocking access to classes unduly threatens their survival.
On the contrary, the charter allows for justifiable limits on the rights it stipulates, and a strong case can be made that the student protest movement has persistently abused the right of assembly in the streets and invited its limitation. It can similarly be credibly argued that forcefully denying access to classes for fellow students is sufficiently odious to merit heavy fines. As for their right to free expression, it is somewhat rich to hear student leaders day in and day out bemoan in the media, including the government-owned TV channels, that it is being unduly stifled.
It is possible that the court will find some aspects of the law excessive. But the ultimate test of the students’ good faith will be whether they abide by the court’s ruling if it goes against them, or continue flouting the rule of law as they have persistently done up to now.