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If we are not aware of our biases, these biases can be weaponized to sow division.
People who leave a short-lived relationship sometimes explain to the rejected party, “I cannot reciprocate and commit to a relationship right now because I have issues of my own to work on.” It would be more honest but much more hurtful to say, “I am not attracted to you.”
In Ottawa, our brief—or, in the eyes of some people, too-long—encounter with the truckers has come to an end. Some people miss them and feel a sense of loss. Others made it clear that they could not reciprocate the truckers’ wish to engage in dialogue.
Instead of believing that the vast majority of truckers wanted what they said they wanted—for their concerns about the COVID measures to be understood, engaged with and accepted as a real voice within Canadian society—we have chosen to imagine them as bad people with bad agendas fueled by bad money.
Is it possible that there were some bad and manipulative actors among the truckers and their supporters? Of course it is. This is true about any charismatic movement. But I have not seen evidence to suggest that Freedom Convoy 2022 was not primarily a bold but peaceful expression of the desire for liberation from overly controlling and often pseudo-scientific COVID measures that denied our bodily autonomy and right to fully exercise our freedom of thought and expression.
We have rejected Freedom Convoy 2022. Now it is time to work on our issues and biases.
About a decade ago, my father, who was visiting Ottawa from Israel, took the wrong turn and missed the highway. He pulled into a gas station and tried to get his bearings and figure out the directions by looking at a map. A trucker who was at the gas station noticed his need and approached him to offer help. My father was deeply impressed by how patient, friendly and generous with his time the trucker was—methodically giving my father directions and explanations (somehow, the racism and xenophobia that truckers were recently accused of did not manifest in that kind and helpful interaction). The implication in my father’s praise of the trucker was that people in other cultures in comparison may be less patient, friendly and attentive toward a stranger lost in their midst.
This story of the trucker who took the initiative to help a stranger and did so in an exemplary manner fits to a tee the stereotype of Canadians as people that the world can count on to be helpful, patient and nice—lending a hand to a person in need whenever they can.
Over the years, I have sometimes told this anecdote to people in Israel but also hastened to add that the helpfulness of the trucker to my father should not be taken to mean that all Canadians are always nice in all situations. Canada can be an iceberg. At times, some Canadians can be the world’s experts and leading practitioners when it comes to assertively rejecting opportunities for interconnectedness and relationship building.
During the days that the Emergencies Act was in effect, the cracks in the myth that Canadians are super nice became more visible than ever on the international stage.
Some people around the world, many of whom were living in countries that dropped or were about to drop COVID measures, were watching in disbelief as Canadian authorities used intimidating actions and rhetoric to cast a wide net of suspicion and legal threat over anyone who supported the convoy—“supported” likely intentionally vaguely defined so as to scare, deter and silence as many people as possible.
As the smug rhetoric of “special tools” and “actions have consequences” luxuriated in Canada, many people around the world felt simple empathy in their hearts for a Canadian they imagined who may have given $20 to the truckers and now had to live in fear of the possibility of their bank account being frozen—or, even worse, criminal prosecution.
How can we reconcile the idea that Canadians are nice with the idea that only the Senate, not the culture more directly, rejected the Emergencies Act?
A part of the answer might be that we have allowed empathy—an emotion that should occur naturally and be exercised spontaneously and broadly—to be weaponized and used to serve particular agendas. Many health authorities, politicians, journalists and intellectuals have channeled the idea of empathy into a very narrow redefinition: having empathy means following COVID measures; questioning those measures means there is something impaired with your empathy. At the same time, these “leaders” trained us to dehumanize anyone who deviated from the narrative: people who for any reason chose to not get the COVID vaccine, people who reported adverse vaccine effects, people who wanted to engage in critical debate about COVID—all these people were the losers in the “empathy tournament” and became subject to ridicule, silencing, shunning and suspicion even as they were often experiencing suffering that should have warranted empathy and accommodation.
Furthermore, while we were not actively discouraged from feeling empathy for children or other people enduring masks on their faces for many hours or for children or other people who experienced isolation during COVID lockdowns—compassion and accommodation for these people never became an urgent priority.
