Anna Morgan - Toronto Star - Courts not the place to fight hate
David Ahenakew is back in the news.
....
The problem with the debate is that it has focused on the question of free speech. But Ahenakew isn't just a speaker, he's a believer. Even if Saskatchewan prosecutors pursue their legal action and eventually get a conviction and even if a fine is imposed, it won't lead to Ahenakew changing his mind.
Where's the upside here? In other criminal cases, punishment is supposed to work together with efforts to rehabilitate. While it seems obvious that bad ideas can't be pounded out of existence, do we just give up? Is it not possible to turn around Ahenakew and his like-minded audience?
Let me make myself clear: I am the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. My late father, who in 1992 testified in a Nazi war crimes case in Australia, witnessed first-hand the way brutal words can turn into brutal deeds. I would never trivialize hate speech. My point, however, is that in 21st-century Canada, words and thoughts should be countered first and foremost by education.
As I look back on my own schooling, I am reminded of a Talmudic lesson about a woman named Bruria, a scholar noted for her wisdom. When her husband began to pray for the punishment of certain sinners, she urged him to pray that they change their ways instead.
.....
The Rest.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The problem is not so much in having a safeguard against racially-based crimes, the real issue is the lame definitions of a "hate crime"....to put a intellectually vacant mongoloid like Akenakew in the same league as Eichmann is to diminish the seriousness of true genocidal crimes by an act of distorted perspective.
There should be a law to prosecute people who have incited crimes and violence against other people with their rhetoric....but Akenakew and Zundle and Keegstra and Fromm et al have left no provable victims but their own intellect which committed public suicide with their asinine bigotry...bigotry is not a crime...it's a social ill but it's not a crime until you act on those convictions and create a victim.
Canada's Hate laws need serious revision and firmly defined crimes.
I agree the perspective too often is distorted and Akenakew and his ilk are more to be pitied than feared. As for hate laws, well the fact that they have been so rarely enforced would point to the efficacy of the keegstra's of the world.
Post a Comment