In the hours after someone murdered six men in a Quebec City mosque on Sunday night, when nobody knew who was responsible, a witness told Radio Canada that there had been two shooters, that they spoke with Québécois accents, and that they had shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they shot up the mosque.

With these scraps of information, people jumped to conclusions and shared them online. Because the men had Quebec accents, some assumed it was an anti-Muslim attack and posited that it was inspired by Donald Trump’s ban on some Muslims entering the United States.

Because the witness heard the men shout “Allahu Akbar,” others assumed it was some kind of Muslim-on-Muslim attack, another manifestation of jihadi terror, and shared that view online.

We eventually learned that there was one suspect — a local man who may have been motivated by anti-Muslim feelings. Quebecers, shocked by the violence, have been doing some soul-searching. Premier Philippe Couillard has led the public mourning eloquently, emphasizing that Muslims are welcome in Quebec.

Well-wishers gathered for mourning vigils across the country and journalists have done a good job of telling this tragic story, tracking down people who knew the alleged shooter and telling the heartbreaking stories of the victims — all part of how we deal with a tragedy like this.

One Canadian news outlet, though, took a different approach. The Rebel, which often features anti-Muslim material, registered a URL the day after the attack and set up a website to carry reports with a conspiratorial tone — and, of course, asked viewers to send donations.

The Rebel’s reports warn that the mainstream media can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and hint that there is cover-up effort underway to hide something, presumably the involvement of a Muslim witness who was detained by police.

This is absurd. The police forces involved would not cover up a Muslim terror plot, nor would the “mainstream media” enable them.

This does not mean, though, that nobody believes this kind of thing. There are a lot of outlets spreading conspiratorial anti-Muslim news. We may eventually learn that the young man charged with the Quebec City murders was inspired by that kind of garbage.

He may be much like Justin Bourque, who killed three RCMP officers in Moncton in 2014, or Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who killed a soldier in Ottawa that year, or Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, or any number of school shooters. They all had heads filled with poison from the internet.

It was chilling how quickly certain outlets stopped covering the Quebec City massacre after it became clear that the victims, and not the perpetrators, were Muslims. And it is shocking that the Rebel is hinting at conspiracies. It was chilling how quickly certain outlets stopped covering the Quebec City massacre after it became clear that the victims, and not the perpetrators, were Muslims. And it is shocking that the Rebel is hinting at conspiracies.

This is a 21st century phenomenon, and it appears to be accelerating. Troubled young men, inspired by stuff they read online, carry out terrible acts of violence. ISIS takes it a step further, actively recruiting individuals for their attacks, but the real trend is not an attack on the West by Islam, but unwell young men finding a focus for their disturbed minds online and turning to violence.

For this reason, the spread of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories is worrying.

What distinguishes anti-Muslim racism from other forms of racism is that, like 20th century antisemitism, it is the result of a conspiratorial ideology.

In 1977, after a military coup in Argentina, the Jewish journalist Jacobo Timerman was arrested by the military, tortured and imprisoned for two years.

In his book about the experience — Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number — he marvels at the conspiratorial antisemitism of his tormentors. Extremists within the Argentine military — Nazis — were convinced by an elaborate but completely false theory that Jews intended to take over Patagonia.

The real political enemies of the right-wing soldiers were left-wing activists and guerillas, but they saved their hatred for the Jews.

“When the extreme Right combats its natural enemies, its most hated object is the Jew. Its hatred is focused upon the Jew. This hatred inspires the extreme Right, exalts it, elevates it to romantic, metaphysical heights.”

In prison, Jews were singled out for special mistreatment, like having daughters violated in front of their families.

It was like this for centuries. The Jews were the eternally scorned outsiders, victims of casual cruelty, pogroms, expulsion and, eventually, industrial-scale murder.

There is still, sadly, no shortage of Jew hatred, but many of the extremist groups that once saved their scorn for Jews have now made Muslims their primary targets.

For instance, French nationalist leader Marine Le Pen, whom the Quebec City shooter liked on Facebook, is making electoral overtures to Jews and saving her venom for Muslims.

The main thread in the anti-Muslim conspiracies — that they are secretly plotting to undermine and take over our societies — is similar to the antisemitic conspiracies of the 20th century.

There appears to be the same unreasoning, intense hatred, the same scapegoating, the same refusal to recognize our common humanity. Muslims are the other, a threat to fear, a bogeyman used to rally voters and gull suckers out of their credit-card numbers.

It was chilling how quickly certain outlets stopped covering the Quebec City massacre after it became clear that the victims, and not the perpetrators, were Muslims. And it is shocking that the Rebel is hinting at conspiracies.

There is no reason to be confident that what once happened to Jews can’t now happen to Muslims. Americans are already locking up and expelling legal residents. Trump’s chief adviser used to run an outlet that spread anti-Muslim garbage. His spokesperson is making up non-existent Muslim crimes.

Nothing like this has happened in the West since the Second World War. We should not act as if any of this is normal.

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