Barbarism with a smiling face

Here's Slavoj Zizek writing in The Guardian on liberal multiculturalism's relationship to the far right on the topic of immigration:

The mechanism of such neutralisation [experiencing "the Other deprived of its Otherness"] was best formulated back in 1938 by Robert Brasillach, the French fascist intellectual, who saw himself as a "moderate" antisemite and invented the formula of reasonable antisemitism. "We grant ourselves permission to applaud Charlie Chaplin, a half Jew, at the movies; to admire Proust, a half Jew; to applaud Yehudi Menuhin, a Jew; … We don't want to kill anyone, we don't want to organise any pogrom. But we also think that the best way to hinder the always unpredictable actions of instinctual antisemitism is to organise a reasonable antisemitism."

Is this same attitude not at work in the way our governments are dealing with the "immigrant threat"? After righteously rejecting direct populist racism as "unreasonable" and unacceptable for our democratic standards, they endorse "reasonably" racist protective measures or, as today's Brasillachs, some of them even Social Democrats, tell us: "We grant ourselves permission to applaud African and east European sportsmen, Asian doctors, Indian software programmers. We don't want to kill anyone, we don't want to organise any pogrom. But we also think that the best way to hinder the always unpredictable violent anti-immigrant defensive measures is to organise a reasonable anti-immigrant protection."

While this applies in Europe where there are electorally-active far right parties that have effectively set the terms of debate on immigration (for example, this and this), there's a slightly different mechanism at work in Canadian politics where the far right is largely politically alienated. We instead have the anti-immigration rhetoric coming straight from the Tories, but I suppose because they have to convince the opposition and voters of it, the "reasonable intolerance" towards immigration seems to mainly be taking the form of the language of human rights.

For example, when the MK Sun Sea, laden with nearly five hundred Tamil refugees, was escorted by the Canadian Navy to shore, the government's reaction was twofold: first, the refugees shouldn't be let in because there are almost certainly terrorists aboard (this has not been substantiated); second, that the government wasn't against refugee claimants as such, but that they were really against human smugglers and therefore tougher new laws--including those that would allow the government to more rapidly deport failed refugee claimants--needed to be enacted.

And doesn't something similar apply to the recent niqab debacle in Quebec? The ban on wearing the niqab in public positions or when dealing with government officials has widely been lauded across the political spectrum--Quebecoise liberal feminists were largely supportive of the law on gender equality grounds--though it in effect creates a legal framework for denying women to services such as education (two women have been expelled from courses in Montreal for refusing to remove their veils).

I'm also interested in the way that this is supported by the media under the ruse of "debate". The Globe and Mail--Canada's supposed bastion of liberal opinion (which speaks volumes about how absolutely poor Canada's media landscape is)--has recently redesigned both their physical newspaper and their website. One of the new aspects of the online version of the paper is how they will prominently place comments on the front page. Right now they're focusing on immigration, and at the time of my writing this, they have "Reader Jan Burton [responding] to 'Are we too tolerant?'" with the insightful and surely deserving to be on the front page of the website for the country's largest circulation national daily comment: "Tolerance is fine, but not when it gets to the point of tolerating intolerance. "

The Globe's shitty new redesign with reader comment

Going back to the Zizek article cited above, isn't this exactly what he's talking about when he writes

Progressive liberals are, of course, horrified by such populist racism. However, a closer look reveals how their multicultural tolerance and respect of differences share with those who oppose immigration the need to keep others at a proper distance. "The others are OK, I respect them," the liberals say, "but they must not intrude too much on my own space. The moment they do, they harass me – I fully support affirmative action, but I am in no way ready to listen to loud rap music." What is increasingly emerging as the central human right in late-capitalist societies is the right not to be harassed, which is the right to be kept at a safe distance from others. A terrorist whose deadly plans should be prevented belongs in Guantánamo, the empty zone exempted from the rule of law; a fundamentalist ideologist should be silenced because he spreads hatred. Such people are toxic subjects who disturb my peace.

On today's market, we find a whole series of products deprived of their malignant property: coffee without caffeine, cream without fat, beer without alcohol. And the list goes on: what about virtual sex as sex without sex? The Colin Powell doctrine of warfare with no casualties (on our side, of course) as warfare without warfare? The contemporary redefinition of politics as the art of expert administration as politics without politics? This leads us to today's tolerant liberal multiculturalism as an experience of the Other deprived of its Otherness – the decaffeinated Other.

Of course, in the case of the Globe and Mail, they themselves would never express the (not so) new liberal form of intolerance because "Comments that appear on the site are not the opinion of The Globe and Mail, but only of the comment writer." Aye, carry on then, nothing to be concerned about.

(h/t General William Rubbish)

UPDATE: The Guardian reports here on the spread of the far right in Europe.

UPDATE 2: The BBC here with a news item about another ship carrying Tamil migrants approaching Canadian shores. Quoth the pig Harper:

Mr Harper said current laws in Canada did not go far enough to deter human trafficking, which he says "will increase in the years to come, unless we make significant changes to our law, to provide serious deterrents".

He called the trend in migrant ships attempting to reach Canada's west coast "unacceptable" and said he would unveil amendments to the immigration act designed to "ensure we deter this kind of behaviour".

(h/t Scott Somedisco)

UPDATE 3: The Guardian on the growing ties between the EDL and the Tea Party. Smoking gun quote that proves that Zizek was precisely right in talking about how Brasillach's distinction between "reasonable" and "instinctual" antisemitisms is relevant here:

[Blogger and all-around racist crank Pam] Geller, who denies being anti-Muslim, said in one of her blogs: "I share the EDL's goals… We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west."