The Globe and Mail - 22.02.2020

SATURDAY,FEBRUARY22,2020 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O O11

I

t is never wise to publish a hard
prediction, but I will eschew
convention and make one any-
how: Thegovernment under Pre-
mier Doug Ford will accidentally
build the Ontario Line into the
lake.
It is inevitable coming from the
government that, last year, print-
ed stickers that didn’t actually
stick to warn gas station patrons
about the federal carbon tax.
Then, earlier this month, it began
circulating new licence plates that
become illegible after the sun
goes down.
I can only assume, therefore,
that the Ford government will fol-
low by either cutting the ribbon
on new long-term care beds for
which it will forget to order mat-
tresses, or build its prized Ontario
Line in the wrong direction after

someone mistakenly scans the

map upside down.

In past and present, when con-

fronted with its peeling stickers,

washed-out licence plates and

faded dreams, the Ontario gov-

ernment will insist its products

have previously gone through rig-

orous testing.

Indeed, when asked Tuesday

about reports that the new licence

plates cannot be seen in the dark,

Minister of Government and Con-

sumer Services Lisa Thompson

responded by saying Ontario’s

new plates “are actually very read-

able,” which is as true as saying

Ontario’s new plates are actually

made of cottage cheese and/or

that the Fordgovernment’s savvy

team of political strategists are

public relations masterminds.

Anyway, according to Ms.

Thompson, the new, street-racer-

approved Ontario licence plates

still constitute an improvement

on “the flaking and peeling Liber-

al plates,” which, in some cases,

would become unreadable after

years of use, as opposed to the

new ones that become unread-

able from the time they are made.

To the government’s credit,

however, it did change its tune the

following day (ostensibly after

consultations with reality and rig-

orous testing using human eyes)

and conceded that yes, there is a

problem with visibility regarding

the new licence plates and noted

that the province will be working

with the manufacturer to fix the

issue.

What this all suggests is that

there is a higher-than-zero

chance that Ontario’s ambitious

new transit plan – which was To-

ronto’s Downtown Relief Line un-

til the Premier scratched off “May-

or John Tory” and penciled in

“Doug” – will be accidentally be

built underwater, right into Lake

Ontario.

The first sign that something is

amiss will be when a lost boring

machine suddenly washes up on

the coast of Rochester, N.Y.

The U.S. Coast Guard will then

examine the machine to try to fig-

ure out where it came from, but

unfortunately, by then, the identi-

fying sticker would’ve already

peeled off (little did they know, it

peeled off shortly after it was ap-

plied). Eventually, authorities will

make the connection and phone

up Queen’s Park to come fetch its

missing machine.

It will be at that point that the

government will realize that the

entire north-south portion of the

Ontario Line was accidentally just

built south, with eight stops en-

tirely submerged and leading out

in the water to nowhere.

The trains, which will only be

operational once, will cruise mer-

rily past Queen’s Quay, beyond

which they will become water-

logged and sink to the bottom of

the lake. Look out, quagga mus-

sels – there’s a new invasive spe-

cies coming to Lake Ontario.

Back on land,the government

will assemble a hasty news con-

ference to respond to reports of

missing trains and angry and ex-

hausted passengers swimming up

to Cherry Beach, There, the minis-

ter of transport will assure report-

ers that the Ontario Line trains

were subject to rigorous testing

(not rigorous testing underwater,

mind you, but rigorous testing all

the same) and that the plans for

the transit expansion were re-

viewed dozens of times.

Anyway, the minister will add,

“The previous Liberal transit line

was noisy and disruptive. Ours is

unobtrusive and remarkably

quiet.”

Eventually, though, the gov-

ernment will have to concede that

it didn’t actually intend to waste

money on a useless transit line

that will have to be replaced.

Pressed for further explanation,

the ministry will reluctantly re-

veal than an Ontario Line project

manager – likely a second or a

third cousin of former Ford chief

of staff Dean French – inadver-

tently scanned a map of the city

upside down because he thought

the “blue part” at the top simply

represented the PC-loving vote-

rich 905 region. A common mis-

take, really.

And so, in the end, a fleet of

broken trains, useless tracks and

wasted hours will be thrust into

the province’s “do-over” pile,

which is already flush with un-

sticky stickers, unreadable licence

plates, the government’s initial

autism program overhaul, the

plan to retroactively cut munici-

pal budgets, the plan to cancel

construction on a French-lan-

guage university and scheduled

cuts to the province’s legal aid sys-

tem – among other things.

Really, though, when it comes

to this government, what’s one

more mulligan?

What’sonemoremishapforDougFord?

Afterillegiblelicence

platesandnon-stick

stickers,wehaveto

wonderwherethis

madnessends

ROBYN
URBACK

OPINION

Inpastandpresent,

whenconfrontedwith

itspeelingstickers,

washed-outlicence

platesandfaded

dreams,theOntario

governmentwillinsist

itsproductshave

previouslygonethrough

rigoroustesting.