In the early days of COVID, when COVID was still news from other countries and before it entered Canada, the talk in my home focused on measures that we must personally take to protect elderly people. I told my husband to shave his beard after listening to a video that said that people with beards were more likely to spread germs. But as the weeks and months progressed, we became increasingly dismayed by how empathy outside of the parameters defined by COVID authorities seemed to be forbidden and by how something almost resembling a “blood libel” was forming in our culture against people who were exercising their right to bodily autonomy and freedom of speech. Increasingly, the official rhetoric and performance of empathy started to feel suspiciously like a mask for the lack of the emotion itself. Empathy is hard to define, but it certainly does not mean power and control.
Around minute 33 of the following podcast, Adam Soos contrasts people for whom issues weigh heavy on the heart with people who function like “marketing firms,” articulating whatever “current issue of the day” they are “supposed to be commenting on” without original thought that does not take its cue from authority. There is much to think about there when it comes to reflecting on COVID and empathy.
Around minute 16:30 of the following episode, Ezra Levant shares the observation of his wife’s Siberian aunt that the people who got in trouble with the communist regime were more often not political activists but people who were perceived as “different,” people who today we would likely say were “on the spectrum.” Under COVID culture, the rhetoric of empathy increasingly started to feel less like the emotion itself and more like an attack on anyone who dared to—or in many cases could not help but—be different. Was there an implicit attempt underway to further marginalize and exclude “undesirable” people?
Being trained for two years (and longer) in asymmetric, power-based ways of thinking, we were well conditioned to demonize Freedom Convoy 2022 without asking critical questions.
The same lack of nuance and critical thinking also led us to listen with respect to the lived experience of Ottawa residents who regarded the presence of the truckers as harassment and abuse—but disregard or demonize the lived experience of residents of Ottawa who felt good around the truckers and viewed them as a symbol of hope that controlling narratives can be boldly but peacefully challenged in Canada. Thus people who a couple of weeks ago may have had a great time are now supposed to metaphorically feel like a cheating spouse who is hoping that what happened in downtown Ottawa stays in downtown Ottawa without any pictures floating around.
The following episode of the Candice Malcolm show analyses differences among individuals about how the protest was perceived:
People should feel free to express their lived experience in their own words and to criticize the behavior of others when needed. However, we also have the responsibility to ask ourselves questions about how bias might help to shape our experience of reality so that we do not shame or delegitimize people unnecessarily.
For example, one day well before Freedom Convoy 2022, I took the train downtown to emerge out of the station into a loud Palestinian demonstration that I was not aware was happening, complete with waving Palestinian flags and honking cars. What would happen if I, as a Canadian who grew up in Israel, expressed feelings of being intimidated and traumatized by that protest? Surely, almost anyone listening to me would conclude that my feelings were biased.
During the Palestinian protest, I gathered up the courage to step in front of the protesters to take a picture to share with my whatsup group. The protester standing directly in front of me immediately shied away, moving aside and saying, sorry! Sorry! Clearly, this was a very Canadian protest. See the following video about the Canadian tendency to say sorry:
One of the reasons that many people—myself included—are not very nice to everyone all the time is that we do have biases, preferences and emotional attachments that powerfully trigger our sympathetic nervous system and that shape our perceptions of reality.
Sometimes, our very memory of events can be shaped by what we are told rather than by our direct experience. A few years ago, a tree fell on electric wires in my neighborhood, causing visible “lightening” to go down the wires. As I recount this story, I have a clear picture of the accident in my mind’s eye. However, I cannot for the life of me remember if I saw this accident with my own eyes or if I only heard about it and the visual image in my brain is only my imagination of what the accident must have looked like. This does not mean that the accident did not happen; it did, but in some cases it is not clear which parts of our memory are the result of our own direct empirical experience and which parts are the result of accounts that we have heard. Honest people should trust themselves—but also remember the limitations of our understanding and perception.
Were the truckers really violent and harassing or do we “remember” them as such because we had been trained to fear them? Clearly, the truckers were a large and diverse group of persons, and I will not negate the experience of anyone who had a bad experience with one or some of them. However, people who did not have direct bad experiences—or whose bad experience came down to being stuck in traffic or experiencing noise, which I believe was greatly reduced after the injunction against honking—might benefit from reflecting on the bias that may have helped to shape their perception of the truckers.
