Adam Pankratz: Wokeness is deservedly crashing. Let’s be careful about retribution

On Aug. 6, Ottawa’s Capital Pride released a pro Palestinian statement which likely garnered considerably more attention than its authors imagined it would. The statement vaguely attempted to call out all intolerance, including antisemitism, but could not hide the fact that it was itself decidedly antisemitic, though that irony was obviously lost on Capital Pride. 

The reaction from local Jewish groups was understandably swift in their declaration they would give Ottawa Pride a pass. A more surprising reaction came from quarters recently rather acquiescent or silent on many things antisemitic. Ottawa’s mayor, the Ottawa-Carleton School board, local hospitals and even the Liberal Party of Canada withdrew from participation in the parade.  

The descent of Pride and other allegedly progressive events and institutions into the murky waters of extremist left and activist politics has been underway for a while now and is not unique to Capital Pride (see CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn for example). So, in many ways, the journey of Capital Pride to the terminus of antisemitism and support for a region where being gay is punishable by death is not altogether surprising, sad though it may be. 

But let us take a step back from this single event and look at the larger picture and the dangers very apparently lurking. Indeed, the reaction to the Capital Pride statement could well turn out to be the canary in the coal mine of backlash against activist extremism and woke politics. 

For years it has been de rigueur for politicians of all stripes to participate in Pride. Justin Trudeau and the Liberals often act like they love nothing more than a good Pride march. That Capital Pride is too far gone for the Liberals, who have been especially mealy-mouthed on support for Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks, and who never miss an opportunity to burnish their progressive credentials, should raise eyebrows everywhere. In particular, it should seriously worry Capital Pride, as well as all “progressive” organizations which embraced the scourge of woke identity politics and allowed fringe elements within their organizations to take control.  

However, this should also worry centrist and fair-minded Canadians. Large public organizations and politicians turning away from Pride and its newfound extremism may be a good thing, but that turn can quickly devolve into vicious backlash and retaliation if we are not collectively careful. 

Some may argue that many of the organizations first in line for a backlash have had it coming for a while now. After all, these are the organizations and people who hounded anyone who said women couldn’t have a penis out of a job, tarred innocent citizens as racist, who thought perhaps all lives did, in fact, matter, and generally created an environment of fear around the most salient cultural issues of the last decade. They deserve it, so goes this logic.  

I do not disagree that there are people out there who, in the name of progress, displayed the worst and most vicious of behaviour towards anyone who did not agree with their extreme views. It is to be desired that they face consequences for having made the lives of others miserable or having cost blameless people their jobs. I, at any rate, will not shed a tear nor pity them if and when they finally met the sanction they deserve. 

But in my desire to see the leaders of activist cancel culture brought to justice, I cannot help but look at the historical record of public retribution. It does not make for happy reading, as anyone who peruses French history circa 1794 can attest. 

Retribution and backlash have never been precisely calibrated, scientific instruments. They are blunt tools, subject to wild swings and abuse by those who wield them. And, historically speaking, those who wield them tend to get a thrill out of revenge and reprisal. 

This is the fear I have harboured for a while now: that the inevitable backlash against the insane and destructive scourge of activist identity politics would arrive and, when it came, the perpetrators would discover that they were a minority and, the majority now coming for them was not in a conciliatory mood. While minorities persecuting majorities is bad (as we have seen via cancel culture), a majority persecuting a minority, whatever they may have done, has the potential to be worse. 

The most vehement and vocal adherents and actors in the culture wars of the past years have done enormous damage to both institutions and individuals. They have cost people their jobs, reputations and, in some cases, their lives. It is not unnatural to want to see such bad actors harmed as they harmed others. By doing so, however, those of us who have stood against the tidal wave of woke activism which threatened society, risk becoming the beasts we fought so hard to push back. The Capital Pride debacle demonstrates the societal pendulum is swinging back, my fear is it will bludgeon indiscriminately and plunge us further into extreme societal divides. 

National Post

Adam Pankratz is a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.