We are again living in a time of manufactured enemies.
The postwar 50s were all about the Next War, that one “fer sure” to be driven by Communists bent on destroying the newly resurgent Western way of life.
Now, from Stephen Harper to Rob/Doug Ford to Tim Hudak, we are being told that our lifestyle is under attack and somebody else is trying to wrench it away from us. Dusting off an old-time Conservative playbook, they insist that the poor, criminals, civil servants, unionized workers, artists, bike riders, the media and, yes, even raccoons are trying to steal what we have worked so hard to achieve.
Raccoons.
Harper merrily wages pointless wars in Afghanistan and now Libya, but he fights imaginary wars with Denmark over uninhabited islands in the North and with “bureaucracy,” an evil presumed to be as frightening to Canadians as “liberals” are to Americans. A lot of this witch-hunting has been imported from Sarah Palin’s Tea Bag America, though creating enemies lists goes back at least to Mike Harris’s horrendous rule and his war against welfare recipients.
At a time of significantly falling crime rates, Tories from Harper to Hudak vow to get tough on crime and criminals. Rather than love our neighbours, we’re taught to suspect them and sure as hell not take any shit. It’s a world where we’re again encouraged to fear The Other, be it loud folks next door or brown people who may have “snuck” into our country.
What we should fear is those who would set us upon each other while they create room for themselves to cut services and subvert our natural interconnections. I was heartened by Opposition leader Jack Layton’s comments at the opening of Parliament. “Canadians elected each and every one of us here. When we do not show respect for each other as individuals, we are not showing respect for the Canadians who sent us here.”
Time to renew our commitment to hope, and community, and to resist being bullied into anger at imaginary enemies.