A few years ago, Eric, my husband, was out of town. I was standing in the driveway buried in snow, shovel at hand. The prospect of clearing a heavy snowfall with my lily-dipper hands was daunting. As I was incompetently pushing very modest amounts of snow to the sides of the driveway, a snowblower vehicle (a service some people in the neighborhood paid for) was making its way down the street. Suddenly, as he was approaching my driveway, the driver of the snowblower started shouting at me something that I could not quite make out. At the same time, he was also gesturing boldly and impatiently with his arms to tell me to get out of his way—very rudely, I thought. As he got even closer, I could now hear what he was shouting at me: Move! Move! Being ordered to move out of my own driveway with loud words and broad arm gestures made me feel intimidated and anxious. Who is this big, bold man invading my space? But when I finally did comply and moved out of the way, I found myself watching in gratitude as the man—who must have noticed as he was driving down the street that I was not quite up to the task of clearing one of the heaviest snowfalls of the year from my driveway—was now working diligently to clear my driveway—which he did to perfection and refused to take money, quickly disappearing from sight to go about his work.
Did we chase out of Ottawa some people who were willing to collaboratively and peacefully work to make Canada a place where free thinking and bodily autonomy are allowed?
Can we de-weaponize empathy to avoid causing unnecessary suffering and division? This should begin by acknowledging that our feelings and perceptions are real and should be respected but also that a sense of entitlement can lead to feelings that do not sufficiently take into account the feelings and rights of others. The Ottawa “mentality” seems to condition us to believe that we have the right to not experience any discomfort—physical, metal, social or economic. Has this mentality led us to blur the boundaries between an inconvenience and a crime, between class/regional difference and moral transgression?
Is it illegal to have long and inconvenient but peaceful demonstrations in the capital of Canada? It will be interesting to see what the legal experts will say about this question in the months and years to come.
One of the reasons that we should be aware of our weaknesses and biases is to avoid situations in which these weaknesses and biases can be manipulated. In my younger days, I sometimes experienced situations in which my emotional attachment to Israel was manipulated in a way that made me speak disharmoniously. I learned over time to be true to my emotional attachment but also to try to follow Dr. Les Carter’s advice that being right is not always the highest virtue; creating an atmosphere of dignity, civility and respect (the acronym of Dr. C) is more important in certain situations <http://drlescarter.com/>.
Could it be that the passivity of Trudeau during the first couple of weeks of the protest was not the result of patience or incompetence but was rather a deliberate strategy to manipulate the biases of the people of Ottawa and make their sense of irritation with the truckers flare up to its full potential? Trudeau knew that not many people in Ottawa were likely to engage in self-reflection about their regional and class biases and that by waiting, he was helping their desire to see the truckers leave grow into a tool that could be used legally and politically.
Another bias that needs to challenged is that the Convoy is not really a Canadian phenomenon because a lot of the money came from overseas. Unless I am shown evidence of an international conspiracy to overthrow Canadian sovereignty, I am going to assume that most people outside of Canada who gave money to the Convoy did so for the same reasons that many Canadians routinely and proudly give money for many causes around the world—out of compassion and solidarity with the people who are affected by various problems.
Must we always be in the patronizing position of the generous helpers instead of being the ones in need of help? Many people around the world have suffered as a result of COVID measures and have empathized with the frustration of the Canadian people that their country was one of the most draconian in implementing those measures and one of the slowest to question them and to lift them. Will it become a habit to question international donations that come into Canada for environmental and other causes, or must only the truckers be barred from international support? Questioning the COVID narrative is an international phenomenon, just as COVID measures were an international phenomenon, so it should not come as a surprise that money, as it does in many other contexts, would cross borders.
Money aside, I hope that the cracks in the international image of Canadians as nice people—flaws that can no longer be hidden from the world—will help us to grow because there is really a great deal about Canada that is nice and full of potential.
Leonard Cohen sang that “there is a crack, a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.” May the cracks in our international image be a source of humility, renewal and hope for our potentially wonderful culture. By de-weaponizing empathy and treating each other with respect, we can be proud to be Canadian.
Lavant -> Levant
Canada is in a unique postion - it gets to be the good guy in large part due to the military and trade relationship with its neighbour
It sounds like you're describing intellectual honesty - that's not what moves the needle these days