What exactly is going on? At a time when extremism, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia and violence targeting minorities is peaking world-wide, those charged with safeguarding us from these horrors seem to be engaged in willful blindness or worse.

Examples abound. Here in Canada the so-called “United We Roll” (UWR) movement, ostensibly a ragtag group of truckers emanating from western Canada and advocating for oil pipelines, rolled onto Parliament Hill last week. While undoubtedly many were focused on the pipeline issue, it’s hard to neglect the fact that the convoy was born out of the racist “Yellow Vest Canada” (YVC) movement.

Indeed, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network tried to ensure that media, government officials and others were aware of the unavoidable links between YVC and UWR.

Before the convoy arrived on Feb. 19, we publicly explained that UWR was in fact originally to have been called the “Yellow Vest Convoy.” When it became clear that YWV embraced overt racism, had engaged in online death threats including calls for the arrest and death of the Prime Minister, supported anti-Muslim hate groups including Canadian Combat Coalition, Soldiers of Odin, and Worldwide Coalition Against Islam, it was clear that a name change was necessary.

Thus the Yellow Vest Convoy became “United We Roll.” Sadly, however, too many were still associated with the racism emanating from YVC.

The hatred and images of violence from YVC were not hidden. Much of it was directed at Canadian Muslims. That included conspiracy theories blaming local Fort McMurray Muslims for starting the wildfire in order to build a super mosque.

David Selvers, from Sault Ste. Marie, is but one example of bigots attracted to YVC/UWR. He is a Holocaust minimizer, anti-Semite and Islamophobe. So vile were his social media postings that the city of Sault Ste. Marie and others disassociated itself from Selvers Crane business. In fact, even UWR had to distance itself from Selvers given the ugly publicity he was generating.

Sadly, the Yellow Vests movement has now been entirely co-opted by the far right. In Canada, neo-Nazis like Paul Fromm and Brian Ruhe attend their rallies. Faith Goldy, a self-proclaimed propagandist for the alt right movement, spoke at their first Toronto rally and was a featured speaker at the UWR rally last week on Parliament Hill. Lately in France the Yellow Vest movement has engaged in antisemitic and anti-immigration rallies.

Yet, despite the rebrand, despite the close alliances with the racism violence and bigotry of YVC, convoy organizer Glen Carritt still claimed his group identified with the yellow vests and welcomed them to the convoy.

Carritt was not the only one to welcome YVC and other convoy members to Parliament Hill. Andrew Scheer, federal leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, along with Maxime Bernier, leader of the new ultra-right “People’s Party,” hopped on the same bandwagon used by Faith Goldy to support and bring greetings to the small group of convoy protesters.

No question they had every right to do so. What is deeply troubling, however, was that neither Scheer nor Bernier uttered one word of concern about the racists now firmly associated with the convoy. Their silence was deafening.

Even worse, given opportunities to correct the record, Scheer has remained tight-lipped. It’s this form of willful blindness that gives fresh air to the aspirations and hopes of neo-Nazis, antisemites, xenophobes and Islamophobes.

When political leaders choose expediency and vote counting over denouncing the evil in front of their eyes, the spiral towards hate and bigotry becomes ever larger.

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It was only two years ago that Alexandre Bissonnette, a young man inspired by the same hatred seen espoused by some members of the UWR convoy, walked into a Quebec City mosque and murdered six Canadian Muslims at prayer, wounding many others. It was only a few months ago that David Bowers, also motivated by anti-immigrant rhetoric and convinced that the Jews were to blame for the decline of America, murdered 11 innocent Jews at prayer in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.

Our nightmares have now turned to reality. Groups like YVC and their supporters within the UWR convoy only give strength to those like the Bissonnettes and Bowers of this world. Worse yet, political leaders who ignore such hatred are not just willfully ignorant but clearly stand with the victimizers against the victims.

Bernie M. Farber is a social justice writer and Chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. Follow at Twitter @BernieFarber

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