I have written about problems with the idea and rhetoric of “hate” here, and given more examples here.
The website of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), antihate.ca, further illustrates that the discourse of “hate” goes far beyond any attempt to fight racism. This discourse uses the rhetoric of “hate” to push the agenda of the cultural left, and to calumniate those who disagree.
As an example, CAHN is now demanding that the feminist activist Kellie-Jay Keen be refused a visa to enter Canada, on the grounds that she is “transphobic.” Keen was recently attacked by a violent mob in New Zealand; one might think an “anti-hate” organization would support her.
CAHN was founded by the widely respected human rights campaigner Bernie Farber, and has received government funding in the past. It models itself on the U.S. Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC). This is telling, as CAHN has, like the SPLC, gone off chasing many targets remote from its original anti-racist mission. Its homepage contains today an annoying number of fundraising popups, perhaps indicating that as it loses sight of its purpose, its money too is running out.
CAHN nevertheless has some residual credibility, and is often quoted in the Canadian media as an expert and putatively factual source. But that credibility is eroding: the journalist Jon Kay recently won a legal case when CAHN sued him for pointing to the group’s association with the violent Antifa movement; the judge responded that Kay’s journalism was accurate.1
CAHN’s website speaks of the distance it has come. On 11 April 2023, antihate.ca had on its home page 12 articles (the page is a moving target, but this day was typical). I have bolded below the two items that are unproblematically “hate”; the other ten reflect a different agenda. The articles concerned the following topics:
A hotel chain hosting a conservative Christian group opposed to abortion;
Transgender people at the Ottawa School Board;
Another transgender person at the Ottawa School Board;
Online Anti-Semitic threats to someone at that school board;
The Christian group Action4Canada, calling it "Christian Nationalist";
Anti-Semitism on Twitter;
A Hindu Nationalist movement, aligned with Modi in India;
Islamophobia, quoting a poll showing that 39% of Canadians have an unfavourable view of Islam;
A protest against a drag show by a Christian pastor in Calgary;
A petition to drop charges against anti-anti-Drag protesters;
More on the Christian group Action4Canada;
An article on the German AfD MEP Christine Anderson meeting Canadian MPs.
The “Anti-Hate” movement gives every sign of running out of hate. Of twelve articles, there are:
Four about cultural issues (Drag queens and transgenderism);
Three about conservative Christian groups and their attitude to abortion;
Two on anti-Semitism;
One about a group credibly accused of violence in India;
One alleging that the German AfD party is “far-right”, based on its anti-immigration position; and
One on “Islamophobia”, citing polls showing some 39% of Canadians to have negative views of Islam.
We have, then, only two out of twelve articles that are unproblematically about anti-Semitism or other issues linked to any traditional understanding of hate speech. One of these concerns a single incident; the other blames Elon Musk for a rise in hate speech on Twitter, and goes out of its way to refer to Marjorie Taylor Greene and former President Trump, linking them without direct accusation to anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism seems more a pretext than a target.
There are no other articles that are, except by remote implication, about racism.
Seven of the remaining ten, far and away the largest group, concern cultural issues. Of these, four are on gender related issues, and three are attacks on anti-abortion conservative Christian groups.
The definition of “hate” is expanding to include conservative or traditionalist views the left dislikes. Once mainstream positions such as opposition to abortion are held to be “hate.” Failure to support the latest gender-related movements, and opposition to drag shows for children, is also labelled “hate.”
Clearly, the “hate” industry is running out of real hate, in the old sense of racism and adjacent phenomena. This is, of course, a good thing.
A large and contrived degree of semantic expansion is needed in order to include in the category of “hate” opinions that many people would not understand to be hateful. There is plenty of hatred about — check the internet — but most of the groups mentioned here do not threaten violence or evince hateful emotion.
A narrowly cynical interpretation of the move away from racism would be that CAHN needs to motivate fundraising. A less cynical and more sociological understanding would point to a normal bureaucratic need for self-justification.
Or perhaps this problematic category of “hate” was always at some level intended to expand to include ideas dissenting from leftist orthodoxy, thereby becoming a weapon against old-fashioned or disliked ideas, and hence shaping discourse in a leftist direction. Both explanations can be true: the short-term institutional interests and the long term objectives of the cultural left are entirely compatible. But neither have much to do with fighting racial hatred.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jon-kays-legal-victory-exposes-canadian-anti-hate-networks-anti-conservative-agenda