The truck convoy protest that’s currently grabbing the headlines across Canada is causing concern among many Canadians. The majority of Canadians, I believe, think this is a great country. It’s peaceful, compassionate, abides by the rule of law and takes care of its citizenry. So who are these group of people who are threatening our peace, threatening the very fabric of our structured society?
Looking from the outside, it seems to be a disparate group, joined by factions that chafe at the need to get vaccinated. They label it freedom, the freedom to do what they want. If their pursuit of individual freedom impinges on other’s freedoms, they’re willing to accept that. It seems less a push for freedom than a push to get their own way, much like a child who threatens to hold their breath until they get what they want. Most Canadians, I believe, are quite happy with the level of freedom we have in this country.
So, scratching the surface a little deeper, what really is at the root of this protest, and who are the core backers? I’ll give you a hint, on Sunday the convoy organizers asked for a temporary halt of horn honking, “out of respect for the Lord’s Day,”, who talks like that? Also when GoFundMe closed their account, where did they turn, “the convoy shifted to Christian crowdfunding site Give Send Go.” Is the picture starting to get clearer? Who are the supporters in the USA – Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and various republican politicians across the “bible belt”. This is a Christian Fundamentalist movement at its core. That fact makes it easier to understand how they raised so much money in a short period of time.
Christian Fundamentalists aren’t that much different than their much more maligned, Islamic Fundamentalists, counterparts. They both want a society ruled by religious laws. Just a reflection on Texas’s recent anti-abortion laws gives you a hint of where the path leads.
This truck convoy protest is so much more than vaccines, it’s the tip of the spear for importing American funded and idealized far-right religious fundamentalism. Is that what we want Canada to become? Maybe it’s time to roll out the T word, Terrorism, we’ve applied that label with ease to Islamic Fundamentalists funded from the Middle East, is it time to apply it to Christian Fundamentalists funded from ‘Murica?
References
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-convoy-protests-second-weekend-1.6341510
https://globalnews.ca/news/8597481/ottawa-trucker-convoy-funds-gofundme-us-republicans/
Further Reading
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2022/02/01/report-from-canada-far-right-trucker-convoy-crosses-canada/