I

know Hanau, a small city sur-
rounded by forest on the river
Main. It’s a bustling hub that
for centuries has attracted people
from many cultures and religions
to its factories, shops and military
bases; its citizens have always
been diverse and polyglot.
I know some of Hanau’s lead-
ers and thinkers, including its
long-time mayor, Claus Kamin-
sky, and have talked with him
about his plans to turn Hanau’s
huge abandoned U.S. army base
into a new city centre that sup-
ports that diversity.
And I know there is not only
unimaginable grief and horror in
Hanau today, but also a special
sort of fear.
The shooting massacre of at
least nine Hanau residents on
Wednesday night, reportedly at
the hands of a local man who had
become infected by online ideas
picked up from popular political
figures and commentators who
target religious and racial minor-
ities, brought that fear to the sur-
face.
Hanau’s most famous
offspring, the Brothers Grimm,
knew something of that fear –
they portrayed it as a type of poi-
son, tempting to some, that trans-
forms troubled individuals but al-
so seizes kingdoms and organiza-
tions, leaving death and hatred in
its wake.
Hanau remembers this from

1938. By then, the toxin had
      seeped into many in the city,
      turning them into violent preda-
      tors who attacked their neigh-
      bours on racial grounds. On an in-
      famous day in 1938, a mob ram-
      paged through the town and set
      its main synagogue ablaze. Only
      then did the poison’s other form
      become fully apparent, when the

police and fire department

rushed to the scene only to save

adjacent, non-Jewish-owned

buildings from burning, enthusi-

astically allowing the synagogue

to burn to the ground.

This is not 1938. Unlike then,

only a sliver of people in this

prosperous western end of Ger-

many vote for parties of intoler-

ance today.

But that poison has been doing

its work. The day of the massacre,

German media reported that in-

vestigators had detained the lead-

er of an online community that

shared Nazi images and slogans

and discussed attacks on Mus-

lims, immigrants and minorities.

He was a 35-year-old police offi-

cial from Hesse, the state that

contains Hanau (he had moved

to Berlin last year).

Of the 50 members of the

group suspected of participating

in hate activities, Hesse officials

believed that at least 38 were po-

lice officers. A survey of 17,000

Hesse police officers this month

found that more than a quarter

believe the conspiratorial fallacy

that Germany would become “an

Islamic country.”

A week earlier, federal prose-

cutors staged raids in six states to

break up a nationwide terrorism

network described as neo-Nazi

that had been assembling a weap-

ons cache while planning attacks

on “politicians, asylum seekers

and people of Muslim faith.” The

group’s goal, according to federal

prosecutors, was to “shock and

ultimately overpower the state

and social order of the Federal Re-

public of Germany.” At least one

key figure in the group was a po-

lice official.

It’s the latest in a series of vio-

lent neo-Nazi and extreme-right

groups that appear to have infil-

trated the ranks of German police

and military. In Frankfurt, next

door to Hanau, five police officers

are being prosecuted for running

another online group that sent

death threats to lawyers repre-

senting victims of far-right terror-

ism, including a threat to “slaugh-

ter” the infant daughter of one

lawyer.

The ring called itself “NSU 2.0,”

a reference to a terrorist organiza-

tion, the neo-Nazi National So-

cialist Underground, that com-

mitted at least 10 killings and two

bombings mainly aimed at mi-

norities and immigrants, in a

spree that ended in 2011. Some of

the 100-odd people tied to the

NSU also had ties to police, mil-

itary and intelligence agencies.

In December, after a number of

military officers were suspended

for supporting extreme-right

groups or giving Hitler salutes,

federal officials announced the

creation of a “central office for

far-right extremists in the public

service” to investigate the many

cases of police, military and intel-

ligence officials caught in far-

right plots. Some say this office

has done little so far.

This was how the politics of

hate took over this country the

last time: It did not emerge in-

stantly as a mass political move-

ment, but crept up within the

ranks of the military and police,

and in packs of self-motivated

thugs.

This time, there is a late-dawn-

ing recognition of the poison and

its powers. Chancellor Angela

Merkel called it exactly that –

“Racism is a poison, hate is a poi-

son,” she said on Thursday – and

her colleagues vowed that their

conservative Christian Democrat-

ic Union would never work with

the Alternative for Germany, a

party that, in the words of the

CDU leader, “tolerates right-wing

extremists and Nazis in its ranks.”

But, in Hanau and beyond,

there is a growing worry that

many of the people meant to

guard against such horrors are

now part of the problem.

DougSaunders,TheGlobeand

Mail’sinternational-affairscolumnist,

iscurrentlyaRichardvon

WeizsaeckerFellowoftheRobert

BoschAcademyinBerlin

InGermany,theterrorthreatiscomingfrominsidetheguardhouse

DOUG
SAUNDERS

OPINION

MournersinHanau,Germany,attendavigilonThursdayforvictimsofashootinginthecityadayearlier.At

leastninepeoplewerekilledintheattack.ODDANDERSEN/AFPVIAGETTYIMAGES

L

ast month, France was
plunged into yet another bit-
ter debate about the incom-
patibility between the republican
values espoused by its secular
leaders and those of the country’s
rapidly growing Muslim popula-
tion. The trigger this time was a
video posted online by a teenage
girl who did not mince words in
depicting Islam as a religion un-
worthy of respect.
L’affaire Milasparked an online
war between the girl’s critics and
defenders. Politicians all the way
up to President Emmanuel Ma-
cron were soon forced to weigh in
after the 16-year-old whose video
started it all became the target of
violent threats and was pulled
out of school.
Few countries hold blasphemy
in as high regard as France. The
right to condemn and criticize
any religion, no matter how
crudely, has been protected since

the French Revolution of 1789.

But the risks associated with the

practice have never seemed as

high since a terrorist attack, five

years ago, on the offices of the sa-

tirical publication Charlie Hebdo

left 12 dead.

While the attack led to a global

“Je suis Charlie”movement in sup-

port of freedom of speech, it also

changed the way religion, espe-

cially Islam, is discussed in France

• much to the chagrin of the
  French right, which has criticized
  Mr. Macron for being too politi-
  cally correct.
  So when Mr. Macron’s Justice
  Minister Nicole Belloubet sug-
  gested that Mila could be charged
  for “insulting Islam,” her boss, an-
  ticipating a backlash on the right,
  quickly moved to correct her.
  “The law is clear: We have a right
  to be blasphemous, to criticize, to
  caricaturize religions,” Mr. Ma-
  cron insisted. “What is prohibited
  is hate speech or an attack on
  [someone’s] dignity.”
  With two years left in his five-
  year mandate, and less a month
  before French voters go to the
  polls in municipal elections that

Mr. Macron’s République en

Marche will contest for the first

time, the President moved fur-

ther this week to neutralize crit-

icism from the right. In a speech

denouncing “Islamist separat-

ism” within France, Mr. Macron

criticized the isolationism of

some Muslim communities that

seek to live apart from broader

French society.

“The problem we have is when,

in the name of belonging to a reli-

gion, one wants to separate one-

self from the Republic, and there-

fore no longer respect its laws,”

Mr. Macron said in a speech in

Mulhouse, a city near the German

border that has seen an influx of

Turkish and North African immi-

grants in recent years. “In the Re-

public, we must never accept that

the laws of religion can become

superior to the laws of the Repub-

lic. It’s as simple as that.”

As part of a strategy to combat

Islamist separation, Mr. Macron

announced that imams sent by

foreign countries such as Turkey,

Algeria and Morocco would no

longer be allowed to preach in

French mosques.

A shortage of French-raised

imams has led the country’s five

million Muslims to increasingly

recruit spiritual leaders from

abroad, leading to charges of

proselytism by religious leaders

with no allegiance to the Repub-

lic. Henceforth, Mr. Macron said,

imams will need to be trained in

France by the state-sanctioned

French Council of the Muslim

Faith.

The President also announced

the end of a long-standing pro-

gram to teach children of immi-

grants their parents’ language by

teachers from their home coun-

try. “I’m not comfortable with the

idea of having, in our public

schools, men and woman who

can teach without any control by

[France’s Department of] Nation-

al Education,” Mr. Macron said.

His speech coincided with a

battle being waged between Ma-

rine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN)

and the more centrist Les Répu-

blicains (LR) party for a spot on

the final ballot in next month’s

municipal elections. LR has tradi-

tionally fared better in local elec-

tions, but Ms. Le Pen’s party is

hoping for a breakthrough this

year that will serve as spring-

board to the presidency in 2022.

The RN Leader did not imme-

diately comment on Mr. Macron’s

speech. Rather, in a Twitter post,

Ms. Le Pen questioned whether a

woman in a niqab who was pho-

tographed near Mr. Macron in

Mulhouse had been arrested, “as

the law requires.” France prohib-

ited the wearing of face-coverings

in public in 2011. Ms. Le Pen’s

tweet seemed to imply that Mr.

Macron was not really not serious

about cracking down on Islamist

separatism at all.

Meanwhile, the president of

the Île-de-France region that in-

cludes Paris’s multiethnic sub-

urbs, Valérie Pécresse, went even

further in warning that Islamism

“does not just have separatism as

its objective, as [Mr. Macron]

says; it has an objective of taking

power.”

Ms. Pécresse, who quit Les Ré-

publicains last year to form her

own party, is also considering a

presidential run in 2022. The

theme of that election may just

have been decided this week.

EmmanuelMacronwageswaron‘Islamistseparatism’

KONRAD
YAKABUSKI

OPINION

OPINION |